Destiny and Destiny 2‘s Shaxx–the Crucible master who cheers us on, celebrates our victories, and laments our losses in multiplayer matches–has become increasingly more ridiculous as the game’s evolved. Some have even compared his often lengthy monologues marveling at players’ greatest accomplishments to Shakespearean epics.
Turns out that wasn’t far off the mark. The actor behind Shaxx, Lennie James, revealed to GameSpot a line of dialogue he recorded for Shaxx that’s never been heard, and it’s straight out of Romeo and Juliet.
“My relationship to the game is that every few months, whichever city I am in in the world, I get a telephone call saying ‘[Bungie] would like to lock you in a room for four hours and have you speak a lot of lines that you have no idea the relevance of,'” James told us while discussing his role in Blade Runner 2049.
“This time last week, I was just about to go into the studio to do another three-hour session for another add-on that they’re bringing out for Destiny 2 in the next few months,” he continued.
When we asked him what his favorite Shaxx line of all is, he surprised us by reciting one that’s never been heard.
“There is one where he kind of quotes Shakespeare,” James said. “‘But soft! What light through yonder window breaks? It is the East, and I–I am the Crucible.'”
The literary nerds out there will recognize that as a nearly direct quote from Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet: “But soft! What light through yonder window breaks? It is the east, and Juliet is the sun.” It’s totally something Shaxx would say, although with the way game development works, it might also never make it into the game at all.
“That was quite good fun,” James said. “[Shaxx] has become a little bit full of himself!”
James is open about the fact that he’s not a gamer and has little idea what Destiny is actually about. That makes it even funnier for him when he goes in the booth to record all of Shaxx’s over-the-top lines of dialogue.
“Each time I go in the room, I get an update on how popular Lord Shaxx is and how popular the Crucible part of the game is becoming,” he said. “I’m constantly staggered by how many Destiny fans there are out there and, you know, strangely, I do really enjoy being Lord Shaxx. It’s a fun three hours of talking to myself.”
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