Breaking Bad's Aaron Paul is no stranger to videogames. He starred in the live-action film adaptation of Need For Speed in 2014 and animated film Kingsglaive: Final Fantasy XV in 2016. If you want a real gaming deep cut, Paul also voiced the self-proclaimed "King of Space" in the Black Mirror episode "USS Callister," voicing a toxic MMO player with the handle "Gamer691."
But he's never actually acted in a videogame, at least until now. Paul plays Mecha Man, aka Robert Roberston, in superhero workplace comedy Dispatch, which is out next week from AdHoc Studio.
Over a Zoom call last week, I asked Paul why it took him so long to cross over from movies and television into games, and what it was about Dispatch that led him to finally make the leap.
"I've been wanting to get into the gaming world for some time, and I've been spoiled to have been a part of some really great animated projects," Paul said. "There hasn't really been a game that's checked all the boxes, but when this was presented to me, all the scripts were there, already written."
Dispatch was originally meant to be a TV show, interestingly enough, though that was before Paul was involved. When he was approached for the role of the main character, AdHoc Studio had more to woo him with than just a script, too.
"They had already animated sort of like a sizzle reel of the tone of the game, and they had animated a really beautiful scene between these two main characters of the game that takes place on top of a billboard overlooking Los Angeles. And I just really fell in love with the tone," Paul said. "It was a lot of fun, but also a lot of really quiet moments of just real life drama, and that's what really made me respond to it."
With the superhero genre so crowded with movies, TV series, and games, Paul said Dispatch stands out from the crowd in some interesting ways.
"I just love that they're not afraid to just be so vulgar on one hand, right? But then, just so honest and poetic and just raw on the other," he said. "It's not just a fun shoot-'em-up action superhero game. You're pulled into real life scenarios within a superhero society.
"I think it's going to surprise a lot of people," Paul said. "It certainly surprised me, which is really why I wanted to jump in."
I asked Paul about his real-life gaming habits, too. "I used to play a lot of games, and some would say, I used to play maybe too many games, and this is why I maybe had to put down the controller," he said. "You know, I would force myself to go to bed because the sun was up."
These days? Not so much, but it sounds like he might pick up a controller again in the near future. "I'm married, I got a couple kiddos," he said. "My kids are seven and three. I can't wait to play games with them and introduce them to games that I grew up loving, and seeing where that takes them."
