Movies - TV
Why Kurt Russell Turned Down The Role Of Metal Gear Solid’s Snake
By DANIELLE RYAN
Kurt Russell played former U.S. Army Special Forces lieutenant-turned-criminal Snake Plissken in “Escape From New York” and once again for “Escape from L.A.”
Around 2004, he had the chance to voice another character similar to Plissken — also named Snake — in Hideo Kojima’s “Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater.” However, he turned it down.
When GQ asked why he declined the video game series, Russell explained that he was “pretty lazy by nature” and that embodying the character required a certain amount of work.
Russell explained, “I used to do interviews when ‘Elvis’ was coming out and they would say, ‘Come on, do a little Elvis for us!’ You know, it’s like, it doesn’t work that way.”
He added, “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.” This wasn’t the only reason for declining.
The actor explained, “I wasn’t interested in expanding financially off of something that we had created, or that I had created in terms of a character.”
Russell was also loyal to John Carpenter, the director of both films. Russell said, “I look at it and it’s like, that’s not written by John [Carpenter]. That doesn’t smell right.”