Summer movie champ Will Smith starred in the Oscar-nominated “I, Robot” as Del Spooner, a Chicago detective in a world of worker robots. In the movie, Spooner investigates the death of the founder of U.S. Robotics, which is supposed to have been a suicide. His key suspect is the robot Sonny, played by Tudyk.

A lot of people did not know I did Sonny the Robot in I, Robot, and there is a reason. They were doing test audiences for the movie, and they score the characters in this kind of test screening. I got word back: ‘Alan, you are testing higher than Will Smith.’ And then I was gone. I was done. There was no publicity, and my name was not mentioned.

Smith played Del Spooner, a detective prejudiced against robots in a future where the semi-autonomous androids are commonplace. Tudyk played Sonny, a robot who helps the cantanker