Stephen Merchant Exhausted by Portal 2 Recording, Surprised by Response

One of the highlights of Portal 2 was undoubtedly the character of Wheatley. He was voiced by Stephen Merchant, who is best known for his involvement with the U.K. version of The Office, Extras, and the Ricky Gervais Show. Despite enjoying videogames earlier in life, Merchant fell out of the hobby and knew nothing of the original Portal when he was offered the voice acting gig for the sequel, he's revealed. Spoilers ahead.

In an interview with MTV, Merchant admitted that the process of recording his lines was very tiring. "I have to say, I found the entire thing really exhausting," he said. "More than anything I've ever done before because I'm in this little recording booth, shouting down these imaginary corridors, imaginary gantries, pretending to fall off things and really trying to move around and live it as best I could. I know it sounds really pretentious, but really try to move around like this robot so my voice would feel like it was animated. I was really working hard to try and put myself in that environment, I guess, which is not something I normally do as a performer."

He also said that he found being the villain difficult, as it's not something he feels "naturally comfortable with." He said, "I suppose I was initially trying to be genuinely villainous and scary, and I think the guys were keen to keep the humor, even in my villainy. That was a major shift for me, at least, I wasn't really expecting that, because I hadn't read the whole script up front."

He initially felt like he was too tired to ever do a Portal sequel in the future. However, the positive response the game has gotten seems to have changed his mind to some degree.

"But now I've been very pleased by the response people have had to it. What I was really pleased by how people seemed to respond to it in the way they do with a movie they've enjoyed, or a TV show they've enjoyed. They seemed to respond to it as entertainment. It never occurred to me that people would respond to it in the way they do with other stuff I've done. I felt like, 'Oh, actually this is a really legitimate, creative art form now.' Video games have expanded and developed and are so sophisticated right now that, yes, of course, they rank alongside movies and whatever else people really take to their hearts."

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