Nisa Gunduz gives us the lowdown on her starring role in Far Cry 6.
It has felt like a long-time coming, but it’s only a matter of weeks now before we make our way to the dangerous yet beautiful island of Yara in Far Cry 6, where we’ll help the island’s citizens free themselves from the rule of an evil and twisted dictator.
Our protagonist this time around is a military dropout turned guerilla activist named Dani Rojas. The choice on whether you want to play the character as female (portrayed by Nisa Gunduz) or a male (Sean Rey) is yours. You will get the exact same story regardless of who you opt to go on your adventure as, but there will be some subtle differences along the way with the portrayal, and it turns out the two actors had to work extremely closely to make the part their own.
Nisa Gunduz – who you might recognise from Designated Survivor – chatted to RadioTimes.com at a recent Far Cry 6 press event, and she gave us the lowdown on what it’s really like to star in one of the biggest video games of the year, but also have to share that role with a male counterpart. As it turns out, her understanding of the character really changed through the production, as new scripts kept appearing.
“Starting with a character where we only had like two weeks of scripts at a time, and we were getting those while we filmed, and there was this evolution of the character… going through the journey with her myself was kind of amazing,” Gunduz says about the role, which turned out to be far more involved and technical than she had ever expected. “I feel like in general, you don’t get opportunities like that as an actor, and it was sort of like being on a series where you get multiple seasons – that’s really how it felt.”
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Gunduz was in the dark over where her character and the Far Cry 6 story were headed – there were key characters and actors that were involved that she had no idea about until well into the filming process, including the villain played by Breaking Bad legend Giancarlo Esposito. “I didn’t even know who the villain was until like halfway through filming,” Gunduz tells us. “I had heard that it was going to be someone big, but you never know, right?”
Chatting to Gunduz was an eye-opening experience about what it is like to be an actor in a game, particularly one that has two people playing different versions of the same character. And despite her and Sean not acting opposite each other, Nisa says that there was a level of teamwork required that was unlike any other role she has had.
Gunduz told us: “In general, I think our role requires more teamwork than any other acting job will ever require. I don’t think I’ll ever be on a set again where I have to be so in-synch with someone like Sean and I had to be.
“As the female version of the character, I tried to make it different so if Sean does the scene first, I’ll try and do something a little different when I step up. We’re different people, we’re different actors and we both have different things to bring to the role, but we’re also trying to do that with the constraints of what someone else did in their performance.”
“Something we got really really good at was communication,” Gunduz added. “I could pull him to one side and ask him to leave a little bit of time after he says a line so I could do something and vice versa.
“We weren’t trying to one-up each other at all. We were just trying to make it different, while also staying true to what we as actors bring to the role, without having to be overly influenced by the other performance. We were always on set together but never in the same scene. We had to hit the same beats that the other person hit while also making the role your own.”
Gunduz has never been an avid gamer herself, but her brothers are, and while she has always known that games have evolved a lot over the years, she had no idea just how much goes into making one, and she has come away from the project with a newfound appreciation for how epic they can be and how much work is required.
“The creativity behind games is inexplicable,” she says. “When I got there and I realised how much of my imagination I was going to bring to the world, it was quite something. You have this mo-cap suit on, you’re on the mo-cap floor which is just this grey room, you have lights in your eyes, at all times and you have a heavy headset on and the suit can be a bit restricting. It was amazing. It was a learning curve for sure, but it really helped me to build creativity and to bring that to other roles outside of video game acting too because you have to create this world inside your head.”
“There’s nothing to act off,” Gunduz continued. “If you have a phone [in a scene] it’s a piece of styrofoam with markings on it. If you have a lighter it’s just a little piece of wood with markings on it. So everything there is make-believe and you really have to bring your creativity to the individual scenes and the role. The biggest shock for me was the technical aspects and not really realising just how much goes into cinematics – it’s like making a movie.”
But has she had a chance to play the game yet and play through it as a virtual version of herself? It would appear someone on the Far Cry 6 development team needs to up their game and get her a copy shipped!
“I haven’t had the chance to play it yet,” Gunduz revealed, “but I honestly can’t wait. Even just watching some of the cinematics is a bit of an out of body experience. It’s like it’s not me, it’s animated, it’s surreal. I would love to do something like this again. I think mo-cap is more challenging than anything I’ve done. It is not just about acting – there is so much else going on and you really need to bring it. I’d love to do it again. You get roles in video games that you may generally not be able to get in other projects.”
Far Cry 6 launches on PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, PC and Google Stadia on 7th October. You can pre-order the game now at Amazon, GAME or your retailer of choice.
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