Red Alert 3 - Why The Actors? EA Explains

The next installment of Electronic Arts' Command & Conquer RTS franchise for PC and Xbox 360, Red Alert 3, is just about ready to roll, hitting North American retail at the end of this month.

Ahead of the title's release, preview trailers generated buzz and amusement over one of the game's most standout decisions -- to incorporate real actors like Tim Curry, J.K. Simmons, Jenny McCarthy and George Takei for hyperbolic cinematics.

In some ways, this is clearly an intentional nostalgic echo of earlier C&C games, which were some of the first to use high-quality filmed full-motion video in the 1990s.

But why do it in 2008? Gamasutra recently sat down with EA Los Angeles senior producer Amer Ajami and producer Greg Kasavin, who played "a little bit" of a role in the decisions and casting around the live-action cinematics.