Pragmata’s star shares how his experience as ‘the world's best uncle’ helped him bring Hugh to life
Overview & Key Takeaways
Pragmata's lead actor David Menkin brought a very personal touch to his role as Hugh, and that personal experience shines through in his performance.
There’s been many “dad games” in recent years, namely video games that focus on the experience of fatherhood. Most of them, like The Last of Us or the God of War reboots, feature gruff, older men with beards doling out tough love to their kid companions as they learn to embrace their roles as dads. Capcom’s new third-person shooter Pragmata goes in the opposite direction. Astronaut Hugh almost immediately bonds with the childlike android Diana when he finds her on an abandoned moon base and gradually becomes her surrogate father over the course of the game. Hugh doesn’t clash with Diana like Kratos and Atreus do, but uplifts and encourages her.
David Menkin, the voice of Hugh, is all for it. “I'm proud to call myself space dad,” Menkin told Polygon over a video call. “I think that's an honor.”
Image: Capcom via Polygon
Hugh and Diana spend the entire game together, whether they’re destroying robots with Diana on Hugh’s back or playing hide and seek at their shelter. Their relationship is the undisputed emotional core of the game and helps make Pragmata a kinder “dad game” than its genre counterparts.
“The only way that Hugh can relate to Diana is to see the child in her. She is unique, but she is a child and she is learning things,” Menkin said. “Everything that he does is there to support her because she is supporting him. She’s keeping him alive.”
Though he’s not a father himself, Menkin is “the world's best uncle.” He calls himself lucky for being part of “quite a few people's lives from the very beginning to seeing them grow to adults,” and he’s channeled that experience into his role as Hugh. Menkin said he’s had “so many frustrating conversations around a dinner table with kids, with teenagers, and with adults” about the state of the world. “The interesting thing is that I learn more from the frustrating conversations when I have them with younger people.”
He admires how younger people think, and how creative they can be. “That's this amazing thing that kids have brought to my life where they have made me think differently. And that's something that I brought into [the role],” Menkin said.
“But I will not give any of my nephews credit for any of this. I hope that is clear.”
As much as Pragmata is a “dad game,” it’s also an “adoption game.” In a way, Hugh adopts Diana just like how he was adopted himself, something that informed Menkin’s approach to the character. “[Early on] it was made very clear to me that Hugh was an orphan and that some adults who owed him nothing took him in and loved him and let him be exactly who he wanted to be,” he said.
Knowing that, Menkin had “the green light” to “make Hugh realize that he has no choice but to trust this android. [...] Part of his survival mechanism is to teach her, trust her, and help her understand the environment around her."
“Because he went all in, so did I,” Menkin said.
Image: Capcom via Polygon
One moment where Hugh lays his heart bare occurs at an artificial beach, which Menkin called the most emotional to record. Hugh and Diana arrive at an area of the moon base that’s constructed to look like a sandy beach. The sun sets as holographic water laps at their feet, and Hugh tells Diana about his house on the coast. She then decides she wants to go to Earth and see the beach for herself — the real beach.
Menkin said that sometimes, for these hard-hitting moments, he’ll suggest alternate takes or ask to try lines different ways as his personal experience informs his approach. Though the beach scene didn’t take much tinkering. Menkin praised the writers behind Pragmata for crafting that emotional moment, and he’s just grateful to have gotten the chance to do those words justice.
“[The narrative team members] haven't told me anything about their lives. I stand there in front of a microphone and sort of tell them why I'm pulling these things,” he said. “Here are these people that just delivered something beautiful to me, and then I have no idea [how]. I hope that I get to take them for very alcoholic drinks at some point, if they'll accept, so I can learn more about what made them write this beautiful story.”
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