Kojima Productions lead Hideo Kojima has said that he hand-picked Death Stranding 2 cast members, who he treats as “special partners.” He revealed that he doesn’t task casting agencies with finding talent.
Why Kojima picked Death Stranding 2 cast himself
In a tweet explaining how he sources talent, Kojima said that although he does utilize agencies to draft contracts, he chooses the actors and actresses himself because game development is stressful and he wants to work with people who can “fight” through the problems with him.
“Since I will be spending very long period of time working with actors and voice actors, I don’t let agencies/agents do casting,” Kojima tweeted. “Various problems occur frequently in filming, voice recording, and game creation. I have chosen DS2 actors and actresses as special partners with whom I can fight together.”
Death Stranding 2 stars Elle Fanning, Léa Seydoux, Norman Reedus, Shioli Kutsuna, Troy Baker, and Kevin Ko.
In a separate tweet, Kojima revealed that he’s still thinking about Death Stranding 2’s Japanese cast. As part of his efforts to source talent, he’s been studying and watching anime as well as “dubbed versions of streaming content.”
The recording won’t be done for a while yet, but I’ve been thinking about casting the Japanese dub for the main new characters in “DS2.” Over the past few years, I’ve been studying by watching anime I don’t normally watch and trying to watch the dubbed versions of the streaming…— HIDEO_KOJIMA (@HIDEO_KOJIMA_EN) June 1, 2023
Death Stranding 2’s release has yet to be dated.