Photo Credit - Tracy Toler-Phillips
Red Dead Redemption 2 is one of the biggest video games of all-time. Like the first instalment and each chapter of the Grand Theft Auto franchise, players and critics alike agree that it's a masterpiece and while the graphics and gameplay obviously played a key role in that, the performances of the cast are what makes this one really special.
Rather than recording their lines in a sound booth, the cast actually acted out the entire thing thanks to the magic of motion-capture over the span of around FIVE years. It was a mammoth undertaking and I recently had the opportunity to talk to star Kaili Vernoff.
The actress plays Susan Grimshaw, a breakout character whose personality and fiery temper made her an instant fan-favourite. Vernoff also starred as the unforgettable Miranda Cowan in Grand Theft Auto V and she was kind enough to delve into both projects, and all of Red Dead Redemption 2’s behind the scenes secret, not to mention key moments and missions.
We also delve into serious spoiler territory by touching on Susan's final fate during the shocking (and epic) final act. If you haven't finished it yet, though, you'll have to read on at your own risk!
Finally, I want to thank Kaili for taking the time out of her busy schedule to talk to me. It was a lot of fun and it was clear from start to finish that she loved every moment of working on Red Dead, not to mention the fans who have embraced her since its release.
Did you initially know how many years you would spend working on the game and, if so, did such a large commitment ever make you think twice about signing up to play Susan?
Absolutely not, I had no idea what I was in for. I think that the first booking just came in as one day, I didn't know what to expect and I literally didn't even know that I was going to be wearing a motion capture suit until I showed up on set [Laughs]. That's how blind I was! I can't remember as it was so long ago but I believe that I worked a couple of days, maybe in the same week or over two weeks, and then I didn't go back in for a couple of months! I just figured my part was done or I'd been replaced...I had no idea! Then, when I went back in and realised I was playing Susan and there was more to do, it was pretty exciting.
Susan's is quite a tragic character in the sense that Dutch has essentially replaced her with Molly when the story begins so why do you think she sticks around as part of the gang despite everything that's clearly happened in the past?
I think that the gang is her family and that's really where she's found her place. Susan really does believe that they couldn't survive without her. When she says, 'This is my camp' she means it and believes she's holding it all together. I don't think she would abandon them any more than someone would abandon their own children. It's certainly heartbreaking for her to watch as the younger women come into favour and those were some of my favourite scenes to play. I know not everybody sees everything but there's this scene with Mary Beth when Susan catches her staring at herself in the mirror and there's a moment when Susan lets her know that vanity will get her nowhere and says, 'Time will get you too and they'll stop looking.' You see how Susan feels and how her position has changed as a woman around men and it's heartbreaking. You then get an indication of why she's so hard on the girls; she wants them to see that their value has to be more than how they look because that will change.
As you alluded to, Susan is a very strong character; was it important to you to play a woman who didn't fall into the trappings of the other female characters we've seen in this genre over the years?
Yeah, it was really the opportunity of a lifetime. As the years went on and I really started to understand who Susan was, I wanted to make sure that her vulnerability came through. You see it both in these funny moments when the men tease her and when they make overtures towards her. You see that she's vulnerable and very much human. Her anger comes from a very real place but overall what we really see is that she loves these people so much and will do anything she can to protect them. We see that when she goes to rescue Tilly and when someone breaks the rules in camp. Susan takes that very seriously. She will protect this family with everything she has and it was thrilling getting to play her not just angry but also protective and vulnerable and passionate. It really was an exciting ride.
You mentioned the mission with Tilly when she and Arthur hunt down the Foreman Brothers and that was one of my favourites moments. Was it fun for you to see Susan get out of the camp and see some action?
It was really exciting. First of all, I believe that just in the game overall, I hadn't worked with a gun before that point so it was all very exciting. When you get out on that mission and there's this guard – and the guy playing him was this huge presence as was the guy playing Anthony Foreman; just this powerful, strong presence – to then just get to rain hellfire down on these guys was so much fun.
I bet. You mentioned motion capture earlier but what were the main challenges with that and did it help your performance by being able to work with the rest of the cast rather than being in a sound booth recording lines?
Absolutely. I think one of the big misconceptions was that we were voice acting. We shot this like a film on a soundstage. The set is very real although it's real in that it's a scale approximation of your environment. So, if I'm climbing onto a horse, it's maybe an oil drum in the dimensions of a horse! We're all there wearing motion capture suits and that takes some getting used to; they're like scuba suits. The camera is capturing you from every single angle so unlike when you're on a film or TV set where you have to be very aware if you're in a close-up or two shot or wide shot, when you're doing performance capture, cameras are all around you and it's incredibly freeing. It's like being on stage if the audience was surrounding you and if they could also see very close up on your face! It's this new way of acting that was a terrific surprise to me because I've been in this business a long time and it was a whole new skill set that I got to learn on the fly. Nobody trained me for it. I went to a regular audition and when I got there, I was learning something entirely new.
You could tell when playing that the performances felt a lot more real than in other games. Going back to what I said before, what was it like working with those other actors?
Well, I have never done Broadway and I imagine that's the only other time you'd work with the same company for close to five years. We are incredibly close and I think that translates to the interactions in-game. Rockstar cast this thing so beautifully. Every time I came work, I was with actors at the top of their game. Their casting department...all credit to them. The actors I got to work with were of the highest calibre. The ones I worked with really closely, particularly Roger or Ben and the girls, we became so close. Like a family. That opportunity to build that camaraderie. We understood how we worked and the scenes benefited from the true relationships we were forming all those years.
