Troy Baker and Nolan North: MCM Interview
I think introductions won’t be necessary considering how much of an A lister the two of you are in the games industry, Nolan North in the incredibly Indiana series that is Uncharted and Troy Baker’s emotional show stopper of The Last of Us. It feels like an absolute honor to be chatting with two of biggest names in video game voice acting. How are you guys feeling? I have to assume since MCM Comic Con is here you’ve probably been doing quite a bit of travelling?
I like him, I’ve been here for over a week now. I came to promote, something we should all talk about. This is a new game, the first I’ve been producing, it’s a mobile game based on a TV show I’ve done with Alan Tudyk and Nathan Fillion, from FireFly, he’s in Rogue One now. We did a TV show, I think on iTunes now, but it’ll be distributed here in Europe and the UK December 8th. Right now there’s a mobile game where you build your own convention and you manage it. So that’s why I’ve been here for the week, and then tacked on, you got here what?
I got here Wednesday.
Wednesday and it’s been post shift. The rest of it’s been fun here at the con.
What food would best describe you?
What food would be describe me? Why do they always ask the questions when they have a few minutes. Go if you know already.
Mine would be Mexican because it’s tasty and spicy, but you always regret it in the morning.
I’m not following that man.
That’s okay.
Mine is… Steak, probably steak, good ol’ steak, steak and taters. Indian. Probably because I give you diarrhea. You always regret it.
Well you definitely do leave an impression on people so.
Yeah a big runny one, not the answer you were expecting was it Owen? You know what, fried chicken! Cuz it’s oily and greasy and, but it makes you feel good.
Ah, that’s not bad.
I’m fried chicken because it’s greasy, but, you like it.
It’s comfort food.
I’m comfort food, I don’t know Owen, I give you diarrhea.
I was thinking Creme Brulee but okay. Is there a movie that you love to see converted to a videogame or vice versa?
I think Girl with the Dragon Tattoo would be a brilliant game. I think it would have intrigue, it would have battles, it would have fighting, a female lead (which would be brilliant) and I would like to play Mikael Blomkvist. [to Troy Baker] Hands off, you could play Lisbeth Salander.
Thank you.
We could easily mocap that.
I actually think that, has anyone seen After Earth? Not the best movie, but would’ve been a great game. The built in mechanics are there. You have to fight against aliens and the way you do that is by building up your lack of fear factor, that’s awesome. Gary Whitta is the writer for it, he’s done Star Wars and Book of Eli. I would love to see After Earth and it’s also something quite interesting, not only because it has someone of colour but it’s also someone that’s a kid as the lead. We have The Last Guardian coming out with a kid being the lead. But I’d love to see more of that because, not just because of the audience of kids, there’s something uniquely dangerous about that. And it’s something we all want to experience when we play a game, we’re kinda really just kids running around. So yeah, After Earth would be a great game.
Girl with the Dragon Tattoo for sure. Oh and The Con Man Show, wait. That’s already a game!
That's a good plug.
Am I pushing? It goes back to the whole diarrhea joke there.
Leaving an impression.
Yes I am, she’s going to strangle me if I continue this. One more right?
Yeah one more, shouldn’t be too long. What makes great voice acting direction?
Diarrhea… I had to do it, I had to take the shot.
Who’s your personal lord and saviour? Diarrhea. To me, method is bullshit, it’s trying to create something that isn’t real. Neil Druckmann is really good at this, his best directing/direction has always been: What do you think? It’s really about: “listen it’s really about you, we’ve trusted you with this character. Own it and you tell me what it feels like and then try it. If it doesn’t work we’ll try something else”. But for me, as opposed to a director telling you what to do, where there’s no ownership or agency in the choice or that decision. It’s about being able to go think dig deep man, really do the work and tell me what this character wants to do. Those are always the directions I like.
I think a really good director will really fill in the details of the context of the situation. Sometimes we just get our lines, I mean he’s [Toby] talking about Neil and The Last of Us and Uncharted. But that’s where we had the whole story and whole scenes. Sometimes we go into a game and it’s just your lines, and you’re like okay. You don’t even get see the person’s lines. So a good director will say what’s happening, this is the world and help you get into that spot. With performance capture, he was dead on what he said, with everything that I remember is being specific. Being specific if it’s performance capture, being specific with what you want to do.
Not just playing an emotion.
In a simple thing, not just playing an emotion, then like: “oh I’m going to grab a cup and doing something”. No, there should be a cup there. We always put things in the cup, so be very specific with your intention and movement and things like that. Not being “we should go that way” [gestures upwards away], in general, not just the opposite. Frick it, diarrhea.
Thanks for taking the time to answering my questions.
Awesome, thank you Owen.
Good questions, good questions.
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