Exclusive: Wreck it Ralph star Sarah Silverman on why she turned down GTA

“Let’s not have kids kill hookers.”

‘Wreck it Ralph’ might be a cute Disney flick that pays affectionate homage to the world of videogames, but the writers at least allude to the whole ‘videogames are too violent’ debate (see the video below).

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We got serious and asked the cast their views, with comedian Sarah Silverman (who voices Venellope) revealing to Yahoo! Movies that she turned down a voiceover role in ‘Grand Theft Auto’ for precisely this reason.

She said: “I have to say I’m guilty of loving killing games,” said Silverman. “I love 007 and ‘Goldeneye’ - I mean like I knew every room and every nook-and-cranny.”

But the 42 year-old expressed her uneasiness about appearing in GTA: “I didn’t wanna do it, it just bummed me out.

“Let’s not kill hookers. Let’s not have kids kill hookers.”

‘Wreck-It Ralph’ himself, John C. Reilly, suggesting violence was just part of ‘complete’ video came world:

“You look at a video game from the era that ‘Wreck-It Ralph’s’ game comes from – ‘Packman’ and ‘Space Invaders’ – and you know, the technology limited what you could do.”

“They have gotten a lot more violent and a lot more scary and a lot more detailed. They’ve also gotten a lot more beautiful and a lot more cinematic. And the worlds are a lot more complete.”

Set in the fictional Litwak’s Arcade, ‘Wreck-It Ralph’ tells the story of John C. Reilly’s video-game villain Ralph, who for decades has been overshadowed by his game’s star ‘Fix-It Felix Jr. (voiced by Jack McBrayer). That is until Ralph decides to take matters into his own hands, and sets off on a journey through the generations of games that inhabit his arcade to prove he’s got what it takes to be a hero.

It’s all very ‘Toy Story’, having games come to life when no one is watching, but ‘Wreck-It Ralph’s’ hook is in the nostalgic promise of Disney’s re-visiting a generation of cult games from ‘Sonic The Hedgehog’ to ‘Street Fighter’. It’s an endearing pop-culture reference-fest that director Rich Moore is keen to highlight.

“I think it’s a nice commentary coming from a video game character from the 1980s – whose job was to break bricks or break a building while a guy fixed windows – to be dropped in the middle of ‘Halo’. What would he be thinking?”

“I would think that he would wonder, how did this happen? It’s so scary!”