WEBVTT 00:00:03.130 --> 00:00:06.907 You've helped create some of the most incredible characters, stories, and 00:00:06.990 --> 00:00:10.547 open worlds in video game history. But when you grew up in 00:00:10.630 --> 00:00:14.467 the late '70s and '80s, open-world video games 00:00:14.550 --> 00:00:18.480 wasn't a thing. So you've credited literature and film 00:00:18.630 --> 00:00:23.507 as early inspiration. So let's talk about film first, if we can. 00:00:23.590 --> 00:00:24.027 - Sure. 00:00:24.110 --> 00:00:27.787 - What to you are some of the candidates for the greatest films of all time, 00:00:27.870 --> 00:00:31.847 maybe films that were highly influential on you? I mean, Godfather. 00:00:31.930 --> 00:00:34.706 - God, well, I think for me, probably Godfather II more than Godfather I, 00:00:34.790 --> 00:00:39.487 but I love both of them. But I love the divided story in 00:00:39.570 --> 00:00:42.910 Godfather II. And as a migrant, I used to live in Soho. 00:00:43.010 --> 00:00:46.687 I love the bits in Little Italy, and I love 00:00:46.770 --> 00:00:50.567 the sections in Sicily. I think and the bit, Ellis 00:00:50.650 --> 00:00:54.387 Island is just one of the best shots in all of cinema. 00:00:54.470 --> 00:00:58.327 When you see little Vito turning up in Ellis Island and you get that shot, it's 00:00:58.410 --> 00:01:02.247 amazing. It gives you a really good cinematic sense of what it must have been 00:01:02.330 --> 00:01:03.687 like to arrive in America. 00:01:03.770 --> 00:01:06.947 - How much of the greatness of Godfather do you think is the 00:01:07.030 --> 00:01:10.967 writing? How much is the cinematography and how much is the acting? 00:01:11.050 --> 00:01:13.887 You got De Niro, you got young Pacino. 00:01:13.970 --> 00:01:17.830 - Coppola started as a screenwriter, so I think he wrote, at least co-wrote 00:01:18.270 --> 00:01:20.265 the script. So it's almost like the writing, 00:01:20.348 --> 00:01:22.147 directing almost become the same thing. 00:01:22.230 --> 00:01:24.646 But it's one of those films, both of them are those films, 00:01:24.730 --> 00:01:29.467 which I was thinking about this idea of a perfect film where everything's good. 00:01:29.550 --> 00:01:33.407 Where the acting's seminal, where the writing's seminal, where the music is 00:01:33.490 --> 00:01:37.307 seminal, where the shots are so memorable, where the scenes you 00:01:37.390 --> 00:01:40.887 know, define what you think about things. It's impossible to think about the 00:01:40.970 --> 00:01:42.867 mafia and not think about The Godfather. 00:01:42.950 --> 00:01:46.787 - What about the pacing? It is a bit slow. You have movies like 2001 00:01:46.870 --> 00:01:52.847 Space Odyssey, slow. - Yes. - It used to be, back in my day, it used to be slow. 00:01:52.930 --> 00:01:56.138 - Life got faster. Life just got, you know, 00:01:56.222 --> 00:01:59.327 as I think as we moved from the '70s into 00:01:59.410 --> 00:02:03.247 the '80s, into the '90s, people had seen so many films, 00:02:03.330 --> 00:02:06.827 they just started to edit films faster. And people understood cinematic 00:02:06.910 --> 00:02:10.807 storytelling so much that you could do things much quicker, 00:02:10.890 --> 00:02:14.507 you could show a look and just that meant you realized that person was 00:02:14.590 --> 00:02:18.087 gonna betray the other person. They just edited films much quicker. 00:02:18.170 --> 00:02:21.960 But I quite like the slowness. I think these days with modern, you know, 00:02:22.110 --> 00:02:25.627 high quality televisions, you don't have to necessarily watch these films in one 00:02:25.710 --> 00:02:26.367 sitting, 00:02:26.450 --> 00:02:28.045 particularly when you're rewatching them. So it doesn't bother me that they're long 00:02:28.128 --> 00:02:32.227 and slow. - Speaking of faster, life getting faster, I... 00:02:32.310 --> 00:02:35.679 I'm sure another influential movie was Goodfellas, Scorsese. 