Death Stranding creator and director Hideo Kojima recently talked with a gaming publication and divulged the reason he chose Mads Mikkelson for the role he has now.
Death Stranding Kojima explains
In the recent interview, Kojima revealed that he actually wanted popular actor Keanu Reeves to take on the role that Mads’ role has right now. He chose Mads in the end due to the encouragement of his close friend who recommended him.
Here’s his full statement about it:
Keanu is a great guy. I have a close friend, Nicolas Refn, he introduced me to Mads and I made an offer to Mads to be in the game. I went to Denmark and talked to Nicolas again before I gave the offer to Mads, and I said I met Mads a couple of times but I really wanted to reconfirm with Nicolas that I really should work with Mads. Nicolas said, ‘I made Mads grow. He’s great, but the best guy is Keanu,’ and he was doing Neon Demon at that time. So he was trying to persuade me to use Keanu, and I thought maybe I will change from Mads to Keanu.
We were having this dinner, and there was this chef, and I called the chef and told him that I’m thinking of using Mads, and asked what he thought. Even the chef said maybe Keanu is better, even though he liked Mads a lot. But I did write the character for Mads, imagining him, so I am very happy that I offered it to Mads in the end.
Kojima did say that he really admire’s Keanu and his work. He would even like to work with him in the future.
The game will launch on Nov. 8. It will be released exclusively on PlayStation 4.
Source: GameSpot