In a recent appearance on the Happy Sad Confused podcast, prolific actor J.K. Simmons dove into his relationship with the games he’s acted in. While not much of a gamer himself, the script for Portal 2 (where Simmons voiced Aperture founder Cave Johnson) seems to have left its mark on the actor.
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“Tom Britney from The Westies, he texted me a week ago, a little video text of my character from Baldur’s Gate,” Simmons said when asked if he gets recognized for his videogame roles. “He said, ‘I’m about to kill you.’ Okay, well, good luck with that.”
Host Josh Horowitz followed up by asking if Simmons enjoys playing games at all, and the answer was a firm no. “My hands don’t work on those controllers,” said Simmons. “I’ve tried—my kids, of course, my twentysomething kids play them a lot. My wife, she’ll actually get in there and play some Mario Bros. or whatever with them. I just, I cannot. No. Sorry.”
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But even if he doesn’t play, Simmons does have a firm favorite among all the games he’s acted in. “It was Portal 2, for me,” he said. “Just because it was such a hilarious script. I could have done the feature film, or the play, or whatever. It was just such fun writing.”
Simmons did, indeed, reprise his role as Cave Johnson for the 2022 Steam Deck tie-in game, Aperture Desk Job. Portal 2 writer Eric Wolpaw, who is credited with creating the character, also returned to the series to write for Desk Job.
Given the more siloed nature of their work on games, actors often have a wide range of engagement with the hobby. Deus Ex, Marathon, and Starfield actor Elias Toufexis is all-in on games, for example, while Silent Hill f actor Konatsu Kato streamed her first playthrough to much fanfare. Grand Theft Auto 5 actor Steven Ogg, meanwhile, thinks you should put away childish things and read Dostoevsky instead.
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