this post was submitted on 01 Jul 2025
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‘There Isn’t Much Sway Held by Past Success’: Baldur’s Gate 3 actors reveal it hasn’t boosted their careers (www.videogameschronicle.com)
submitted 2 days ago by inclementimmigrant@lemmy.world to c/games@lemmy.world
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[–] Coelacanth@aggregatet.org 93 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Samantha Béart (who plays Karlach in the game), Theo Solomon (Wyll) and Dave Jones (Halsin) were asked how the success of the game had changed their lives and careers.

Okay listen I don't want to sound rude, but I'm not that surprised. Maybe Karlach deserves a bit more recognition but while both Wyll and Halsin were both fine and perfectly adequate, I can't say that either was the kind of memorable performance that gets you tons of new roles. Though it's also in part due to the script and direction of course.

[–] TheLowestStone@lemmy.world 51 points 2 days ago (3 children)

Got to agree. The voice work that really stood out in my opinion was done by Amelia Tyler (narrator) and Devora Wilde (Lae'zel). Everyone else was good and I REALLY enjoyed Karlach. I even did a play through with her as the origin character but it was because of the character design and writing more than the voice acting.

[–] scops@reddthat.com 30 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I would add Neil Newbon to the list that really stood out. I thought his acting through the end of Astarion's quest line was the best in the game.

[–] moakley@lemmy.world 7 points 2 days ago

It's been over a year and I still think about him pleading with himself, trying to decide what to do.

[–] SpaceNoodle@lemmy.world 14 points 2 days ago (2 children)

And not because you want to marry Karlach

[–] themoonisacheese@sh.itjust.works 5 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Would they want to marry her if her voice acting was shit though?

[–] TheLowestStone@lemmy.world 2 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Definitely not shit but nothing special either.

[–] SpaceNoodle@lemmy.world 12 points 2 days ago

The way she says "fuck yes" does it for me

[–] CosmoNova@lemmy.world 3 points 2 days ago

The game had a huge cast with many memorable characters and moments. Not everyone was going to shine through especially with some fantastic performances like you mentioned.

I think the title of the post is just deceiving and should be changed to the title of the actual article. And perhaps the article title was changed too but it is a more accurate title of the situation.

[–] CosmoNova@lemmy.world 54 points 2 days ago (2 children)

You can‘t deny it did boost Jennifer English‘s career to a high degree. You could say it‘s not all about her role as Shadowheart alone but it definitely helped kickstart her online presence. She went from voicing children side characters to being one of the most prolific and recognizable voices in gaming within two years and I doubt her role in Expedition 33 where she was heavily featured in promotional material was the last we‘ve heard of her.

[–] NuXCOM_90Percent@lemmy.zip 37 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Did it?

Checking https://www.imdb.com/name/nm10804818/ and it doesn't look like she became particularly more popular than she was prior to BG3

Which is kind of the point. YOU recognize her and so do a lot of gamers. But... that doesn't translate to getting cast by studios.

[–] CosmoNova@lemmy.world -2 points 2 days ago (2 children)

This isn’t about me or my perception. I am saying this because she said so herself and the Imdb Page you linked tells the same story. She broke her mold with Shadowheart and now she is getting much bigger and more diverse roles. But feel free to tell me about a game prior to BG3 where she took center stage for marketing like she did for Expedition 33.

[–] bjoern_tantau@swg-empire.de 9 points 2 days ago (1 children)

She literally talks all the time about how she doesn't get any offers all of the sudden. She probably did at least once in one of her last four streams. She just has become pickier with what she auditions for. But she still has to audition like everyone else.

[–] CosmoNova@lemmy.world 3 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

She just has become pickier with what she auditions for.

Most actors in gaming are certainly not becoming pickier with AI looming at the horizon so this is a strong sign that she is in fact doing very good. Certainly better than voicing Child #5 in Original Sin 2. And that's literally the entire point I'm trying to get across here.

[–] NuXCOM_90Percent@lemmy.zip 4 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (2 children)

What story do you think her imdb page tells? Because she has consistently done 2-3 roles per year since 2022. And a lot of those are games that have been in dev a long time. Like, that covid stretch is likely what led to consistently getting 2-3 releases each year since '22.

Also... is she major marketing for E33? I don't watch a lot of commercials these days but mostly if ANY VA is involved it is Cox or Starr. Like, I think Alice Duport-Percier (the singer of Alicia) has gotten more face time across the various youtube ads and what not than anyone else (and rightfully so. That song contributes so much to the Vibes of such a Vibes based game).

But either way: That doesn't actually change the point. The BG3 VAs pretty much all knocked it out of the park. And that isn't translating to meaningful increase in roles.

Which has come up a lot over the years. Very few VAs see major success even after bringing EVERYONE to tears with how good of a performance they gave. And the Troy Bakers (and Laura Baileys) of the world are a whole different argument.

Just to add on. A twitch streamer I semi-regularly watch is also a pretty successful VA and she has talked about this in the past. People might say that she MADE a game with her performance but that doesn't translate to future castings. So she can be in mobile trash one year and a GOTY contender the next and still get roughly the same bookings and checks per year.

Which is probably why so much of the BG3 cast were super eager to work with Digital Extremes. Partially because DE and Reb are awesome. But mostly because live service games area potentially a great source of stable income since they'll need a few lines every year for N years.

[–] Ashtear@lemmy.zip 3 points 2 days ago

Hard to talk about it without getting into spoilers, but Gustave (Cox's role) was very much a leading face of the game in marketing, and I strongly suspect that was solely because they thought the game would sell better with a male lead.

