With many praising actor Rahul Kohli’s performance as Saros protagonist Arjun Devraj, the actor has revealed in an interview on the PlayStation Blog that a traffic jam was integral in helping him find the right voice for the character. Kohli spoke about how, when he was needed to record voice lines for a Saros trailer, he had to make his way to the other side of Los Angeles, and found himself getting angry and “worked up” about getting stuck in traffic.
“I had to catch a flight, and Housemarque wouldn’t have access to me for six months,” he explains. “And they needed the trailer. And in order for me to make my flight, I had to record on the other side of town in LA crazy early. And I’m stuck in traffic. And I was so worked up and angry at seven, eight in the morning. We recorded the teaser trailer. And that voice that came out was angrier, more intense than anything we’d done or explored previously. And Greg and I were immediately like… ‘wait, that’s him. That’s who we’ve been looking for’… being angry and not being good enough to hide it… that was where Arjun was really born.”
Director of the Finding Carcosa documentary series that chronicles the development of Saros, Paul J. Vogel, adds his own opinion on the unpredictable nature of storytelling. He noted that moments like these tended to add more to Kohli’s work despite being “completely unglamorous.”
“Rahul’s anecdote about finding the true voice of Arjun is the perfect summary of how sometimes the creative nature of storytelling can be unpredictable,” said Vogel. “It’s funny because it is so completely unglamorous. Stuck in traffic, already late for a recording session, and up against the clock for a departing flight. It shows how a character can come alive from research, rehearsal, and collaboration with your director… but sometimes all it really takes is one very bad commute.”
Providing more details on his first day in for performance capture work, Kohli noted that “I hated it.” He went on to talk about the experience of wearing the motion capture suit and how it made him wish that he’d “gone to the gym.”
“It takes an hour or two before you stop feeling silly. That’s the strange thing,” he continued. “It starts tech-heavy – calibrating your fingers. And then once you’ve done that, it felt like an empty stage with actors and a director, and a script. Most actors are comfortable with doing a lot with very little. From day one in a rehearsal space, you are working without props, without stage furniture. Everything else, [the tech], has just gone.”
Ultimately, advice from fellow voice actor Troy Baker helped Kohli out in this regard. “He said it was the purest form of acting you’ll ever do. And he was right. I’m not playing to the camera… it’s about me and [the other actors].”
Saros is available on PS5 and has seen an incredibly positive reception. For more, check out our review. Also, take a look at why Housemarque made the title more approachable than its previous outing, Returnal.
