With recent breakthroughs in performance capture technology, it's not only writers and game designers creating our favorite virtual worlds. Many games employ actors to not only voice characters - which has already been a standard practice for nearly two decades - but actually perform their parts in a motion capture studio. Rockstar Games' Red Dead Redemption 2 utilized the latest advancements in this field to bring the characters in their western epic to life. Most of the performances in this universally praised title rival the best television and movie roles. To celebrate this talented ensemble, the following list will present ten interesting facts about them many readers may not know.
10 Rob Wiethoff Left Acting
Rob Wiethoff is already legendary for his performance as John Marston in the first entry. Shortly after the 2010 game, Wiethoff left acting for good to focus on his family.
Despite no longer having a hand in the field, he heeded the call for the prequel, and fans are eternally grateful to him for stepping back into Marston's shoes. No one else could play the iconic character after his stunning portrayal. What better person to play John than a dedicated family man?
9 Rains Fall Is Played By A Notable Actor
Since 2008's Grand Theft Auto IV, Rockstar has gotten into the habbit of casting relatively unknown actors to better immerse gamers into their worlds. For Rains Fall in Red Dead Redemption 2, they made one exception, giving the role to Graham Greene. The Housers sought him for the part because of his performance in Dances With Wolves, which also netted him an Academy Award nomination. Despite his late introduction into the story, Rains Fall is vital to Arthur Morgan's journey.
8 Arthur Morgan's Actor Is Irish
Arthur Morgan's voice has taken on a life of its own. Every fan can do their own impressions, and some have probably taken to saying "sure" unintentionally with the same drawl. It sounds so natural from his digital lips, it must be the actor's real voice, right?
On the contrary, Roger Clark grew up in Ireland and has a heavy Irish accent. He was born in New Jersey, but spent his formative years across the pond. Putting on a voice for a movie or a play is hard enough, but doing it for several years and thousands of lines of dialogue is a whole other level.
7 Only A Few Returning Voices
A whole slew of characters from the first game returned as their younger selves for the prequel. Despite this, only a small handful of actors came back for their roles. Rob Wiethoff, Benjamin Byron Davis, Steve J. Palmer, and Jim Bentley are the only four who played their respective parts in both games. Typically, such a small returning cast would be disappointing, but the newcomers knocked it out of the park with such gusto that nobody noticed or complained.
6 Benjamin Byron Davis Is Really Tall
Dutch van der Linde was magnificently brought to life by Benjamin Byron Davis in both Red Dead Redemption and its prequel. The tragic villain's arc in the 2018 title is a complicated one because of the air of mystery surrounding the exact reason for his decline, so playing the role was no easy task.
Anybody who has seen Davis in real life will note how he towers over most others. His IMDb page lists him at 6'5. For anybody interested in seeing for themselves, the actor has a small role in Ant Man and Wasp.
5 Penny O'Brien Is Also A Songwriter
Molly O'Shea was brought into the gang by Dutch's charisma. She had an upper middle class life in her native Ireland, but came to the United States for a more exciting life. Having a love affair with a notorious outlaw is certainly adventurous, but also a dead end road. Such a story would make a good song, and it just so happens that the actress who played Molly, Penny O'Brien, is a songwriter. Unlike Roger Clark, who had to put on a different voice, Penny is Irish and was able to use her natural accent for the role.
4 Josiah Trelawny Was In Oz
Josiah Trelawny isn't a part of Dutch's gang nor a virtuous man, but his interests often align with the outlaws', so they help each other out. Stephen Gevedon plays the lovable grifter. The actor has been working for many years but the Josiah part is a standout role.
Another notable performance is his part in HBO's gritty prison drama, Oz. Stephen Gevedon's other recognizable role was that of Scott Ross on the first season. He plays a recently incarcerated member of a biker gang and ex husband to one of the corrections officers.
3 Jack Marston Was Played By A Girl
Jack Marston had a tough time from the start. One can make an argument for any of the characters not having a choice in the way of their lives, but Jack was literally born into the outlaw world. Despite his parent's best wishes, he ends up repeating the cycle of violence, though whether he did the right thing at the end of Red Dead Redemption is up to the player.
The character is just barely past being a toddler when the prequel starts, and is played by Marissa Buccianti. This may seem unconventional, but it is not uncommon to have girls play young children in voice over roles.
2 Kaili Vernoff
Susan Grimshaw is the closest thing the gang has to a matriarchal figure. She started the gang with Hosea and Dutch, and had a romantic entanglement with the latter. Kaili Vernoff plays the role excellently, and anybody interested in seeing more of her work would find her in a small handful of Woody Allen films. Since 1998's Celebrity, she has appeared in several of the director's projects, the most recent of which was Crisis in Six Scenes from 2016.
1 Pico Alexander
Kieran Duffy is brought to life by Pico Alexander. Pico's parents hail from Poland, and he is not the first in his family to enter the dramatic arts in some fashion. His father, Lukasz Jogalla is a cinematographer and has worked on notable movies like Logan, The Magnificent Seven, and Martin Scorsese's upcoming movie The Irishman. The show business lineage goes back even further though; Pico's grandfather was an actor in Poland whose career spanned from the late '50s to the end of the millennium.