SPOILER ALERT: This story contains major spoilers for “Ghost of Yōtei,” released Oct. 2 from PlayStation‘s Sucker Punch Productions.
Erika Ishii went through multiple battle sequences and physically demanding cinematic scenes during their time as the lead voice and motion-capture actor on Sucker Punch Productions’ “Ghost of Tsushima” sequel, “Ghost of Yōtei.”
But one of the most demanding parts of the role was actually a dialogue-heavy cutscene in the game that saw their character, Atsu (a.k.a. the Ghost of Yōtei), find out her presumed-dead brother, Jubei, was alive and well and happened to be the samurai she was currently begrudgingly teaming up with.
Played by prolific video game Noshir Dalal (“Red Dead Redemption 2, “Marvel’s Spider-Man 2,” “Star Wars Jedi: Survivor”), Jubei is a key character in the PlayStation video game centered on Atsu’s mission to avenge her family during the beginning of Japan’s Edo period in the 1600s.
“It was my first scene with Noshir. It is a meaty, juicy scene, but having a juicy, meaty reunion scene with an actor maybe a month after they’ve been cast is normally very difficult to get into,” Ishii said during a recent interview with Variety. “But there was just this immediate sibling chemistry there, and also the estrangement of the siblings sort of lent to this rediscovery feeling that we had in this cutscene.”
Ishii revealed that the version of the scene included in the game, which was released by PlayStation Oct. 2, was an “actor’s choice” performance from Ishii and Dalal.
“So Nate Fox, the creative director of the game, our fearless leader, he directs all of the cutscenes, the Class As. And he will do a couple of takes, we’ll get one that is good and that we like, and then he’ll say, ‘actor’s choice.’ And that means we just have free rein to experiment or make a move or do something unexpected, and frequently, those would be the takes that they would go with. And this is one of them.”
After a minute of trying hard not to get choked up by the pivotal, cinematic scene from the game, Ishii notes how “joyful” the process of shooting actually was.
“Noshir is really phenomenal in this,” Ishii said. “And just thinking about how this was so fun, this was such a joyful shoot from start to finish. And even though Atsu has some really messed up, upsetting things happen to her, and there were days on set where I’d be attacked by a bear or blown across the room with a cannon or stabbed in the shoulder, it was just so fun. It was so fun.”
Ishii is the first actor to be featured in Variety‘s new interview series, “Variety Plays,” which uses a gameplay walkthrough, livestream Q&A format. During the interview, Ishii showed off their gamer skills while fielding questions about the making of “Yōtei” (Atsu’s wolf companion was referred to as “Bluey” throughout production!), as well as their all-time favorite games and latest work for comedy streamer Dropout.
Watch Variety‘s full interview with Ishii as she plays through “Ghost of Yōtei” in the video below. The Jubei reveal portion starts around the 14-minute mark.
