Death Stranding 2’s latest clip features Hideo Kojima’s favorite performance
New Summer Game Fest video features Luca Marinelli
A new trailer for Death Stranding 2: On The Beach has been debuted at Summer Game Fest.
Death Stranding 2: On The Beach is due for release at the end of June, and as part of a world tour, director Hideo Kojima appeared at Summer Game Fest to show a trailer for the game.
The clip features Luca Marinelli as Neil, and Alyssa Jung as Lucy, who will both feature in key roles in the game.
Marinelli, the Italian actor who dons a Solid Snake-style bandana in On the Beach’s previous trailer, appears as this game’s pseudo-villain, Neil, in place of Mads Mikkelsen, and alongside his real-life wife Jung, who plays his therapist Lucy.
Director Hideo Kojima told recently VGC that Marinelli’s performance in the game is the one he’s most proud of.
“So Luca Marinelli – I’ve been saying this on various occasions, but I saw an Italian movie called, Martin Eden, that he starred in,” Kojima said, when asked about the performance he’s most proud of in DS2. “I thought it was a great movie. It might have been before the pandemic, but I wrote a comment for its promotion in Japan.
“That’s when Luca sent me an email, and he told me that he’s been a big fan since his childhood and that he had read the movie comment I wrote for his movie in Japan. He asked the distributor for my contact information, and that’s how we met.”
He added: “When I thought about casting Luca, I also thought about how this new character would have to top Mads Mikkelsen. I wondered, ‘Is that even possible?’ Mads’ character couldn’t reappear in Death Stranding 2, so I know there are fans that are a bit bummed about that, but I needed to cast someone that could exceed Mads. It was then that I remembered Luca, and I sent him a DM, offered the role to him, and he said ‘Yes.’
“Most of the scenes between Alissa and Luca are just the two of them. The funny thing is, because they are husband and wife in real life, they have great chemistry. Luca also performs on stage, and Alissa is an actor and a director, so she tried to become the director from time to time!
“We shot the performance capture at the SIE Studio in LA – it’s a big studio. A couple of my staff and I would go there for the shoot, and there were so many other crew members: makeup people, equipment technicians – it’s almost like a Hollywood set! But when Luca started to perform, everyone gathered closely to watch, and I had never seen that happen before.”
