Editorials > The Alan Tudyk Effect

Best case scenario: you know him as Wash from Serenity, Doc Potter from 3:10 to Yuma, and the scene-stealing E! Television executive in Knocked Up. Worst case scenario, you know him as Steve the Pirate. (Editor's Note: Let's not forget he was pretty fucking funny in A Knight's Tale, and helped make that film enjoyable to some degree.)

Alan Tudyk is a difficult actor to classify. He’s too good at drama to be relegated to simple comic relief, and he’s too funny to (as of now, anyway) be considered a “serious” actor. Yet regardless of what sort of film he’s in, and regardless of who Tudyk is playing, it is – and this is fact – goddamn impossible not to like him. His characters are oddly lovable even at their most absurd, and his performances are memorable even when they have no right to be.

Spoilers for Serenity and 3:10 to Yuma follow.

It is with a great deal of interest, then, that I watched 3:10 to Yuma last weekend. In it, Tudyk’s portrays a character relatively unlike any of his others: where Wash was sarcastic, Doc Potter is sincere; where Knocked Up’s Jack was something of a douchebag, Potter is totally moral; where Steve the Pirate considers himself a buccaneer, Doc Potter knows little – if anything – of the joys of buckling swashes.

And yet, certain aspects of Doc Potter’s presentation (his death, especially), made me notice something of a trend in Tudyk’s performances, and the way his directors use him. The effect Tudyk’s performance tends to have on the audience is so easily identifiable, and so easily exploited, that using Tudyk – or an actor like him – has become a legitimate directorial and narrative tool amongst filmmakers.

The Tudyk Effect, briefly stated, is this:

The casting of an innocent, yet somewhat funny-looking individual in a humorous-yet-endearing role will make any audience immediately sympathize with the character played by said funny-looking individual; killing this character after a moment of valor whilst midway through a comedic line of celebratory dialogue is an unfairly inefficient way of shocking and saddening the audience.

First, the funny-looking sympathy. There’s just something about Alan Tudyk – women and/or gay men, feel free to disagree with me – that is almost, but not quite, classically attractive. Without venturing too deeply into the details, it’s probably got something to do with the eyes: the rest of the dude is handsome, but his eyes, and his eyes alone, look as if they’ve been ripped off someone who is either constantly surprised and/or completely oblivious to everything happening around them. This gives Tudyk a foot up on other actors when it comes to comedies (you can’t look at the guy’s face without expecting him to say something funny), and gives him an odd quality in more serious fare like 3:10 to Yuma. When Tudyk, playing Doc Potter, is forced to operate on a human being for the first time, the final line of the scene (“It’s nice to have a conversation with a patient for once”) is made better by Tudyk’s sincere, yet slightly askew facial features.

Which makes it all the more effective when a director kills the guy. Tudyk’s characters always seem pretty harmless: Wash is too busy making jokes and bickering with his wife to seem a particularly strong character, and Doc Potter is completely inexperienced when it comes to criminals and gunfights. Yet both characters die in the exact same way, thus eliciting the exact same reaction from the audience.

During the final, epic space battle in Serenity, Wash finally gets the chance to strut his stuff; while he’s spent the majority of the previous hour cracking sarcastic remarks and passively-aggressively insulting the captain, he skillfully flies through – oh, hell, just watch the scene: 

Essentially, funnyman Wash gets his moment of valor and saves the entire crew, until this happens:

I’ve seen Serenity with at least six different audiences, and Wash’s death never fails to get a huge reaction. They laugh at the repetition of the “leaf on the wind” line, but as Wash is killed mid-sentence, the laughter immediately stops. People gasp, shocked. They don’t hear themselves mutter aloud, “Oh, no…” Some people scream, some end up crying – no matter how you slice it, the audience feels it when Wash dies.

Now, take 3:10 to Yuma.  About ¾ of the way through the film, Dan (Christian Bale) and his cohorts (Doc Potter included) show up at a mine to rescue Ben Wade (Russell Crowe) from the vengeful prospector who kidnapped him. Despite Dan’s protestations and the group’s legal right to take Ben to prison, the prospector and his two armed partners refuse to give Wade up – even going so far as to threaten Dan and his men with death, should they not leave immediately.

It is at this point that Doc Potter, who has never raised a hand in violence to anyone in the film, picks up a shovel and goddamn smacks one of the prospector’s men, square in the face. Potter’s attack on the miner causes Dan and the rest of his crew to spring into action, thus freeing Wade and starting a chase through the mines, with the prospector and his men in hot pursuit. Potter, the moral, friendly, and immediately likeable veterinarian, has proven himself a brave, heroic man – which makes his sudden death all the more unfortunate. As Dan’s crew flees from the miners, Doc Potter hilariously and proudly exclaims (with the enthusiasm of a twelve-year-old who has just kissed a girl for the first time), “DID YOU SEE ME HIT THAT GUY WITH THE SHOVEL?!—“

The word has barely left his lips before we hear a loud BANG, and Doc Potter slumps over in his saddle. A few seconds and a couple lines of dialogue later, Doc Potter is dead.

The fates of Wash and Doc Potter are similar to the point of being unsettling: both characters serve as seriocomic sidekicks for the majority of their respective films, both characters finally show a great deal of courage and heroism when their friends are in trouble, both characters then celebrate by beginning to say something hilarious, and are then killed before they can finish the sentence.

Both Joss Whedon and James Mangold know the power of Tudyk : audiences instinctively empathize with him the first time they meet him, they’re happy when he shows courage, and they’re shocked and deeply saddened when he suddenly dies. Using Tudyk means you can guarantee a series of specific reactions out of your audience, depending on what sort of film you’re making. They’ll remember his jokes, mourn his death, or a mixture of the two. Such is the power of…The Alan Tudyk Effect.