It took me maybe 40 hours to play through and I know I didn't get to see everything in that time so what's it like for you as an actor to not be able to watch your performance back?
I'm still in Clemens Point because I'm not a terrific video game player and I'm still learning [Laughs]. A lot of what I see, though, fans send me on social media and I don't even remember shooting some of that because it's been three or four years. It's really fun. Another unexpected part of this journey and shooting something so long is that after I was done, you do some things in a voiceover booth and it's just adding lines, maybe at the poker table for extra dialogue, but sometimes you have to go back and fix something or because the sound wasn't clean. Other times for me, though, they wanted to tweak the performance just a little bit. I noticed that there were a couple of scenes I had to change so I said, 'What are we changing here?' and they told me that it was just the performance because we shot some things before I really knew who Susan was and she had developed over all those years into who we know now. There were just a couple little moments when I was first finding her that just didn't match and that was interesting to go and see in a voiceover booth, see work I had done years before, and hone her into the Susan she became.
Talking of what Susan became, her end is a tragic one and I was wondering if you could take us through that final confrontation between the gang and the moment she gets gunned down by Micah.
Alright, I'm gonna trust you to be very careful with spoilers here [Laughs]. On a sidenote, I have to say that I love how Rockstar does such a good job of protecting everything because they just want the fans to have the experience in real-time; it's pretty amazing. There's still stuff that I discover which I didn't know and that's exciting.
That day when Susan died...first of all, anytime when everyone was on set, there's just a dynamic because some of the guys...Ben, Steve, and Noshir come in from LA and Rob comes from Indiana...so whenever we had everyone on set, we're all just ready to play. We've all brought our A-Game and are so excited. The whole gang together was something we all looked forward to but I was surprised at how betrayed I felt in that moment when I get taken down. The standoff is still going on and Susan didn't even get people running to her or caring for her. She wasn't attended to but they couldn't because the guns are all still drawn so this moment where she is just off to the side and our director, Rod Edge, who was the finest actor's director you could dream of, was next to me letting me know he wanted one more moan, one more cry. He wanted the pain of what she was going through to colour this whole standoff and it was really intense.
Red Dead is a tragic story for everyone but do you wish Susan had even a temporary happy ending or was the way she went out a fitting ending for the character?
I hadn't thought about that but I really love what you say. I think Susan dies defending her family and she wouldn't have it any other way. I think the most emotional I got on set – and I could almost cry talking about it now – was the moment she sends Tilly off and says to her, 'I know you're going to be just fine.' Meeya and I have grown so close. I believe that she was actually pregnant in real life when we were shooting that scene and the realisation that I'd known this young woman for all these years and in the meantime she'd gotten married and was having a baby and my daughter was growing up, we were both in tears that day because of the confirmation of the real love between those two.
Aside from Tilly, were there any other characters you particularly enjoyed interacting with as Susan?
Peter Blomquist, who plays Micah...when you get to do a scene with him, you'd better be on your toes. Any time I had a scene with Micah, I had no idea what kind of crazy vibe he was going to hit me with but I knew he was going to make me laugh! So, I'd get on with all of Susan's anger and fury ready to bring it down on him and he was just give me a little word and nod of his head and I'd bust a gut and laugh every time. I'd always blow three or four takes working with that one. Susan and Karen have such a funny dynamic as Karen is the one who will really mouth off to her and really give her attitude so it was always fun to see how far she would push me before bringing down the hammer and sometimes I would just have to smack her but Jo and I would have a lot of fun finding what that line was and how far she could push me.
Obviously, you worked on another Rockstar title: Grand Theft Auto V. What were the main differences working on that title?
I recorded lines in a voiceover booth for GTA V and it was in the middle of while we were shooting Red Dead. So, I actually got booked for a day of work knowing I was voicing a character for Rockstar but I didn't know what it was. When I got to work, I thought I was going to be doing Susan that day but when they handed me the script and I saw who the producer was, I got really excited. Miranda Cowan was a character you had seen and known about but had never been voiced so she was already established as this paparazzi hungry ageing party girl so finding her voice had to be really fast and I had to make sure she sounded nothing like Susan. Then, they started handing me scripts and she's so outrageous and so over the top, it was just an absolute blast and I had so much fun voicing her. I loved that I was put through my paces and I got there and they said, 'Go!'
I'd never really played video games and I have a daughter who is thirteen and so they sent me a code for GTA V just so I could get used to how to play a Rockstar game so when Red Dead came out, I could be comfortable playing. So, I was not ever good...I just kept crashing into things and my thumbs didn't know where to go and it was just awful. Even though that game is wildly inappropriate for my daughter, I would ask her to come and help me. Even though she's not a gamer, young people just know so I would turn off the sound and get her to help me with the controls and there was one point when I'd finally got a little bit of skill but I guess I'd been playing for a long time and my daughter said, 'Mom! Can I please watch the Great British Bakeoff?' And I said, 'Honey, I told you...not until I can blow this gas tank without getting Lamar killed!' [Laughs] That's when I realised my parenting was suffering from my gaming habit!
Finally, can you tell us where we'll see you next and where our readers can find you on social media?
This has been a really exciting year for me. I came off recurring roles in The Path and Grey's Anatomy and next, you can find me on The Enemy Within on NBC coming at the end of this month. My Twitter handle @KVernoff is and on Instagram, my name is @kailivernoff.