Roger Clark, known for his portrayal of Arthur Morgan in Red Dead Redemption 2, recently provided insights into the rigorous process of bringing the character to life. In an interview with Gamology, Clark talked about the physical and emotional challenges he encountered during the motion capture performance for the game.
Clark disclosed that one of the most demanding aspects was motion capturing the crouch-running animation. He recounted, “People often ask me what was the hardest thing about Red Dead 2, and I’ll tell them it was crouch running. We crouch-ran for, I think, a couple of days. You have to crouch run, walk, stealth, run with one gun, run with two guns, then you have to crouch-run with a rifle. Like, three days later, my thighs were absolutely killing me.”
Clark expressed his gratitude for this commitment, noting, “Not a lot of studios do it that way, but I was very, very grateful that Rockstar Games gave me so much ownership over Arthur. Arthur walks like me, he rubs his nose like me. The immersion is so important. I feel really blessed.”
In addition to the physical challenges, Clark also addressed the creative pressure and emotional weight of particular scenes. He reflected on the difficulties of Arthur Morgan’s death scene, explaining his aspiration to make it as personal and poignant as possible. “I chose to make it a little bit more peaceful,” Clark shared. “Some people may remember that there’s a point in one of the camps when people are talking about how they would want to die. If you hang around long enough in the conversation, Hosea will chime in and ask ‘What do you think, Arthur?’ and Arthur says something along the lines of ‘Just face me to the West so I can think about all the good times I had along the way,’ and so that’s what he gets to do here. I tried to give him some semblance of peace in his last few moments. We need to give the player some solace because, at this point, most people are balling their eyes out.”
Red Dead Redemption 2 is one of the best-selling games of all time from Rockstar Games. It has sold more than 64 million copies worldwide across PS4, Xbox One, and PC, making it second to only Grand Theft Auto V. It was released on October 26, 2018.