Twisted Metal made sure to get one character just right

Cars are more than just vehicles in the world of Twisted metal. They are a job requirement, a home, a fortress, a noble horse and even a family for someone like John Doe (Anthony Mackie) who has nowhere else to go. They are, as the saying goes, a character unto themselves. And the designers behind Peacock’s new series adaptation made sure to keep that in mind – especially when it came to John’s beloved Evelyn.

“We had to deal with: Well, what is actually our starting vehicle?Victoria Paul, Twisted metal‘s production designer, said. “And once we got that, we did so many illustrations — like, Is it white with a blue stripe? Is that this, is it that? How did we modify the bonnet? How did we adjust the rear? What are the rims? What are the weapons?”

The talk (even if they “spent a lot of time thinking about what weapons are attached to what vehicles”) always came back to practice – and how that balanced with a game franchise as frenzied and wild as Twisted Metal.

“There were some very specific beats about the interior that we had a match with. You know, like where certain buttons were, that was very obvious from the game,” Paul says. “But mostly I think it was us trying to say: Okay, what’s the coolest car we can give this guy considering he’s been driving this car for 20 years?”

According to Paul, Evelyn had to be a car that John might have found on the side of the road; in all likelihood someone’s everyday car that was in constant use before the apocalypse hit. Ty Guidroz, Twisted metal‘s car coordinator, came into production a little after they decided on Evelyn’s style. But in his mind, Evelyn’s look and makeup makes perfect sense.

“The choice of the Subaru WRX was because this is an action-packed show. These cars were expected to do a lot of things,” says Guidroz, pointing out that there were four different Evelyns, all tuned up to do what they needed the car to do. “Part of it was (that) it was an age-appropriate car, pre-2002. But (it) could also do and perform the things with the type of car these kids would actually drive — even today! They take these cars and drift them on the drift track. So (the cars) shall perform the way we wanted them to perform.

Evelyn is the baby of John Doe, the central car in a series full of them, so of course she got a little special love and attention. She was the longest process, mainly because, as Paul says, “there was no real role model for her from the game”. But as Guidroz and Paul point out, Evelyn is merely representative of how they wanted each car to feel, whether they looked at the big Tahoe that Agent Stone (Thomas Haden Church) drives or the infamous ice cream truck that drives Sweet Tooth (Joe Seanoa) maniacally. driving around.

“Each car has its own character,” says Guidroz. “We had to do that selection process for every character, for every vehicle along the way: What do we want it to do? What does it do to have To do? Are we going to jump over something? Are we going to turn it around somewhere? Shall we turn it around? And so all those things had to play into selecting the perfect car.”

Twisted metal season 1 is now streaming on Peacock.