{"id":63178,"date":"2025-08-12T18:34:08","date_gmt":"2025-08-12T18:34:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/63178\/"},"modified":"2025-08-12T18:34:08","modified_gmt":"2025-08-12T18:34:08","slug":"alan-tudyk-says-his-name-was-not-mentioned-in-i-robot-publicity-because-his-performance-as-sonny-the-robot-scored-higher-with-test-audiences-than-will-smith","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/63178\/","title":{"rendered":"Alan Tudyk Says His Name ‘Was Not Mentioned’ in I, Robot Publicity Because His Performance as Sonny the Robot Scored Higher With Test Audiences Than Will Smith"},"content":{"rendered":"

Alan Tudyk has made an explosive allegation surrounding his involvement with I, Robot<\/a>, claiming his name was pulled from the film\u2019s publicity because his performance as Sonny the Robot scored higher with test audiences than Will Smith.<\/p>\n

Alex Proyas\u2019 2004 sci-fi film I, Robot sees Smith\u2019s Detective Del Spooner investigate the alleged suicide of U.S. Robotics founder Alfred Lanning, believing a human-like robot called Sonny (Tudyk) murdered him. Tudyk voiced Sonny and provided the motion capture for the CGI character.<\/p>\n

\"null\"<\/a>Will Smith (and Alan Tudyk) starred in I, Robot. Photo by Koichi Kamoshida\/Getty Images.<\/p>\n

Speaking on the Toon’d In with Jim Cummings podcast<\/a>, Tudyk claimed he was dropped from I, Robot publicity due to Sonny scoring higher with test audiences than Smith\u2019s Spooner, which left him \u201cvery upset\u201d because people didn\u2019t realize he starred in the movie.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of people didn\u2019t know I did Sonny the Robot in I, Robot, and there\u2019s a reason for that,\u201d Tudyk said. \u201cBecause they were doing test audiences with the movie, and they score the characters in this kind of test audience. And I\u2019d got word back: \u2018Alan, you\u2019re testing higher than Will Smith.\u2019 And then I was gone. I was done. There was no publicity, and my name was not mentioned.\u201d<\/p>\n

He continued: \u201cI was so shocked. I was like, \u2018Wait, nobody is going to know that I\u2019m in it!\u2019 I put a lot into it, because he had to move like a robot, so I had to move\u2026 it was, whatever it was. At the time, I was very upset.\u201d<\/p>\n

Despite Tudyk\u2019s negative experience with I, Robot, he went on to play another robot, K-2SO, in Star Wars movie Rogue One, and later reprised the role in Disney+ series Andor. Indeed, Tudyk has a long association with sci-fi franchises, playing Hoban “Wash” Washburne in Firefly \/ Serenity and, most recently, Superman Robot 4 \/ Gary in James Gunn’s DCU kickstarter Superman.<\/p>\n

Photo by Koichi Kamoshida\/Getty Images.<\/p>\n

Wesley is Director, News at IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Alan Tudyk has made an explosive allegation surrounding his involvement with I, Robot, claiming his name was pulled…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":63179,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[64,63,447,134],"class_list":{"0":"post-63178","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-celebrities","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-celebrities","11":"tag-entertainment"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63178","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=63178"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63178\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/63179"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=63178"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=63178"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=63178"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}