As an actor, Doug Cockle is no stranger to unsettling workplaces. From battling Nazis in Spielbergâs Band of Brothers to rubbing shoulders with Christian Bale in dragon romp Reign of Fire, disappearing into a role on set â whatever the set may be â has become second nature. Yet when he landed his first video game role in 2001, Cockle found himself suddenly standing completely alone in a vocal booth.
âIt is bizarre,â he says. âYou just have to be in the character in that moment in that world, in your brain. On stage and screen, you have other actors, you have props, costumes ⦠all these things that are helping you do this thing called âactingâ. When youâre a voice actor, itâs just you in the booth and the director and the engineer on the other side of a glass wall, eating Jelly Babies.â
Cockle got into video game work while filling in his Hollywood downtime by contributing additional voices to PS2 games such as Timesplitters 2. Inadvertently he was laying the foundations for acting in this fledgling medium. He has now appeared in more than 45 video games, including last yearâs megahits Baldurâs Gate 3 and Alan Wake 2, though he is best known for voicing the gravelly Witcher, Geralt of Rivia.
âThere werenât a lot of voices in video games when I started out,â Cockle recalls. âThe kinds of voices that were in games then were Mario, where you just get a âwahoo! â⦠We were only just starting to see the really deep narrative storytelling that games are now known for.â
With no big name voice actors to emulate, Cockle channelled the gruff charisma of his childhood acting hero, Harrison Ford, in turn influencing a new generation of actors. âI think youâre like Harrison Ford, Doug,â interjects a smiling Ben Starr, the voice of Clive, Final Fantasy XVIâs stoic protagonist, âyouâre my Harrison Ford.â
Sharing my zoom window with Cockle are a smiling Starr and Xenoblade Chronicles 3âs Harry McEntire. Both Starr and McEntire have scored major roles in popular TV shows and West End productions. Yet following their respective lead turns in massive RPGs, the trio have joined forces to embark on a new kind of RPG adventure, Dungeons and Dragons improv series, Natural Six. Putting down the dice and damage sheets, the three actors enjoy a rare opportunity to inhabit a less fantastical world and talk shop together.
âYou very rarely get to play a protagonist,â explains Starr. âI think in this industry, a lot of people are famous for the quantity of the work that they do, rather than the characters themselves. Often you find people that have played 40 or 50 characters. Whereas I havenât ⦠Iâve played one. And what a gift to be given something to put your flag in the sand and say, âI got to shape that for people!ââ
âItâs rare,â Cockle agrees. âMost voice actors are doing the âthird Shepherd from the leftâ kind of roles, playing multiple NPCs [non-player characters] along the way.â
While he is best known for playing lovable villain Aethelwold in medieval Netflix drama, The Last Kingdom, McEntire reveals that he relished spending so much time with reluctant hero Noah in Nintendoâs 2022 RPG, Xenoblade Chronicles 3.
âIf you said, Iâm never going to be on screen or on stage again, but I can work as a voice actor consistently, I would bite your hand off for it,â Says Harry. âMy word count on Xenoblade is higher than three series of the Last Kingdom by an absolute country mile ⦠that depth of storytelling ⦠Itâs really appealing to me to be with a character in that sort of intense way.â
While Starr and McEntire were lucky enough to join an already established game series, Cockle had no indication that CD Projekt Redâs RPGs would become such a phenomenon. âNobody knew or cared really,â says Cockle. â[The Witcher] was a cult game. Until suddenly, it wasnât. Right up until about six months after Witcher 3 came out, I still didnât have a clue how big the game had become.â
Despite starring in BBC show Dickensian, three seasons of Sky period drama Jamestown and even British TV institution Casualty, for Starr, Final Fantasy XVI was the role of a lifetime.
