Alan Tudyk says he was axed from film's publicity after testing more popular than star Will Smith
Alan Tudyk, who appeared in the 2004 sci-fi as Sonny the robot via motion capture and voice acting, says he was axed from all publicity regarding the film after test audiences voted him more popular than the leading man.
'A lot of people did not know I did Sonny the Robot in I, Robot, and there is a reason,' Tudyk said during a recent appearance on Toon'd In with Jim Cummings podcast, 21 years after the film's release.
'They were doing test audiences for the movie and they score the characters in this kind of test screening. I got word back: 'Alan, you are testing higher than Will Smith.' And then I was gone. I was done.'
Tudyk, now 54, said that despite the massive promotional push behind the film, no one knew he played the titular character as he was allegedly left out of the publicity trail. However, Tudyk did not name Smith as being responsible for his lack of visibility.
'There was no publicity, and my name was not mentioned. I was so shocked,' he said on the podcast episode.
'I was like, 'Wait, nobody is going to know I'm in it!' I put a lot into [that performance]. I had to move like a robot. At the time I was very upset.'
In I, Robot, Smith plays Detective Del Spooner in the year 2035 who is investigating the death of the founder of a robotics company.
The robots are highly intelligent and fill public service positions around the world, and Spooner is convinced a human-like robot named Sonny murdered the founder.
The Alex Proyas-directed film, which earned an Oscar nomination in 2005 for Best Achievement in Visual Effects, also stars Bridget Moynahan and James Cromwell.
Smith's Fresh Prince of Bel-Air co-star Janet Huber also alleged she felt diminished on the hit sitcom because of her differences with Smith.
This led to her departure from the show altogether in 1993 with her character, Vivian Banks, played by actress Daphne Maxwell Reid from Season 4.
Smith and Hubert patched things up in 2020 during a reunion special of their show. In the special, they addressed their once-fractured relationship, with the actor admitting he felt 'threatened' by his former co-star at the time.
'When I left the show, I had this new baby and no one – family disowned me, Hollywood disowned me. My family said, 'You've ruined our name,'' Hubert explained to Smith.
'And I wasn't unprofessional on the set. I just stopped talking to everybody, because I didn't know who to trust, because I had been banished. And they said it was you who banished me. Because you were Will. You were a kid. It was hard.'
'Everything was a threat to me,' Smith replied. 'Not you, the world. I was so driven by fear and jokes and comedy and all of that.'
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