Twisted Metal Star Will Arnett Shares The Secrets Of Voicing A Killer Clown [Exclusive Interview]

The "Twisted Metal" video games were truly unique for their era, bringing players into brutal vehicular combat with a variety of colorful characters to choose from. There wasn't ever particularly great continuity between the games, so each had its own unique story and reason for the Twisted Metal competition, but many of the characters returned again and again, allowing fans of the franchise to really develop their favorites. Of all of the characters in the games, from motorcycle-riding reaper Mr. Grimm to tank-driving serial killer Kane to Dragula-driving musician Rob Zombie, perhaps the most famous is the killer clown Sweet Tooth, who drives a tricked-out ice cream truck. 

The upcoming "Twisted Metal" live-action series on Peacock looks like it's just as wild as its video game counterparts, and that means they needed a Sweet Tooth to match. The creepy killer clown is portrayed physically by wrestler Samoa Joe, with the voice talents of Will Arnett. Arnett brings his fabulous sarcastic growl to the character and makes him somehow even more unsettling, which is definitely the point. 

I had the chance to sit down with Arnett via Zoom (long before the ongoing SAG-AFTRA strike began) to talk about the upcoming series, the challenges of voicing a killer clown, and of course, the "Twisted Metal" games. I'm just glad he didn't have the Sweet Tooth mask around, or I would have had post-interview nightmares.

Note: This interview has been lightly edited for clarity and brevity. 

You've done quite a bit of voiceover work in your career. Can you tell me a little bit about how that's different getting into character, versus getting into character for a role where you have to be on screen?

Yeah, I mean, it is different for the various sort of obvious reasons that you don't have the benefit of expressing yourself in a visual way with just your voice, of course, by definition. In that sense, it takes a lot more thought into — for me anyway — into trying to convey what's going on in a scene simply using your voice. I've had the benefit of working on a lot of stuff that's had some great writing, great writers, whether it was a bunch of animated features that have had great writers, not the least of which were Phil Lord and Chris Miller on the LEGO movies, or Chris McKay on "LEGO Batman," or jumping to TV, working with Raphael Bob-Waksberg on "BoJack Horseman," just to name a few. So I'm really lucky that [I've had] great material to work with. That helps. But it is a different process.

Then doing something like this, working on "Twisted Metal," Michael Jonathan Smith is such a funny, great writer. We worked with [Rhett] Rheese and [Paul] Wernick really came up with a great world with Michael, and then Michael just went off to the races and wrote these really funny scripts about this post-apocalyptic world that's very scary and yet somehow manages to be funny. It just makes my job that much easier to come in and try to do what I do, because it's really specific.

Did you work with Samoa Joe, the physical embodiment of the character, at all? Did you get to work with him or see any footage of him before you did your recordings?

Oh yeah. Yeah. I mean, when we were shooting, I was watching dailies and seeing what's going on and as he's working through it. Like you said, he's the physical embodiment of this character. He's out there and he is doing these amazing scenes and working with all the actors and with Anthony and everybody. I start to get a sense, obviously we both get a sense from the script, but I really start to get a sense as I see him visually, what he's doing and it starts to kind of set the tone for what maybe Sweet Tooth will sound like. Obviously, he's doing the scenes and so he's actually on set. He's doing the dialogue in the scenes because he is working with the other actors. It was always, how much of that do we use? Yeah, he was so great, Samoa Joe. It was always a balance to try to figure out what to do, what to use, et cetera, et cetera. It was a real challenge. It was the first time I've ever really done something like this, so it was very unique. [laughs]

Sweet Tooth is such a unique killer clown. How do you think he would stand against some of the other killer clowns from fiction, like Pennywise or the Killer Clowns from Outer Space?

I don't know. Pennywise seems really scary in a way that haunts your dreams. Sweet Tooth is pretty above board. He's just going to kill you. You know what I mean?

Yeah.

He's funnier. He's funnier than those other clowns. He's legitimate.

As a clown should be.

Yeah. Exactly. He is much closer to what a clown should be. Yeah, and physically, he's bigger. He's got that. He's very intimidating physically.

Do you have any experience with the "Twisted Metal" games? Did you tear it up on PlayStation back in the day, or did you get introduced to it with this?

It was one of those, when we started — my partner, Mark Forman, and I — we started talking about what games were games that we would like to see made into a film or into a show, and I remember he called me up one day, and he was like, "Twisted Metal." I'm like, "Oh yeah, 'Twisted Metal.'" We kind of looked into it and we started talking about the game and we started looking at the gameplay and stuff and it was like, "This is such a great..." It wasn't a game that I played in the mid-'90s, but it's a game that — hopefully we're going to be part of a resurgence for it, because it's a game that I play now as opposed to then. I feel like I became a fan of it. I knew what it was, but it wasn't, like, on my radar as a gamer, and now it's at the top of the list.

Who do you play as? I have to know.

Uh-oh. Wait, who do you play as?

Sweet Tooth. I love the ice cream truck.

Look, I don't want to seem like a homer just because I do the voice of Sweet Tooth, [but] he's tough to beat. He's super fun, and the truck is pretty rad. Although, he has kind of turned me off on ice cream trucks. I mean, no offense to ice cream truck drivers out there, but now, knowing what I know, I'm a little freaked out.

"Twisted Metal" premieres on Peacock on July 27, 2023.