00:02:35.762 --> 00:02:40.207 That's faster, right? - Yes. - A mixture of crime and humor. 00:02:40.290 --> 00:02:44.107 - And almost like an open world game in some ways, in that it's this slice of 00:02:44.190 --> 00:02:47.399 life. You know, I think that probably changed cinema at the tail end of 00:02:47.483 --> 00:02:51.767 the '80s, changed cinema at the sort of tail end of the '80s, 00:02:51.850 --> 00:02:55.470 early '90s, more than any other film. And it's so 00:02:55.570 --> 00:02:59.427 iconic. In some ways I prefer Casino, but the invention 00:02:59.510 --> 00:03:02.787 is really in Goodfellas. I love the end of Casino, you know, the use of 00:03:02.870 --> 00:03:06.637 voiceover, the way you saw them being criminals and being 00:03:06.720 --> 00:03:10.507 normal people, you know, it changed everything. The Sopranos is obviously 00:03:10.590 --> 00:03:12.287 completely inspired by Goodfellas. 00:03:12.370 --> 00:03:16.947 - Casino has, first of all, the character of Sharon Stone. I mean, everything. 00:03:17.030 --> 00:03:19.687 - The look, the clothes......The music. 00:03:19.770 --> 00:03:23.597 - I would say one of the most memorable moments in film for me 00:03:23.680 --> 00:03:28.247 is the meeting in the desert. I mean, just the drama building up to that between... 00:03:28.330 --> 00:03:29.067 - Dig another hole. 00:03:29.150 --> 00:03:32.827 - Yeah. The environment, the city, speaking of open world and creating a 00:03:32.910 --> 00:03:36.590 character from the city. It's one of the great Vegas films. 00:03:36.690 --> 00:03:39.987 - I think the great Vegas film. There are bits that I always... that I 00:03:40.070 --> 00:03:43.867 love. At the end, when everything's wrapping up, and on the one hand you 00:03:43.950 --> 00:03:47.747 see the Robert De Niro character, he's still good at making money, so 00:03:47.830 --> 00:03:51.395 they let him return to normal life. But then you get that brilliant scene when all 00:03:51.479 --> 00:03:55.667 of the, the mob bosses from back home, they're discussing 00:03:55.750 --> 00:03:59.607 all these people who may or may not be able to implicate them. And then there's 00:03:59.690 --> 00:04:03.490 that incredibly cold line where one of them, they're thinking about the old, 00:04:03.650 --> 00:04:06.353 you know, I think it's the casino manager, and one of them just goes, "Ah, 00:04:06.436 --> 00:04:07.447 the way I see it, why take a 00:04:07.530 --> 00:04:11.387 chance?" And then the next thing, he's just shot. The brutality of it all is just 00:04:11.470 --> 00:04:15.062 brilliant. - I don't know, I probably have to disagree with you on Vegas. 00:04:15.146 --> 00:04:16.287 There's at least some competitors. 00:04:16.370 --> 00:04:20.247 You got what, Nicolas Cage Leaving Las Vegas? I mean, falling in love with a 00:04:20.330 --> 00:04:25.027 prostitute. You've written some of the great crime stories ever. 00:04:25.110 --> 00:04:25.827 - Thank you. 00:04:25.910 --> 00:04:31.437 - And in some sense, there's love stories in there. And you've talked about- 00:04:31.520 --> 00:04:35.250 ...being a bit of a romantic yourself. 00:04:35.650 --> 00:04:39.447 Appreciating the depth of love stories in literature at the 00:04:39.530 --> 00:04:43.130 very least. And there is a dark kind of love story between an 00:04:43.250 --> 00:04:45.807 alcoholic and a prostitute. He got an Oscar for that. 00:04:45.890 --> 00:04:46.667 - I think he did for that, didn't he? 00:04:46.750 --> 00:04:50.587 - Plus there's the caricature of the drug world of Fear and Loathing in 00:04:50.670 --> 00:04:52.447 Las Vegas. That's an interesting one. 00:04:52.530 --> 00:04:56.687 - I love the book so much. I was obsessed by it when I was about 17, 18. 