Pix­el Per­fect: Why Hollywood’s biggest stars are turn­ing to video games

Last week, a beam­ing Keanu Reeves took to the stage to pro­mote his upcom­ing role in a mega-bud­get sci-fi block­buster. This wasn’t the announce­ment of a new movie though – it was E3, the renowned video game con­fer­ence, and the role is that of John­ny Sil­ver­hand, a char­ac­ter in CD Pro­jekt Red’s high­ly-antic­i­pat­ed Cyber­punk 2077. The evo­lu­tion of gam­ing and tech­nol­o­gy make these per­for­mances more three dimen­sion­al than ever, to the point where actors can play char­ac­ters as com­plex as those we see on the sil­ver screen. With Hol­ly­wood now rely­ing less on big name stars, could Sony and Microsoft be the new home for A‑listers look­ing to reach new audiences?

Of course, major stars appear­ing in video games is noth­ing new. Aside from (often ter­ri­ble) tie-in video game for films, actors have popped up in var­i­ous guis­es for many well known game brands. In the ear­ly ​’90s, Mal­colm McDow­ell and Mark Hamill appeared in the­atri­cal cut scenes in the Wing Com­man­der games, while every­one from Samuel L Jack­son to Gary Old­man have lent their voic­es to fran­chis­es such as Grand Theft Auto and Call of Duty. Slow­ly, the idea of hav­ing actors ​‘star­ring’ in a game began to take root in games such as 2013’s Beyond Two Souls and or 2014’s Call of Duty: Advanced War­fare, with Kevin Spacey play­ing antag­o­nist Jonathan Irons. In both cas­es, the actors pro­vide the voice, like­ness and motion cap­ture per­for­mance for their characters.

More all-round per­for­mances have giv­en rise to cer­tain actors becom­ing stars through the medi­um. Despite roles in What Women Want and the first Avengers film, Ash­ley John­son is best known for her lead role in the BAF­TA win­ning game The Last of Us, per­form­ing along­side estab­lished game indus­try leg­end Troy Bak­er. Else­where, British actor Adetomi­wa Edun has achieved more fame through the role of Alex Hunter, the lead in the FIFA game’s sto­ry mode The Jour­ney, than he might have from appear­ing in a Hol­ly­wood movie.

So, if games can launch the careers of less­er known actors, could it fur­ther the careers of Hollywood’s A‑List? Twen­ty years ago, it was stars that sold the movies, with the right name above a mar­quee often guar­an­tee­ing box office suc­cess. Nowa­days it is intel­lec­tu­al prop­er­ty that draws in the big crowds. The new ​‘stars’ are names like Mar­vel, DC and The Wiz­ard­ing World, with the likes of George Clooney turn­ing to tele­vi­sion and Will Smith join­ing ensem­ble pic­tures such as Sui­cide Squad.

While Tom Cruise and Dwayne John­son remain notable excep­tions, it is becom­ing hard­er for an actor who doesn’t fit into the super­hero mould to make it as an inter­na­tion­al star. This is per­haps where the boom­ing video game indus­try and the estab­lished Hol­ly­wood elite’s paths could merge. Fran­chis­es are as impor­tant in gam­ing right now as they are in main­stream movies, and there’s still plen­ty o room for ambi­tious orig­i­nal sto­ry. As with movies, games with no famil­iar hook need some­thing to entice cus­tomers, and movie stars fill­ing those roles could boost sales for titles that rou­tine­ly build up nine fig­ure pro­duc­tion costs.

Nowa­days you’re more like­ly to see Bruce Willis on a DVD shelf or stream­ing queue than in a cin­e­ma foy­er, but just as he turned his for­tunes around through quirky inde­pen­dent roles in the ​’90s, the gam­ing world could pro­vide a chance for him to remind the gen­er­al pub­lic what he can do. Forth­com­ing action game Death Strand­ing stars Nor­man Reedus along­side Léa Sey­doux, Mads Mikkelsen, Guiller­mo del Toro and Nicholas Wind­ing Refn and is being mar­ket­ed on the strength of its cast alone – some­thing that’s becom­ing increas­ing­ly rare where IP-expand­ing sum­mer movies are concerned.

As for Reeves, it remains to be seen whether John­ny Sil­ver­hand res­onates with audi­ences as much as Neo or John Wick, but it seems telling that the star of a cur­rent hit movie should pro­mote a new game project so enthu­si­as­ti­cal­ly. Rather than a quick cash grab, these per­for­mances may be just as impor­tant to actors as tra­di­tion­al screen roles, bring­ing huge audi­ences and more room for artis­tic expres­sion. As movie stu­dios become more reliant on com­put­er gen­er­at­ed imagery, the gam­ing world is look­ing to dis­tin­guish itself by turn­ing to some­thing more tangible.