Keanu Reeves' name was floated for a lead role in Death Stranding , but director Hideo Kojima had his heart set on Mads Mikkelsen instead.



Find someone who tweets about you the way Hideo Kojima tweets about Madds Mikkelsen. pic.twitter.com/7JBS2t44NJ — Alanah Pearce (@Charalanahzard) January 25, 2017

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Kojima took to the stage at San Diego Comic Con where he revealed, “I asked Nicolas [Winding Refn] that I wanted to use Mads in the game. Mr. Refn recommended Keanu Reeves. But I think I was happy with Mads anyway. Nicolas Winding Refn is himself part of the Death Stranding cast, playing Heartman . ("Nicolas asked me to create a character that is more outstanding than Mads' character," Kojima joked before going on to explain Refn's character.)The bromance between Mikkelsen and Kojima is well-documented, mostly through Kojima's personal Twitter account. Death Stranding's head honcho frequently immortalises the Danish gymnast-turned-actor in lengthy Twitter threads filled with candid monochrome snaps of Mikkelsen puffing on a cigarette, or staring moodily into the middle distance.Reeves, meanwhile, has done just fine since the snub. In 2019 alone he's bagged a leading role in CD ProjektRed's upcoming dystopian RPG Cyberpunk 2077, helmed the third installment in the John Wick saga , and lent his breathtaking vocals to Toy Story 3. Kojima went into further detail about the reasons he's making Death Stranding, including that he ultimately wants make a game that upends traditional design."When I first started my own production, the easiest way to make money was to create something online, on an island that everyone goes and shoots each other, but I didn't want to make that," Kojima explained via translation. "Four years ago, when I started my company...I only had connection with people. So I thought of...connection, that's why this game is based on how you connect.""There's no reason to create something that's already there. I want to create new things and give more stimulation to the world," Kojima said. "Some Hollywood movies, even if you see a film, it doesn't live with you. People just digest it and consume. What I do is I want to bring something different for people to, maybe difficult to chew and chow down so it really leaves a mark when you digest my works and move forward in your life because you remember that feeling."At the release, for instance, Nicolas' movie or my games, people might say "Ooh" or people might praise it, but after five or 10 years, people will really start to evaluate what it was about, meaning it leaves a mark for everyone to think about, same as 2001: A Space Odyssey or Blade Runner. So I want to create those kinds of things," Kojima said."We're both alike, with Nicolas. A lot of people love it, a lot of people sometimes hate it and we get two sides of criticism sometimes and praises at the same time," he continued, with Refn also chiming in on his creative philosophy."Creativity is something that is a stream of energy around us. I always say the definition of success and creativity is polarization, because that is the moment you have made something that has penetrated the mind and began to live with you," Refn said. "Loving or hating something is the same thing, it's just the opposite of a coin. But what it does, it makes you react. And reaction breeds thought, and thought is what changes the world."We are living in a world where creativity is so homogenized, so generalized, and perfumed, and algorithms dictate everything around that it becomes meaningless almost. It becomes important to counter that, not to fight it but to inspire the idea that creativity, at the end of the day, is an individual experience in a collective medium."For more information from the Death Stranding Comic Con panel, check out this roundup that also reveals the game's official box art and details on Nicolas Winding Refn's character.

Editor's note - an earlier version of this story included abridged quotes from the panel from Twitter user @kalai_chik without properly attributing the quotes. IGN regrets this error, as IGN was in attendance to this panel and has since updated the story with full and additional quotes from our attendance.Alysia Judge is a freelance journalist and presenter. Chat to her on Twitter at @alysiajudge