00:04:56.770 --> 00:04:59.367 And I enjoyed the film, but I preferred the book. 00:04:59.450 --> 00:05:02.564 - Has a Hunter S. Thompson type of character ever made it into any of 00:05:02.648 --> 00:05:07.170 your stories? - No, but one of the things we're working on now, there's sort of 00:05:07.630 --> 00:05:11.247 an English version of Hunter S. Thompson if he was also a 00:05:11.330 --> 00:05:14.967 market gardener. I love that persona. But he's kind 00:05:15.050 --> 00:05:18.947 of... it's hard. If you make him American, it's hard for it not just to be Hunter 00:05:19.030 --> 00:05:21.087 S. Thompson. - Is this an American caper? 00:05:21.170 --> 00:05:24.867 - No, it's in this animated show we're developing in 00:05:24.950 --> 00:05:27.433 this sort of comedy world we're working on called Absurdiverse, 00:05:27.516 --> 00:05:29.437 and it's in one of the stories in that. 00:05:29.520 --> 00:05:34.770 - What is Absurdiverse? - Absurdiverse is a comedy 00:05:35.550 --> 00:05:39.370 universe we're developing that will be an open-world video game 00:05:39.810 --> 00:05:43.650 and then some loosely adjacent stories that we're going to 00:05:44.150 --> 00:05:46.604 make as animated TV shows or possibly animated movies. 00:05:46.687 --> 00:05:51.887 We're still thinking that all through. And we're building the game up in San 00:05:51.970 --> 00:05:55.747 Rafael at the moment, and it's early days, but it's looking very 00:05:55.830 --> 00:05:59.567 exciting. And it's trying to be... like, trying to make a game that feels a 00:05:59.650 --> 00:06:02.227 a little bit like a living sitcom. 00:06:02.310 --> 00:06:06.467 - Is there some drama and tragedy at the edges, or is it pure comedy? 00:06:06.550 --> 00:06:13.107 - I hope it's got comedy, cynicism, heart, drama, and some amusing life lessons. 00:06:13.190 --> 00:06:17.247 Otherwise, you can't just have jokes for 40 hours, it won't work. 00:06:17.330 --> 00:06:19.207 - Okay, so comedy needs some darkness. 00:06:19.290 --> 00:06:23.187 - Well, I think it needs story. One of my favorite comedies of this century 00:06:23.270 --> 00:06:26.947 is The Office because it was incredibly funny, but also because it had narrative 00:06:27.030 --> 00:06:30.890 and heart underneath the cynicism. I think with narrative, you get a drive 00:06:31.030 --> 00:06:36.487 alongside jokes. - And there's going to be an open-world video game. 00:06:36.570 --> 00:06:41.677 - Yes. Yes. - When? - Two, three, four years. Still thinking that through. 00:06:41.760 --> 00:06:45.647 - So, what's the process of getting from the idea to the end of a video game? 00:06:45.730 --> 00:06:48.427 Why does it take so long to get it right? 00:06:48.510 --> 00:06:51.933 - That's an interesting question. I think if you look at the scale at which they're 00:06:52.017 --> 00:06:52.850 built, 00:06:53.310 --> 00:06:57.110 you could argue it the other way, why is it so quick? I mean, you really are 00:06:57.450 --> 00:07:02.827 building, in one go, a world, a city, and 40 hours of entertainment cut through it. 00:07:02.910 --> 00:07:06.510 and 40 hours of entertainment cut through it. You know, these things are 00:07:06.650 --> 00:07:10.547 massive four-dimensional mosaics that are intensely complicated and have to work 00:07:10.630 --> 00:07:14.487 in lots of different ways. And I think that's us being kind of aggressive on 00:07:14.570 --> 00:07:17.737 the timeline. - We're taking a tangent upon a tangent upon a tangent, 00:07:17.820 --> 00:07:22.407 but I have to return to some films. Let me just list a few of my favorites. 00:07:22.490 --> 00:07:26.427 So first of all, you said you love great war books. 