Hideo Kojima’s spiritual successor to Metal Gear Solid, Physint, doesn’t just have a new home at Xbox; it also has a famous face attached to it, with Bill Skarsgard (It, Boy Kills World) playing the lead role. Thanks to Death Stranding 2: On the Beach composer Yoann “Woodkid” Lemoine, Kojima was introduced to Skarsgard, who would later be cast as the yet-to-be-named protagonist of Physint.
“He’s been in some excellent films. Directors I know have worked with him and can’t praise him enough,” Kojima said on a new episode of the Koji 10 radio program. “I wanted to work with him for a long time. Then one day, Bill visited Woodkid’s studio. When Bill went to his studio, he saw piles of Kojima Productions merchandise. He said, ‘What’s this? Why do you have all this!?’ Yoann said, ‘I worked with them,’ and that’s how Yoann introduced us.”
Kojima would later travel to Sweden to meet Skarsgard and his family. Skarsgard was a fan of the Metal Gear franchise, and Kojima pitched him the lead role in Physint, which Skarsgard accepted.
It’s still early days for Physint, and Kojima says that Skarsgard is eager to get his hands on the game’s script so that he can start preparing for the role. “We’ve finished his scan now. We have to scan actors early, because processing the data takes a long time,” Kojima explained. “We’ll film the performance much later. But he’s so eager he doesn’t want to wait. He keeps asking me for the script. I have the plot ready. But he wants to know the lines and how his character speaks. He wants to start preparing now. He’s really eager. That’s how deeply he gets into a role.
One other crucial factor in choosing Skarsgard was his chemistry with his fellow Physint actor, Charlee Fraser. “The poster we released the other day showed him with Charlee. Their chemistry is very important,” Kojima added. “We tested their on-screen chemistry and did a camera test. We scanned them in full makeup. Their clothes were just for reference; these aren’t the final costumes. The contrast between these two is striking.”
Skarsgard also kept his involvement secret, as Kojima added that not even his parents knew he was going to be the star of Physint. “He’s so serious; he hadn’t told anyone. It was confidential, of course, since we hadn’t announced it,” Kojima added. “Even his parents didn’t know. That’s impressive. He’s a very conscientious person.”
Physint won’t be out for a long time, but Kojima has said that it’s the “biggest-selling” game that he could possibly create. With Skarsgard and several other actors attached, it’s likely also a very expensive game to produce, with unconfirmed reports that Physint’s budget at Sony was over $400 million. This figure has never been confirmed, but it is rumored that Xbox is paying a lot less to get it over the finish line.