Will Arnett: Twisted Metal Series May Deviate From Game, But Sweet Tooth Still ‘Would Love to Kill You’
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Twisted Metal, Peacock’s series adaptation of the PlayStation video game, is speeding your way with guns a-blazing, to drop all 10 half-hour episodes this Thursday, July 27.
Based on an original take by Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick, and written by Michael Jonathan Smith (Cobra Kai), the “high-octane action comedy” follows MCU vet Anthony Mackie’s John Doe, a motor-mouthed outsider who is offered a chance at a better life — but only if he can successfully deliver a mysterious package across a post-apocalyptic wasteland.
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With the help of a badass car thief dubbed Quiet (Brooklyn Nine-Nine‘s Stephanie Beatriz), John Doe faces savage marauders and other dangers of the open road, including, of course, a deranged clown who drives an ice cream truck. Pro wrestler Joe Seanoa (aka AEW’s Samoa Joe) delivers the physical performance for said masked menace, Sweet Tooth, while Will Arnett provides the villain’s voice.
TVLine spoke with Arnett — who is also an executive producer on the Peacock series — about how Twisted Metal was a very different experience from his previous voice acting gigs, any deviations from its video game source material, and more.
TVLINE | I feel obligated to ask if you were familiar with the Twisted Metal game before this series came along…
Yes. I didn’t become a gamer, oddly, until I was in my late 20s, which is a weird way to do it. Usually people are gamers earlier and then they fade away. I had played it before, but it was not a game that I owned, but if you ever played the game, Sweet Tooth was a character you knew. He’s this iconic video game character, and when we found out this property was available for developing, it was because of Sweet Tooth that we got intersted.
TVLINE | I am only two episodes into my viewing, but it seems like Sweet Tooth’s origin story changed a bit…? Here he is a bit of a Vegas showman type.
The original framework is still there. Michael Jonathan Smith, who wrote the scripts, and [executive producers] Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick did an awesome job of helping Michael breathe some additional life into this world. I just hope that people who are true devotees of the game will allow us that, because we had to in order to tell a story that had some legs to it and could sustain a series.
TVLINE | But to be clear, Sweet Tooth is still bloodthirsty and maniacal.
Yes, to be clear, he still wants to kill you. In an array of different ways. [Pauses] Let em rephrase that: He would love to kill you.
TVLINE | And he is still fond of frozen treats?
Oh, he still loves frozen treats. I will say, this has reframed the way I look at ice cream trucks!
TVLINE | How did you formulate his voice? As someone who does a lot of voice work, do you sometimes take something previous and add to it…?
I really rely on the guidance of a lot of people on our team. It was new for me doing this process, because normally in an animated film I record and they animate to that, and what I record drives a lot of the art that ends up on screen. But in this instance, Samoa Joe is there creating this character on-set, acting these scenes out and with dialogue…
TVLINE | I noticed that, I could see his mouth moving behind the mask.
Right, he’s actually doing it. And then I’m watching dailies and we start editing the show, and I’ve got to go in there and add to that. And either I’m going to do a version of what he did, or we’re going to try something new. We might have new jokes, we might have new lines…. It took a minute for me to get into a rhythm that worked. Like, the first couple of [recording] sessions were me trying to find it, and Michael talking me off the ledge as I’m like, “I dont know if Ive got this.” I literally almost fired myself.
TVLINE | The end result is a great marriage, though. A lot of his movement, his gesticulation, went so well with the dialogue, I almost wondered if you were there on-set, collaborating on the performance.
No. We were just very lucky that we had such an awesome team, whether it was Kitao Sakurai who directed the episodes and was amazing, or Michael Jonathan Smith who was our showrunner and who wrote it…. Michael really understood what it was that was going to make Sweet Tooth special, so he was able to give Samoa Joe so much great direction on what it was physically that he could do. This is a character that’s super-crazy and blood-thirsty, as you said, but who’s also funny. In a lot of ways, he is the comedic relief — though I think that every character on this show is funny in their own way. Even Agent Stone (played by Thomas Haden Church) is funny. But yeah, Samoa Joe did such an awesome job, I didn’t want to mess it up.
TVLINE | Lastly, regarding the Flash movie and your past voice work as Batman, I was curious if you were perhaps approached to be the Bruce Wayne that emerges at the end of the movie.
We were just talking about this…. No. I was not approached. If they did approach me, I didn’t notice it. Maybe they approached me but I never heard them approaching!
Note: This interview took place before SAG-AFTRA officially announced a strike on July 13.
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