Ilkka Villi talks Alan Wake

Finnish site Tietoviikko recently released an interview with Alan Wake himself, Ilkka Villi. Alan Wake was modelled after the Finnish actor and in the interview Villi mentions that he’s visited Remedy several times over the past couple of years, the most recent session time being last year.

Unfortunately we don’t have a translation of the article but Kotaku had a paragraph of the article translated where Ilkka mentions that being in a production this huge in Finland is the closest to being in Hollywood that he’ll ever get. If you are able to translate the article for us please contact us. Huge thanks to Nils (and also Henna Lehto) for providing translation to the original article. Click the ‘read more’ link below to view the article.

Alan Wake Interview (via Kotaku) |

Alan Wake is actually Ilkka Villi

Original article by Juha-Matti Mäntylä on 20.6.2008
Source: http://www.tietoviikko.fi/doc.te?f_id=1380012&s=r

Translated by Nils (a.k.a. supernaut), from SteamPowered Forums. Extra translation provided by Henna Lehto.

Actor Ilkka Villi puts his right hand forward and points his finger towards the camera. Eyebrows frowning and the corners of the mouth slightly downward, he is Alan Wake reincarnated.

And exactly how it’s supposed to be, the videogame character was modeled after him.

Villi is a 32 year-old Finnish freelance-actor, who has recently worked at Savonlinna’s Citytheater. He has played in such films as Ilkka Vanne’s “Promise” (”Lupaus”), in Åke Lindman’s “Tali-Ihantala” (”Tali-Ihantala”) and in Liisa Helminen’s “Pelican-man” (”Pelikaanimies”).

Alan Wake, on the other hand, is a computer game, which is developed by a Finnish game development house, Remedy Entertainment. Alan Wake, which has been in development since 2004, is highly and impatiently anticipated.

The Max Payne-games that were finished in 2001 and 2003 respectively, sold over 7 million copies worldwide, and the success from that gave the small game studio the opportunity to focus on the next project without time constraints. According to recent unconfirmed rumors the game’s release would not happen until 2009. Remedy hasn’t commented on the possible time of release at any stage,
which then has added to the agony of the gaming community.

So far we’ve only seen screenshots and videoclips of Alan Wake. A couple of years ago the game was demoed at the Intel Developer Forum as part of CEO, Paul Otelli’s keynote.

Alan Wake’s characteristics as an author has been searched through different styles of effects says Ilkka Villi who adds “even the stubble is used for this purpose”.

A Posing job

Ilkka Villi tells us he had some Mario Bros-like thoughts (or preconceptions), when he was first contacted by the Alan Wake team. He didn’t have deeper knowledge regarding playing nor the expectations concerning Remedy’s game.

He went to the audition through a casting agency, and when the developers said they liked him, Villi got the gig. They gave him the first Max Payne game to take home with.

“I tested it quickly at first and a couple of months later I was hooked. I understood how strong the atmosphere can be in a video game. I got the chills going through my spine many times.”

The first time Villi went to the shoot was at the start of 2005, and since then he has visited Remedy several times. The last session was in Spring of last year.

The production of a video game can’t be compared to a traditional acting job. The shoots were done with regular still-cameras in front of a bluescreen.

“Basicly it was a posing job. I was spinning around in a chair and my face was scanned from every angle. In addition to that they needed different emotions for different situations - for example if the character were in a tight spot or if there’s a threat of danger”, says Villi.

The difficulty was the unknowing of what that tight spot or danger was, while being filmed. You couldn’t build a contact with another actor opposite of you.

“There’s the absence of the essence of acting, which is born from the interaction of two people. Somehow you feel only giving a shell of a performance”, Villi admits.

On the other hand he ensures being extremely satisfied, for being able to observe the ambitious project.

“You don’t get to follow a production this huge in other entertainment business here in Finland. Finnish movies in no way meet this size of distribution.”

If everything goes well with Alan Wake, Ilkka-Alan’s animated features will be known to millions of gamers.

“I saw the Alan Wake posters for international game conventions a few years back. I realized this is the closest to Hollywood I’m ever going to get.”, he laughs.

Villi is the only Finnish actor in Alan Wake. Other characters, and even Alan Wake’s voice, will be played and voiced by actors from the US.

A writer’s nightmare

In most newspaper stories they say that there’s apparent connections between the Alan Wake story and Stephen King’s work, and how the small town of Bright Falls, as a setting, is straight out of Twin Peaks.

Villi discussed the character of Alan Wake and the world he lives in, with the game’s writer, Sami Järvi (Sam Lake). Järvi was also good to have a conversation with, because it was him who gave his face to the first Max Payne.

Recalling from Järvi’s interview to Helsingin Sanomat, Max Payne was a John Woo-style Matrix action fused with film noir storytelling. The end result was an unprecedented cinematic action game, which progressed linearly towards the finale.

This time it’s approached as if a TV-series. The concept of the game is like a season, the day and night cycle show the change between episodes. Not like the linear Max Payne, Alan Wake is an open world playground.

The details of the game are a carefully kept secret, and not even Ilkka Villi has seen the script. He does understand quite well what a considerable job it must have been to write it, because of himself being familiar with writing through a TV series that ran a few years ago and a moviescript currently under development.

“If writing a straightforward movie is a huge task, then writing a story for something that’s freely progressing on such a wide area, must be an immense task”, he wonders.

The size of the Bright Falls area is in the movie industry’s class. Villi estimates that in the future there could be even more demand for actors. He tells us that he wants to be versatile as a freelance-actor. That’s a guarantee of things to come.

Ilkka Villi tells a story how he once rushed to a video game shoot just after playing Pipi Longstockings horse at the city theater of Savonlinna.