Kurt Russell’s function as Snake Plissken in John Carpenter’s Escape from New York is a significant inspiration for Solid Snake from the Metal Gear Solid video games. Series creator Hideo Kojima is an avowed fan of Carpenter’s filmography, and borrowed the identify, eyepatch, and gruff demeanor of Russell’s particular forces agent for his online game hero. Kojima overtly addressed the homage in Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty, giving Snake the codename Iroquois Pliskin.
And at one level, Kojima reportedly wished Kurt Russell to voice Snake in Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater, and take over from English-language voice artist David Hayter. (Russell would have portrayed Naked Snake, not Solid Snake, for what it’s price.)
Russell apparently declined, with Hayter reprising the function in subsequent video games (till Metal Gear Solid 5: Ground Zeroes and The Phantom Pain). In a brand new GQ video interview with Russell about his iconic film characters, the actor explains why he wouldn’t voice Snake.
“Look, I’m pretty lazy by nature,” Russell explains. “There have been many various occasions when folks wished [me] to do one thing. I don’t know, I’m a film man. You have to know, that from my standpoint, whether or not it’s Elvis, or Snake Plissken, or Jack Burton, or R.J. MacReady, that was that undertaking. That was that factor. You get into that mindset. You create that. You wish to make that world occur.
“I used to do interviews when [1979 biopic] Elvis was coming out and they would say, ‘C’mon, do a little Elvis for us.’ It doesn’t work that way, you don’t just slide in and out of Elvis. You go to work on it. You refine it, and then you do it and you get paid for that. I come from a different era. I wasn’t interested in ‘expanding’ financially off of something that we had created or that I had created in terms of a character.”
Beyond returning to a personality out of context, Russell says he had one other vital motive for not reviving his character, in barely completely different online game type, from Carpenter’s Snake Plissken movies.
“I’d look at [a script] and say, ‘That’s not written by John,’” Russell says, sniffing on the air. “That doesn’t smell right. John’s not here to do this. I’m not gonna do that. Let’s go do something new, let’s do something fresh, let’s go create another iconic character, rather than saying ‘What can we bleed off this iconic character?’”
Russell did return to the function of Snake Plissken for Escape from New York sequel Escape from LA, so he’s definitely not above reprising roles. The man did make two sequels to The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes, in any case, and has portrayed Santa Claus a number of occasions.
The remainder of Russell’s interview with GQ is price a watch. He very entertainingly breaks down his roles in John Carpenter’s The Thing, in a trio of Quentin Tarantino films, and in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2. He additionally does some enjoyable trash speaking within the field workplace battle between dueling Westerns Tombstone and Wyatt Earp.
