Anthony Mackie Praises Samoa Joe’s Acting In Twisted Metal Series

Samoa Joe has a fan in Anthony Mackie, who gave him praise for his work on the set of Twisted Metal. The two star in the Peacock series, with Mackie playing John Doe in the show while Joe portrays Sweet Tooth (with Will Arnett voicing the role). Mackie spoke about working with Joe on Variety’s Actors on Actors in a conversation with Abbot Elementary star Tyler James Williams.

“It’s a testament to Samoa Joe,” Mackie said (per Fightful). “I was blown away by this dude from the first moment he stepped on set. First of all, he’s a larger than life human being. He was doing everything with that mask on. He was acting his ass off. It was amazing because he and Will worked out this idea of what the character was going to be and he was doing some circus type performance. For him, it was all body work. It was literally like he was doing Vaudeville-type shtick, knowing he was going to be voiced over. He knew all the lines, he had all the jokes, he hit everything in a way that — this was his first time acting — I don’t think a veteran actor could have done what he did.”

He continued, “When we first met about it, we thought he was going to come in and Will would record the lines and he would do the movements and I would react to that. That’s when it evolved into this thing of, ‘I can do it.’ The first day he stepped on set, I was like, ‘That’s Sweet Tooth.’ He’s a heavy handed motherfucker [laughs]. He owned it. He really owned it. It was really surprising, just because I didn’t expect that of him. It took some getting used to, but the first day we shot Sweet Tooth, it clicked. When Will went to the studio, he had so much to work off of. He literally threw his voice in.”

The first season of the show is streaming on Peacock, with season two having wrapped production at the start of November.