GOD OF WAR Star Christopher Judge Auditioned For The Live-Action Series Before His Body Told Him "You Don't Want to Do This"

Christopher Judge has spent years bringing Kratos to life in PlayStation’s God of War games, so naturally, plenty of fans wanted to see him make the jump to live action. It turns out Judge wanted to see if he could pull it off too.

The 62-year-old actor has revealed that he actually auditioned to play Kratos in Prime Video’s upcoming God of War TV series. He even started packing on muscle for the part. But as he got further into the process, Judge realized that playing the Ghost of Sparta on television would require a commitment he simply didn’t want to make anymore.

The conversation around Kratos intensified after Ryan Hurst tore his bicep on the set in July, forcing production to pause and leaving the series searching for a replacement. Fans immediately started throwing out their preferred choices, and Judge was obviously high on a lot of those lists.

Instead, Dave Bautista was ultimately cast as Kratos. Judge has been the voice and performance-capture actor behind Kratos since the character’s Norse-era reinvention, making him inseparable from the role for a huge portion of the God of War fanbase. So, the idea of him playing the character in live action wasn’t exactly far-fetched.

During an appearance at FanExpo Canada, Judge explained that he seriously considered taking on the role, partly because he loved the idea of leaving something special behind for his grandson. He said:

"We had talked, and I thought, 'God, what a great legacy to leave for my grandson.' So I started working out. I got bigger. Then, just the reality of it... because I did read! I did read for it. It was so hard for me to memorize my lines, which I never had a problem with.

“And that was my mind and body starting to tell me, 'You don't want to do this.' I was one of the leads of Stargate at 33 to 44 and then stopped. Now, at 62, to be the lead, I just have no desire to live that way again."

That’s completely understandable. Judge knows exactly what it means to carry a major television series. He spent more than a decade playing Teal’c on Stargate SG-1, and returning to that kind of demanding production schedule at 62 clearly wasn’t something he wanted.

Playing Kratos would also be a monster of a physical job. This isn’t a character who spends most of his time sitting around having conversations. Between the action, training, costumes, stunt work, long shooting days, and the responsibility of leading a huge fantasy production, it would be a serious grind.

Judge ultimately listened to what his mind and body were telling him.

As for Bautista taking over the role, Judge is rooting for him. His main concern is the physical transformation that could come with playing Kratos. Bautista, 57, has lost a significant amount of weight in recent years, and Judge hopes he doesn’t put his health at risk trying to bulk back up.

Judge said: "First of all, I want anything God of War to be great...With Ryan, I thought that was absolutely the right choice. He's played all the games. He's a gamer and new father; like, who better?

“Then when he got hurt, it was like, are they going to take time to read with and call people back? So when I heard the name of Bautista, I thought, 'Didn't he just lose like 100 pounds?' So I hope he's going to be great. I think he's going to be great. I just hope it doesn't cause any health issues to put back on all that weight."

It’s also interesting that Judge initially considered Hurst such a strong choice. Hurst already had a connection to the franchise and understood the games, which clearly mattered to Judge. With Hurst sidelined by injury, Bautista now has the enormous task of making live-action Kratos his own.

Prime Video has already committed heavily to God of War, ordering two seasons consisting of 20 episodes that are expected to shoot back-to-back. That schedule made replacing Hurst especially important. Production is currently paused and is expected to resume in mid-October.

Amazon first announced its plans for a God of War television adaptation in December 2022, but the project went through a major creative overhaul along the way.

Ronald D. Moore, whose credits include Battlestar Galactica, Outlander, and For All Mankind, took over as showrunner in October 2024. He replaced Rafe Judkins, while executive producers Hawk Ostby and Mark Fergus also departed following creative differences.

The series will adapt the more recent God of War games centered on Norse mythology rather than beginning with Kratos’ original Greek-era PlayStation adventures.

That gives the show a much more complicated version of the character to work with: an older Kratos carrying the weight of his violent past while trying to become a better father to Atreus.

Moore previously explained what he wants the adaptation to capture: "The tone of the show is trying to emulate the tone of the game, which is this epic journey- this heartfelt journey of these two men setting out to honor the memory of Kratos' wife and Atreus' mother.

“So it has this emotional heart but there's this sense of history of who Kratos is and this mystery of his past and what he represents and the emotions that he's going through."

The Leviathan Axe now belongs to Bautista, and Judge will be watching with the rest of us, hoping the new Kratos crushes it without crushing himself in the process.