00:07:26.510 --> 00:07:28.067 - Yes. - and movies. - Yes. 00:07:28.150 --> 00:07:32.788 - So we have to throw in Platoon from Oliver Stone and Apocalypse Now, 00:07:32.871 --> 00:07:39.077 for me at least. - Of course. - There's more crime, fast-moving crime movies, 00:07:39.160 --> 00:07:41.907 like Scarface. I also love True Romance. 00:07:41.990 --> 00:07:46.427 - I love True Romance. Possibly the best, one of the best scripts ever written. 00:07:46.510 --> 00:07:49.430 - Written, of course, by Quentin Tarantino. 00:07:49.530 --> 00:07:52.487 What do you love about True Romance? I think sometimes, depending on the 00:07:52.570 --> 00:07:56.427 day, depending on the bar and how much alcohol I've had, I will say 00:07:56.510 --> 00:07:58.927 True Romance is the best movie ever made. 00:07:59.010 --> 00:08:02.317 - Yeah, I mean, True Romance is super fun. Tony Scott was a really good director, 00:08:02.400 --> 00:08:05.987 so it moves at a really good speed. It's funny, it's completely unbelievable, 00:08:06.070 --> 00:08:09.767 but you really care about the characters. It's the kind of, you know, this world 00:08:09.850 --> 00:08:13.727 that obviously doesn't exist, but you feel it does exist. The characters 00:08:13.810 --> 00:08:17.187 are larger than life. The dialogue is unbelievable. You could just sit and watch 00:08:17.270 --> 00:08:21.320 unbelievable. You could just sit and watch them talk all day long. And, you know, 00:08:21.510 --> 00:08:25.407 you just... it's amusing. You just want to live in that world. I was thinking about, 00:08:25.490 --> 00:08:29.290 like, what do you like about films? It's the idea to be in a world. You want 00:08:29.610 --> 00:08:31.294 to... they're not real. They're never real, 00:08:31.377 --> 00:08:33.767 but you want to be in these fake worlds that people have invented. 00:08:33.850 --> 00:08:37.467 - And I think you said that what makes a great world is having a large cast of 00:08:37.550 --> 00:08:41.347 characters. And I think that movie is a good example. I mean, you have Christopher 00:08:41.430 --> 00:08:45.347 Walken with the sort of legendary super racist discussion. 00:08:45.430 --> 00:08:48.547 - Yeah. Rant. - Rant. - Dennis Hopper is just sort of a dream dad. 00:08:48.630 --> 00:08:50.047 - Yeah. Dream dad. 00:08:50.130 --> 00:08:53.847 And just that interaction is legendary. You got even Brad Pitt as a 00:08:53.930 --> 00:08:57.477 pothead on the couch. - Gary Oldman. 00:08:57.560 --> 00:09:03.937 - Gary Oldman. - As a rasta. - Yeah, and you have... I mean, a real love story. 00:09:04.020 --> 00:09:08.387 Like, a real, genuine, pure love can survive in any context. 00:09:08.470 --> 00:09:11.187 - And it's just sweet. Their love story is very sweet in that film. 00:09:11.270 --> 00:09:15.320 - Yeah. - It's endearing. - The... Elvis is a character. It's kind of like a mini 00:09:15.810 --> 00:09:19.117 GTA type game. Some of the same beauty, the comedy, the love, the- 00:09:19.200 --> 00:09:22.407 - Yeah, and it's all crossed with Play It Again, Sam. It sort of feels a bit like 00:09:22.490 --> 00:09:23.387 that with the Elvis character. 00:09:23.470 --> 00:09:26.707 - What about greatest war film? What would it be for you? 00:09:26.790 --> 00:09:30.717 - Greatest war film? If I'm feeling serious, it would be 00:09:30.800 --> 00:09:32.777 a Russian film called Come and See. 00:09:32.860 --> 00:09:36.477 which is probably the most intense film ever made. And if I'm 00:09:36.560 --> 00:09:40.377 feeling slightly less serious, Apocalypse Now, and I would 00:09:40.460 --> 00:09:44.397 always want to watch the original cut. I don't prefer the re-edits. I like the 00:09:44.480 --> 00:09:49.397 original first release. I think it's tighter and slicker and works the best. 00:09:49.480 --> 00:09:53.380 - Yeah, of course, Apocalypse Now is this hallucinatory journey into darkness, 00:09:53.520 --> 00:09:55.777 I think, madness. - Yeah, but from your first- - Yeah 00:09:55.860 --> 00:09:59.317 - scene onwards, it's just got these amazing set piece after set piece 00:09:59.400 --> 00:10:04.137 and, again, incredible characters, brilliant dialogue. 