Death Stranding actor: Mads Mikkelsen gave "110%"

When we're playing another high profile triple-A release with photorealistic characters who move just like we would, it's easy to forget that plenty of actors spent hours on end in a studio wearing oddly-coloured suits to record all the movements.

That's also known as motion and performance capture, a unique form of acting that takes some training to get used to for even famous actors, according to professional mocap performer Noshir Dalal, who chatted to VG247 about his experience training and working with Hannibal's Mads Mikkelsen for Kojima's all-star extravaganza Death Stranding.

"Motion capture for me is, the storytelling medium it's most like is theatre. It's basically really high-tech, expensive theatre. And so, no matter who's in the volume with me, it's an ensemble process. And so, my job there is to take care of Mads, right? He's the point of focus there, and so doing whatever I can do to try to make sure he can focus on what he has to do, and we are in cover," Noshir explained.

"And it was really fun to watch Mads' process, because he really gave it 110%. He wanted to know, you know, every moment, like, what exactly was going on and tell the best story possible. I learned a lot just watching him, it was really cool."

With a large list of credits in plenty of games like Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, Charles Brown in Red Dead Redemption 2, and Gears 5, it's fair to say that Noshir has plenty of experience under his belt, and he also discussed working with Hideo Kojima for the ambitious game:

"It was cool, because we would discuss, for those four soldiers, those kind of dogs of war, we wanted a certain feel, and it has to be a synchronised ghostly movement, but still look tactically very capable. So he'd be like, 'Okay, so you guys are going to be travelling this way, and we want basically a security envelope around Mads' character.' And so I got to ask things like, 'Well, is this a trench? Is this open land? What are my eyelines? What are the things that, as a soldier, I would have to be aware of, because that will change the dynamic."

What do you make of Mikkelsen's performance in Death Stranding?