Originally appeared on E! Online
Alan Tudyk is providing his take on why no one knows he is legend.
The “I, Robot” actor shared that he got cut from the marketing promos for the 2004 film — in which he played lovable humanlike robot Sonny opposite Will Smith’s Del Spooner — due to the results of early test screenings of the blockbuster flick.
“A lot of people did not know I did Sonny the Robot in ‘I, Robot,’ and there is a reason,” Tudyk said during a recent appearance on the “Toon’d In with Jim Cummings” podcast. “They were doing test audiences for the movie, and they score the characters in this kind of test screening. I got word back: ‘Alan, you are testing higher than Will Smith.’ And then I was gone. I was done.”
And the 54-year-old recalled being taken out of more than just the promos. As he noted, “There was no publicity, and my name was not mentioned.”
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“I was so shocked,” he continued. “I was like, ‘Wait, nobody is going to know I’m in it!’”
The role was challenging for Tudyk, as it required him to perform by appearing on screen using motion capture and voice acting. And ultimately, he wished he could have earned some recognition for it.
“I put a lot into [that performance],” the “Resident Alien” alum shared. “I had to move like a robot. At the time, I was very upset.”
Tudyk said his removal from the movie’s publicity highlights a bigger problem for him, as well. The “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story” actor believes that voice acting doesn’t get the credit it deserves on the whole.
“I was in the room. I’m at the wheel, I was with the actor back and forth,” Tudyk said of the acting technique. “My voice is completely attached to the world that everyone is seeing.”
E! News reached out to 20th Century Fox for comment but has not heard back.
