Kurt Russell explains why he never voiced Solid Snake
Escape from Shadow Moses
There’s no denying that the character of Solid Snake was partially inspired by Kurt Russell’s iconic role of Snake Plissken in John Carpenter’s Escape from New York. Outside of that influence however, the actor and the character have never had much to do with each other. In a recent interview conducted with Kurt Russell, GQ asks him about this connection directly, and the rumor that he was asked to voice the Metal Gear Solid protagonist in Metal Gear Solid 3.
According to Kurt Russell, he turned the offer down primarily because he was more interested in creating something new than retreading old ground.
“There have been many different times when people wanted to do something. I don’t know, I’m a movie guy. You have to understand, that from my point of view, whether it’s Elvis, or Snake Plissken, or Jack Burton, or R.J. MacReady, that was that project. That was that thing. You get into that mindset. You create that. You want to make that world happen…
…I wasn’t interested in expanding financially off of something that we had created, or that I had created in terms of a character…
..That’s not written by John. That doesn’t smell right. John’s not here to do this. I’m not gonna do that. Let’s go do something new, let’s do something fresh, let’s go create another iconic character, rather than saying ‘What can we bleed off this iconic character?’”
While it would a treat to hear Russell voice a video game character as iconic as Snake, it sounds like he made the decision not to do it for the right reasons. You can watch the interview up above to hear Russell’s full comments, along with his thoughts on several other parts he’s played in his career.
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