Alan Tudyk says he was dropped from doing press for the 2004 sci-fi pic I, Robot because test audiences preferred his (surprisingly emotional) robot to Will Smith's detective protagonist.
"A lot of people did not know I did Sonny the Robot in I, Robot, and there is a reason,” Tudyk said on an episode of the Toon'd In Podcast. "They were doing test audiences for the movie, and they score the characters in this kind of test screening. I got word back: 'Alan, you are testing higher than Will Smith.' And then I was gone. I was done. There was no publicity, and my name was not mentioned."
Set in 2035 Chicago, the Alex Proyas-directed film stars Will Smith as Detective Del Spooner, who sets out to investigate the alleged suicide of U.S. Robots founder Alfred Lanning (James Cromwell) after being convinced that his robot assistant Sunny (Tudyk) murdered him. I, Robot received mixed reviews from critics (and currently has a 57% score on Rotten Tomatoes), but managed to earn $353 million at the global box office against a budget of $120 million.
Continued Tudyk: "I was so shocked," he continued. "I was like, ‘Wait, nobody is going to know I’m in it!’ I put a lot into it. Because I had to move like a robot. At the time, I was very upset."
Though this hasn't stopped Tudyk from going on to play more robots: the actor provided the voice and motion capture for K-2SO, a reprogrammed Imperial droid, in both Rogue One and the Disney Plus series Andor, as well as Robot #4 aka Gary in James Gunn's Superman, who assists Kal-El (and has a heartbreaking scene), and a cheerfully dystopian bot named Cosmo in Netflix's The Electric State. He also wrapped up a four-season run of Resident Alien, a sci-fi comedy in which Tudyk plays an alien who crash-lands on earth and has quite the moral dilemma.
I, Robot is streaming now on Hulu. For more, check out our list of the most exciting upcoming movies in 2025 and beyond, or, check out our list of the best Hulu movies to stream right now.