00:10:04.220 --> 00:10:09.160 - Some of the greatest films about war reveal that war is not what it seems, 00:10:10.240 --> 00:10:14.137 and there's different ways of doing that. And you've talked about different books. 00:10:14.220 --> 00:10:18.877 The Thin Red Line is another book—...and movie that shows that. 00:10:18.960 --> 00:10:22.310 - Yeah, yeah, and I watched the movie years before I read the book, 00:10:22.980 --> 00:10:24.680 and I didn't understand the movie. 00:10:25.600 --> 00:10:29.460 And then I read the book, and I read a lot about the 00:10:29.570 --> 00:10:33.457 editing of the movie, and I understood why I didn't understand the movie, 00:10:33.540 --> 00:10:36.556 and that's 'cause the movie makes no sense. It is beautifully shot, 00:10:36.640 --> 00:10:37.357 and the music is 00:10:37.440 --> 00:10:41.137 one of the best film scores of all time. But they edited two different 00:10:41.220 --> 00:10:44.661 battle scenes into one battle in a way that they're spread apart by ages in 00:10:44.744 --> 00:10:48.009 the book to assemble... I think they filmed the book pretty much verbatim. 00:10:48.093 --> 00:10:48.997 It would've been as a 00:10:49.080 --> 00:10:52.517 six-hour movie, then edited this impressionistic thing that's incredibly 00:10:52.600 --> 00:10:56.497 beautiful but doesn't necessarily make narrative sense at the end of it. 00:10:56.580 --> 00:10:58.940 But it's still very beautiful, the film. 00:10:59.840 --> 00:11:03.317 - And in terms of Westerns, what's the greatest? The Good, the Bad and the 00:11:03.400 --> 00:11:06.857 Ugly, Unforgiven? Those are for me, maybe even Django 00:11:06.940 --> 00:11:09.127 Unchained. You've mentioned Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. 00:11:09.210 --> 00:11:12.637 - I think for me it's two films from, I think, pretty much the same year, Butch 00:11:12.720 --> 00:11:17.597 Cassidy and The Wild Bunch. - I love Robert Redford. Rest in peace. 00:11:17.680 --> 00:11:22.445 - That film, it's just impossible to imagine any buddy film without Butch 00:11:22.529 --> 00:11:26.917 Cassidy. - It's Paul Newman, Robert Redford, and Clint Eastwood for you, also? 00:11:27.000 --> 00:11:29.117 Has that impacted your writing on Red Dead? 00:11:29.200 --> 00:11:32.200 - I love Unforgiven, but the truth is 00:11:33.060 --> 00:11:36.877 with Red Dead, I'd seen a lot of Westerns as a kid. My dad watched lots of 00:11:36.960 --> 00:11:40.817 Westerns. They were always on TV. You know, I felt I knew a 00:11:40.900 --> 00:11:44.670 lot, quite a bit about Westerns. And then, 00:11:44.920 --> 00:11:48.407 you know, then I had to start thinking about writing one for work. 00:11:48.490 --> 00:11:50.686 And I deliberately did not binge on Westerns. 00:11:50.769 --> 00:11:52.440 I tried to watch no more Westerns 00:11:52.900 --> 00:11:56.777 and just think about what I liked about them, what I didn't like about 00:11:56.860 --> 00:12:00.797 them, what would be a take that would work today and would 00:12:00.880 --> 00:12:04.800 work within the confines of a game. And I think Red Dead 00:12:05.100 --> 00:12:08.600 1 was a slightly more traditional Western. And then having done that, 00:12:09.040 --> 00:12:10.490 tried to take Red Dead 2 in a 00:12:11.340 --> 00:12:15.237 different direction so that it felt like a worthy successor. Didn't 00:12:15.320 --> 00:12:16.920 just feel like more of the same.