Actor Alan Tudyk (Firefly, Star Wars Rogue One) was signed up for a part in Naughty Dog’s Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End, but walked away from the project as a result of changes to the script. He says in a new interview that he quit the project when writer/director Amy Hennig left Naughty Dog in March 2014.
Tudyk says he enjoyed working on Uncharted 4 (what role he had was not specified), but bounces between “fired” and “quit” when describing his exit from the project. He also took a dig at Naughty Dog, saying he made some friends while working on the project, but “not with Naughty Dog.”
“I liked it… they… ummm… they fired… ummm… [lets out a massive sigh] I left, I quit! [laughs],” he told IGN. “So, I didn’t like it. I mean, I left because they decided to go a different way with it and so when they did that, when they changed leadership, it made my contract null and void and I was able to take that opportunity to walk away which was great because I got the experience of doing it, I made some friends–not with Naughty Dog–but I made some friends with the people that left.”
Tudyk isn’t the only high-profile actor to have left Uncharted 4 in the wake of Hennig’s departure and the subsequent appointment of new directors Neil Druckmann and Bruce Straley. Todd Stashwick (You, Me, and Dupree, Along Came Polly) also quit, with his character (the person who did the voiceover in the game’s first trailer) recast with someone new.
Stashwick has since joined Hennig at Electronic Arts where they’re both working on a new Star Wars game.
“Todd Stashwick was in that as well… and he did the same thing I did which was ‘yeah we’re gonna leave now. Y’all are making some weird changes, we’re gonna leave,'” Tudyk said. “Sorry [Nathan Drake actor Nolan North], we left you, we just walked away, we abandoned him.”
The exact script changes for Uncharted 4 are unknown. However, Druckmann recently said he and Straley pitched a “pretty new story” to the team after they were appointed co-directors. Getting the ending right was part of the reason why Uncharted 4 was delayed to 2016.