Arthur Morgan’s Coughing Fits in Red Dead Redemption 2 Sound So Real Because Actor Roger Clark Was Actually Sick

Red Dead Redemption 2 actor Roger Clark has revealed that Arthur Morgan’s gnarly coughing fits were actually recorded when he was sick in real life.

I recently interviewed Roger Clark for a YouTube video about how Arthur Morgan from Red Dead Redemption was crafted. During our lengthy conversation, I was able to ask him something I’ve always wondered: How taxing is it to pretend to violently cough like Arthur does? According to Clark, it’s actually not that bad — and in some cases, he wasn’t even pretending.

“It’s not as bad as you’d think, because I had five years to spread it out,” said Clark. “If ever there was a really bad coughing scene, we’d always save it for the end of the day. So, it wasn’t as bad as you might think. I had five years to space it out. In five years, there’s plenty of colds. There was a lot of data we got that was pretty damn genuine. […] I’d be like ‘Hey, I’ve got a cold, let me get in there.’ And they’d be like, ‘Okay.’ […] Nice good bit of phlegm.”