But what is it about a voice performance that really sticks with an audience and inspires them? For Gooden, Hinds, Metaxa, Reston, Wicks, and Yu, it comes down to character embodiment, acting and world building.
For example, Hinds, points to performances in animated series’ that made an early impact, saying: “Some of the first performances that spring to mind for me are Keith David as Spawn in the animated series and Cree Summers as Elmyra Duff and Susie Carmichael in the nineties Tiny Toon Adventures and Rugrats. Honestly, they redefined my understanding of vocal range and character embodiment. For Cree, it wasn’t just the incredible distinction between roles; it was how she inhabited each character with such boundless energy and comedic timing. Seeing how she could access that playful, spontaneous intensity through her physicalisation and how that fuelled the sound was a masterclass. It was one of the many performances from multiple talented voice actors that sparked my desire to bring that same level of detailed, embodied imagination into the interactive world!”
Gooden points to a performance that felt truly alive as something which has stuck with him, saying: “The first performance to really get me enamoured with both a franchise and the craft of voice acting was Dameon Clark’s Handsome Jack in Borderlands 2. That performance blended charm and humour with the ruthless mania of a power crazed tyrant who felt unpredictable and alive. His delivery was so iconic that I still find myself quoting those lines with the friends I played with years later, which says everything about how impactful it was.”
Metaxa highlights how comedy can really bring characters to life, recalling: “A big inspiration for my getting into this work is Dominic Armato, who played Guybrush Threepwood in the Monkey Island series of games. Comedy is the hardest genre to nail in my experience, both in games and on screen, and I feel like he brought Guybrush to life brilliantly. Monkey Island remains my favourite series to play.”
Meanwhile, Reston talks about rediscovering the world of games and the eye-opening, inspiring effect it has had. He reflects: “I went a slightly roundabout way into voicing video games as I hadn’t played them for a while when I got my first role in one, but I’ve more than made up for it since. Rediscovering games after twenty years was a totally mind-blowing experience in every way, but in terms of narrative and performance I would have to single out It Takes Two and Red Dead Redemption 2 as titles that completely redefined what was possible in a game performance for me – the acting is up there with the best any film has to offer.”
Wicks, finds it is the performances that grab the attention with their own distinctive voice that truly leave their mark. He says: “So many performance have inspired me! Growing up, the first performance that made me sit up and pay attention was Stephen Russell as Garrett in Thief. Then later on, Dark Souls was really inspiring. It really cultivated its own distinctive voice acting flavour. Every NPC is great. Daniel Flynn’s Solaire runs the gamut from utterly charming to tragic – one of the all-time greats and Pik-Sen Lim’s narration in the opening cinematic is properly iconic. A masterpiece of world-building: disarmingly strange, weirdly comforting, and it lodges in your brain forever – Lim made it magic.”
And Yu reflects on how the voicing of a Dr Seuss animation made a voice acting career seem possible. She says: “The Lorax with Danny DeVito – the Lorax was just so fun, grumpy, unrelenting, passionate and lovable. I remember watching BTS of the film after and learnt that DeVito also provided the Italian, German, Russian, and Spanish as well as the English. And I was like – I am an actor AND I speak three languages! I can do that too!”
