Alan Tudyk says his standout performance in 2004’s I, Robot came with an unexpected downside – it got him sidelined from the film’s publicity.
Appearing on the podcast Toon’d In! with Jim Cummings, Tudyk reflected on playing Sonny, the CGI robot at the centre of Alex Proyas’ 2004 sci-fi action film. Despite providing the character’s voice and performance capture, Tudyk says he was left out of the press push after audience tests showed his role resonated more strongly than the film’s star, Will Smith.
“They were doing test audiences with the movie and they score the characters and I got word back, ‘Alan, you’re testing higher than Will Smith,’” Tudyk recalled. “And then I was gone. I was gone. There was no publicity and my name was not mentioned.”
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He admitted the move caught him off guard, adding, “I was so shocked, I was like, ‘But wait, nobody’s going to know that I [play the robot].’” Tudyk said he “put a lot into” Sonny’s performance and reflected, “At the time, I was very upset.”
Set in 2035, I, Robot is set in a Chicago where robots have become integrated into everyday life. Smith plays Del Spooner, a detective looking into the suspicious death of the founder of U.S. Robotics – a case that leads him to suspect Sonny of murder. The cast includes Bridget Moynahan, Bruce Greenwood, James Cromwell, Chi McBride, and Shia LaBeouf. I,Robot was a commercial success, earning USD$353 million worldwide from a budget of $120 million. The film was also nominated for an Academy Award for Best Visual Effects, ultimately losing to Spider-Man 2.
Despite Tudyk’s disappointment at the time, his work as Sonny remains one of his best-known motion-capture performances, joining a roster of notable voice and physical roles that includes K-2SO in Rogue One: A Star Wars Story and Andor, as well as characters in Moana, Zootopia, and Harley Quinn.
