Vin Diesel gave a great performance in Chronicles Of Riddick but he didn't sound so good in Wheelman. Why can performances vary so much between games?
In those examples, I think the reasons are primarily direction and the environment you create for the performer. You can make it pretty uncomfortable for a celebrity if you’re a game producer and you try to bring them into your world rather than recreating the celebrity world to maintain their mindset. But the primary reason is directing. Another reason might be how interested the performer is in that property. I think Vin had more interest – not just emotional interest but financial interest – in Riddick. So he might care more and that can make a difference. And here’s a another reason: you’re getting four hours on any day, and if you get somebody after a big party – and we’ve seen plenty of that, you can smell it on their breath – you’re not gonna get the performance as when they’re top notch.

Have you worked with figures that aren’t in the acting world?
Celebrity acquisition applies not just to celebrity actors but to sports figures, politicians – we’ve made offers to Bill Clinton for videogames and gotten great responses with attorneys who have said, ‘The former president will not participate in one of your videogame products, thank you very much’. We appreciated that frankness and candour – you don’t get that kind of candour from Creative Artists Agency, frankly. If the answers no, they don’t return your call for six months.

What project did you ask Bill Clinton for?
I think that might have been to play the president in Fallout 3. Wouldn’t that have been brilliant? You get to that point in game and you hear that voice in the ether coming from off-camera and you’re like, ‘I know that guy!’

It was worth a try!
Exactly. And that’s always our attitude with celebrities, that you’ve got about a point zero zero one per cent chance of that one, but fuck, it’s worth a try. We might get the offer in on a day that they’ve got a wild hare up their ass because they just had great sex the night before and they feel like they’re on top of the world and they want to try something new. We do a lot of that.

What has been your proudest acquisition so far?
I would say one of them certainly is Mickey Rourke for Rogue Warrior. We don’t really have indication that he’s fond of the field one way or another and generally with an original IP like Rogue Warrior it doesn’t make a lot of sense to spend money on a celebrity. But this one made sense. Mickey Rourke and Rogue Warrior are almost four words that are completely interchangeable in combination! The actor fit the character, and the public perception and persona of the actor fit the character, and that was beautiful. He also worked really well. And, obviously, the timing was perfect. Mickey’s at this point where he’s experiencing this resurgence – a lot of the younger audience don’t remember him from his earlier films. He’s going out strong, he should hit on all cylinders, this is a great thing for him to do for his career, and Bethesda is a great company for him to be attached to.

Given all the excitement around him because of his Oscar nomination for The Wrestler, was it difficult to get him?
It was hard, it was hard as hell, that deal. When somebody is that hot, they’re literally getting three or four multi-million dollar offers an hour dropping on the desk. So how to we get through that with our puny little request? Usually it’s ignored. But we have a lot of tricks in our quiver and had to pull every one of them out to get the attention of his reps and to convince them that they should spend time and he should spend time doing this.