You may remember, back when this trailer for Death Stranding 2: On the Beach dropped, that fans noted the resemblance between performer Luca Marinelli and Metal Gear Solid's main character.
Well, his appearance was so convincing that even he thought he was playing Snake in Kojima Productions' imminent sequel.
Revealed by Hideo Kojima speaking at Sydney Film Festival, it turns out that Marinelli saw himself in the aforementioned trailer and briefly believed his character was in fact Solid Snake.
Kojima asked Marinelli what he thought of his reveal in the trailer, and apparently he said "Oh Snake is wonderful. I'm so happy to be Snake."
Kojima had to quickly clarify, telling him "No, you're not Snake. You just have a bandana on your head!"
It's an unusual conclusion for the actor to draw, given that, by that point, most of his performance capture was likely done, and he presumably knew details about his character, Neil.
Perhaps he thought he was Snake all along, and was kept in the dark to prevent leaks? Did he connect the dots between Kojima and MGS and make an assumption? Could he simply have been joking? We'll probably never know exactly, but it's pretty amusing nonetheless.