âI was terrified!â he says. â[Final Fantasy] is a franchise that means so much to me. Itâs a huge risk to go into something and place yourself in a world where the thing that means the most to you could reject you. That was something that I was really, really scared about.â
Performing alongside stage and screen legend Ralph Ineson, Starr quickly learned that heâd need a new set of acting techniques to help him nail his dream gig. âI didnât realise how many of the skills that I learned in film and TV and theatre were really, really useful, and how many of them are actually quite a bit of a hindrance,â he says. âTo be able to sustain a character over 40 hours â for what is going to be the equivalent of six series of a television show â is really, really difficult. Because you can pick a voice that sounds amazing, but can you do it months later, on a rainy day in Stoke?â
Luckily for Starrâs inner child â and for his X mentions â Final Fantasy XVI launched to critical and fan acclaim, a return to form after the divisive 13th and 15th entries. âIâm so thankful that I donât have to hang my head in shame and never play a Final Fantasy game again!,â says Starr. âIâm constantly being tagged into in-game moments by fans ⦠My dream fulfilment is still happening, really. I feel so lucky to get to talk about not just this game, but the series of games that have shaped me as a person.â
While youâd expect most professional actors to covet the glitz and glamour of TV and film, the fantasy-loving trio all relish the freedom to experiment theyâre given in the booth. âThereâs a horrible feeling when youâre on a TV or film set, and the day is getting away from you, and you canât bring it back,â explains McEntire. âBut with VA, you can really hyper focus on your performance, because youâre not worrying about whether or not someoneâs hair is in the wrong place. Or if the other actor leaned into your shot.â
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âWe get to make mistakes,â adds Starr. âThere is a huge amount of pressure, obviously – but on a film set, [youâre rolling] however many 100,000 pounds worth of camera equipment so you canât just ask to keep trying takes.â
Yet for all the imagination-stirring perks and experimental freedom that comes from working with games, they also bring their unique set of challenges. âIâve only ever worked on one game where I got a full script. The rest of the time, youâre sent tiny little chunks of context,â says McEntire. âItâs an exercise in losing your ego. I really enjoy just having to trust that no oneâs gonna let me look foolish. At one point, I was doing a scene and they said, thereâs this monster, it might be a man, it might be a woman, or it might just be lots and lots of eyes. Could you maybe just give us some versions of all of that?â
âIn games you have to be the character, but also youâre telling the player what to do â the, âwow, look at this temple!â sort of nonsense,â adds Starr. âI love telling a character to look up at something, not having ever seen it myself. So itâs degrees of âjust how much does Clive wonder at this temple?â and how youâre going to have to modulate your performance to do that. I think a person who is an expert at this is [Horizon Zero Dawn actor] Ashly Burch â she does it so well.â
Though some gaming roles require full motion capture nowadays, many still just harness the performerâs voice; McEntire is grateful for this break from typecasting. âI am 5ft 5in, and I look how I look, and for my entire stage and screen career, I was playing 5ft 5in people who looked like me, and suddenly I can play anybody,â he says. âThe characters I played in Xenoblade, I would not have got anywhere near them on screen if they were making a TV adaptation.â
âVideo games enable stories that just canât be told anywhere else,â Starr says, reflecting on possibly unfilmable epics such as Jedi Survivor. âYou just do not have the budget [in film and TV] to tell the scope and scale of these stories.â
Yet for Cockle, his âunfilmable epicâ has been partly filmed, with the Witcher 3âs massive success seeing Geralt played by Henry Cavill in a Netflix live action series. â[Henry Cavill and I] have talked since, but before he was cast, he did an interview for Forbes where he was very generous and mentioned my performance as the inspiration for his approach to the voice of Geralt,â says Cockle.
What does the original Geralt make of Cavillâs attempt? âWhether youâre a fan of the Netflix series or not, Henry did a fantastic job,â says Cockle. âI remember sitting down to watch the first episode of season one at the premiere in London and being so nervous. I had no stake in this thing at all. But because I love the world and the character I play I just wanted to see justice done to it!â
In a twist of fate, Cavill recently left the live action series, and Cockle is now the one playing Geralt for Netflix, reprising his role for the upcoming The Witcher: Sirens Of The Deep animated series.
âI feel really blessed by that whole thing,â Cockle says. âI feel like Iâm part of this funny little club. There are only so many English-speaking Geralts in the world. Thereâs a Japanese Geralt. Thereâs a Spanish Geralt, but still, there are very few [Geralts]. Lots of people have played Hamlet â and Iâm not diminishing that at all, but it is interesting to be part of something that is so niche.â