Wheatley (Portal)

Concept and creation[edit]

Wheatley was first revealed in an alternate reality game released by Valve, the developer of the Portal series, in a screenshot of Portal 2 before its release, showing the player-character Chell holding him. Wheatley came from combining several ideas from multiple "personality cores" that the player would meet throughout the game. The idea was removed as it supposedly made the game feel too cluttered and the player never got to really learn about the multiple robots, so several were combined into the character of Wheatley. Wheatley was designed with the purpose of making a character who "you’d be seeing a lot". Erik Wolpaw added that Wheatley served as an "offset" of GLaDOS; while her voice is "slower-speaking and more deliberate", Wheatley is a "frantic person", which Erik says is performed well by Merchant due to being able to relay information quickly in his speech.^[1]


Merchant was chosen for the role both because the designers were fans of British comedy and because of Merchant's role in the television series Extras and his podcasts. Merchant was sent a package of Portal 2 material along with a request that he provide the voice of Wheatley. Merchant agreed to the role.^[2] Wheatley's characterisation was always designed with a British voice in mind.^[3] While they were writing Wheatley's dialogue, they had Merchant "in their heads" as a result of watching Extras, though at the time they did not consider pursuing him for the role because they did not think that they would be able to cast him. They were instead considering Richard Ayoade, up until they went to Merchant's agents.


Wheatley was also designed with the intention of writing a video game character who spoke informally which Wolpaw stated gave the sensation that the events were really happening and that this was something players do not often see in video games. He also stated that sidekicks in video games have never "sounded as if they were just making things up as you go along".^[3] While they later discovered that Merchant was famous in the United Kingdom, they noted that he was not chosen for his fame. Wolpaw noted that Merchant was the most famous actor that they had featured in one of their games.^[4] While they wrote a script for Wheatley, Merchant had an "improvisational style" that they let him employ in the dialogue. Merchant also spoke some of the written dialogue in a way that seemed improvisational, such as in the "reading and repetition of words".^[5] This was one of the qualities that made them want to cast Merchant.^[3]


Merchant himself has compared Wheatley's personality to characters typically played by Woody Allen, and noted that while initially he didn't know the gravitas of the role, reaction by others made him take the role a lot more seriously.^[6] He described the recording sessions as "exhausting", so much so that by the end he was "not looking forward to it", but once the project wrapped, he was overwhelmed with the fan response and would return for a sequel.^[6]


Original plans had Wheatley remain dead after being crushed by GLaDOS in the first chapter of the game, with her remaining as the main antagonist. The player would then meet six other spheres—including a paranoid sphere and a "Morgan Freeman sphere". This was changed, however, as the other spheres did not have enough time for the players to grow attached to them, and because playtesters missed Wheatley.^[7]