[–] CosmoNova@lemmy.world -1 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

Those roles are tiny. Like I don‘t even know why you‘re so strongly against the idea that she wasn‘t that big before. You literally just have to look up her actual roles.

And yes she was a major factor of the marketing campaign. Again, you just have to look up the trailers.

[–] Apeman42@lemmy.world 11 points 2 days ago (3 children)

I've no doubt she'll continue to do well, but I'm not sure BG3 directly helped her get the role, other than making her voice recognizable to people. I read an article that said that Sandfall did blind voice auditions for E33. They didn't even know they'd chosen Charlie Cox until after the fact.

[–] CosmoNova@lemmy.world 3 points 2 days ago

She probably did more work on BG3 alone than all previous works combined though. The experience alone boosted their performance immensely. Neil Newbon compared his 4 years at the studio with 4 seasons of shooting a TV show and his role was about the same size as Jennifer‘s. BG3 wasn‘t just any job. Especially not for her. Anyone who actually follows her can attest to that. To say it didn‘t change the trajectory of her life and career takes some serious ignorance.

[–] bjoern_tantau@swg-empire.de 7 points 2 days ago

Yeah, apparently the director and writer of E33 were actually playing BG3 at the time of the casting. But they didn't recognise her voice at all. They just knew that they had found the right one for the role.

It's also saying something that they cast Andy Serkis and didn't use him for performance capture. That was all done before the voice recordings. Recording over already finished performance was an entirely new experience for him.

[–] Stovetop@lemmy.world 3 points 2 days ago

Agreed, I think it's more that Jennifer English is out there putting in the work to get as many solid gigs as she can, BG3 being just one of several.

[–] SkunkWorkz@lemmy.world 26 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

The industry rather wants to hire Troy Baker for every project. Also voice actors, even in animation, rarely get a career boost after a single popular project. Even for live action actors it’s rare. Like how many actors that played in Lost still play in high profile projects.

[–] Arcane2077@sh.itjust.works -2 points 2 days ago

Lost is a notable exception BECAUSE it’s an exception. The latter half of your comment is nonsense

[–] inb4_FoundTheVegan@lemmy.world 30 points 2 days ago

That's honestly heart breaking, all three gave exceptional performances. I hope in time people will understand the artistic merit in both voice acting and video games as a medium, but these people deserved to skyrocket into their own franchises.

[–] Pistcow@lemmy.world 18 points 2 days ago

I mean, the video game industry is about as good as the record industry for its treatment of talent. "You should want to do this for free" seems to be the motto of 8-figure executives.

[–] ampersandrew@lemmy.world 9 points 2 days ago

It's a weird dynamic, but it also makes sense that a success like that isn't as correlated to future work as TV or movies. You got <insert big actor here...I don't know...Tom Cruise> in all sorts of movies because they put asses in seats. The performance is comparatively much more of the appeal in a movie than it is in a game, even a story-driven one. So even if you give an award-winning performance, how important to a game's success is an award-winning performer? For plenty of games, probably not very. And even if it is important for a particular game's success, maybe the award winner is more expensive, and you can get a good performance out of someone who's a great actor but hasn't had that exposure and is willing to do it for less money.

[–] dogslayeggs@lemmy.world 4 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I did two full playthroughs plus a lot of restarts mid-way to try different endings or different side things. The only voice I can clearly hear in my head is the mage, whose name I can't even remember. I can't even remember what my own character's voice sounded like (the vampire).

[–] GrantUsEyes@lemmy.zip 8 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

Tim Downey is Gales' voice actor (the mage), he was also the only one to use his real voice for the role. Astarion's voice acting (the vampire) is very memorable as well (by Neil Newbon), but if you play as any of the characters you barely hear them, or so I've heard.(haven't done it myself)

[–] Stovetop@lemmy.world 6 points 2 days ago (1 children)

but if you play as any of the characters you barely hear them, or so I've heard.(haven't done it myself)

This is the case. There are a small set of instances where the character might get a one-off voice line, but in general you're left mute, even during high impact story moments where the character would usually get a spotlight (e.g. Astarion confronting Cazador).

It's just a bit of a shame because you'd think people would opt to play characters they like because they want to experience more of them while playing, but ironically you get less that way.

[–] GrantUsEyes@lemmy.zip 3 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Maybe playing as an origin character would require a whole buch of "internal dialoge" that added too much extra work, so they scrapped it. Its indeed a shame 'cause you are right, I'd like to experience more of said character. So in the end it's counter intuitive. ( I can't imagine a mute Astarion during the Cazador scene! Wtf)

[–] Stovetop@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

That's exactly it, they have the ability to go about certain scenes in different ways.

I still only have the Astarion/Cazador example, because that's the only origin character I played as, but one moment I remember as different between Astarion as party member versus Astarion as player is the conversation with his former lover Sebastian before confronting Cazador.

In my playthrough with Astarion as an NPC, he basically auto-piloted through most of that conversation. He remembered who Sebastian was, it was somewhat touching, and the player was able to ask Astarion questions for context.

In my playthrough as Astarion as the player, you can navigate that conversation in different ways, but there are also certain things that are no longer a given. You actually have to roll to remember who Sebastian is (which I flubbed) and that changes the course of the conversation away from the NPC "default" conversation.

Edit: I found some examples of that specific scene on YouTube, to compare the differences.

Astarion as a Party Member

Astarion as an Origin Character

[–] GrantUsEyes@lemmy.zip 2 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Oh nooo it's bad.But it also kinda lets you "roleplay"the character so there's that ... I was considering a Karlach origin run but maybe not. :/ pointless .