To celebrate their Game Award nominations, Remedy has uploaded a short interview with Matthew Porretta, whose portrayal of Doctor Casper Darling in their latest game, Control, is also up for the category of “Best Actor”.
Matthew Porretta is a familiar name (and voice!) to long-time Remedy fans, having lent his acting talents to Alan Wake and Mr Scratch for Alan Wake (2010), The Signal and The Writer DLC packs (2011), Alan Wake’s American Nightmare (2012), and Quantum Break (2016), plus an Alan Wake easter egg in Control (2019). His latest work as Dr Darling is quite a departure from tradition, with the actor stepping away from the voice-over booth and in front of the camera for a brilliant sequence of live-action videos. While personally, my fingers are crossed for Control wins tomorrow, I’m definitely eager to see the results of “Best Actor”. Porretta’s dyna-mite performance is without a doubt a highlight of the past year in gaming for me, and I would love for his incredible performance to get the credit it deserves. In any case, he has definitely claimed a new fanbase with a lot of love shown for the actor and the character with new fan art and cosplays!
In the two-minute-long video, Porretta talks about his character and Darling’s love for knit sweaters, as well as scientists that inspired his portrayal of the character. The interview is interjected with clips from his live-action recordings.
Transcription: The Game Awards Best Performance Nominee - Matthew Porretta Interview (Dr. Casper Darling)
"Welcome to the Research Sector of the Federal Bureau of Control. I’m Doctor Casper Darling, Head of Research."
*Smiles* Well it’s really- it’s a game about Doctor Darling I think. It’s really the…. no?
*Introduction*
Doctor Darling is the head of the research for the Federal Bureau of Control. *Lifts up badge on his shirt* Nice! And er, he’s kind of strange and weird.
"We’ve never seen anything like it."
He likes sweaters a lot. They’re like sweater vests. It’s so funny, it’s like my costume’s awesome. There’s a physacist named Richard Feinmann, very interesting guy, certainly I’ve watched him and looked at his mannerisms and how he approaches teaching and lecturing is interesting. I think I’ve taken stuff from him. What’s interesting is this part is not motion-capped, right? So it’s live action, so we’re shooting it like a film. So, y’know, I’ve got costumes, there’s a set, it’s very different.
"Hedron is communicating with me. It’s trying to warn me of something imminent".
Everybody seems very open to giving me freedom to do what I feel is right. And I’m sure that there are something that are good and something that are bad. All you need is that one thing that’s great, right? So that’s how you find those things! And those little mistakes are the things that you go “oh my gosh, that’s amazing, let’s keep that.”
“Nobody knew her name, but she turned up just the same.”
So, that’s what’s fun! What you think of a video game, you don’t think of filming like a movie. So I’m totally excited about that.
“We can do that again.”
