🔴Gale Actor Tim Downie talks BALDUR'S GATE 3, Romance Scenes and Funny Moments

welcome to the show Tim Downey everybody you may know him as Gail from bowlersgate three made it as an absolute pleasure and honor how are you very well my friend very very well yeah it's uh what is it Sunday morning here in Ottawa um I've been on night shoots so I'm a little bit I don't know what day it is I literally don't know what day it is could be Saturday could be Sunday who cares in one respect who knows what what's a night shoot live talk us through that as an actor a night shoot what are we talking in terms of how it's all operating oh it's it's something we all live in dread of you will spend because they'll they'll work it on a split day so you'll do a full a full normal day the day before and then they've got to give you things 12 hours off so you'll finish on like the Monday evening and then sort of Tuesday evening at about seven o'clock at night will be the beginning part of your day so then but they'll structure it like it's a normal day so you will get to work at seven o'clock in the evening or so what do you want for breakfast which just completely throws you because everything is the same but it's dark it's completely dark and it's seven o'clock at night and then you'll work through all the way through till um till Sun up which is about seven o'clock in the morning so you'll do a full full night which is quite heavy one is all right but then we've done a week of them so it's like oh my God so are you a morning or night person usually you know what I think when I was younger I was a night owl real night owl and then as I've got older I've become much more of a morning person I think kids also do that to you they force you to do that you don't really have a choice in the matter so I will suddenly find myself like at six o'clock in the morning going well I'm wide awake now so which is they're not good when you're doing a night shoot because I will wake up at six or seven in the morning going what are you doing what are you doing go back to bed this instant but you can't bring them with you for these troops can you I'm guessing you're missing them at the moment yeah very very much I really am missing them um but no it's not it's not good because you know fun you just like oh yeah let's come to Canada yeah it'd be great but dad's still got to get up at like five o'clock in the morning and go to work so the fun of all wearing kind of well off you go you go and you go and amuse yourself in a city you don't know where anything is and I have no idea how the transport system works and I'm gonna go and then come back probably when you're in bed so yeah it's uh their best their best at home with uh with their friends and everything and knowing what they're doing are you allowed to say what for what you're in Canada for yeah it's um yeah Netflix series called geek girl um which is based on a series of books young adult books by Holly smale and uh yes I play Holly's uh Dad I've reached that part of my casting Dan wow next phase but that with that little yeah well that ticks over you go I'm here now I see I sing um uh yeah but it's it's great it's a really lovely cast great crew um and the story is uh it's all modern day which is quite unique for me because usually I'm in just ye oldie costumes yeah even we Baldur's Gate is not exactly jeans and a t-shirt so you get used to uh you get used to that um but it's lovely yeah so it's always about Harriet manners um who uh girl girl at school always been a diff bit different to her friends and contemporaries and then gets diagnosed with autism so then the story is then about celebrating neurodiversity um and saying you know you can still have a wonderful life of friends and career and family and Prospects and fun and happiness and all of that so it's a very positive message yeah it's a lovely thing to be a part of and speaking of books I know you're a big book reader that that bookshelf for yours at home is incredible I'm at all of that thank you thank you thank you it has taken many many years and many minor battles with my wife to say no it needs to be it needs to be here and as groaning as it is I need every book here how many times that doesn't matter don't get into the details of how many times I've read it doesn't matter about that I need all those I need all those books I need all my first edition Philip K dicks and JG ballards I need them all just in case somebody says do you know a good book I can go ah yes I was about to ask you now what would you pick out as a as a good recommendation to Baldur's Gate 3 fans off the collection now that that is an absolute Hummer of a question I would probably go some Clive Barker do you know what that's probably quite a good solid place to start one of the greatest fantasists I would argue of all time and World Builders so you know imagica for instance is an extraordinary kind of just crosses times and worlds and Galaxy all kinds of things and he doesn't hold back as well Clive Barker obviously known for Hellraiser and um cabal and those kind of books and the Scarlet gospels and so it's very very visceral and trying to be imitated many many times and never bettered I think so something by Clive Barker I'll go image is quite big start with cabal I would say which was night breed which was made into night breed uh with David Cronenberg uh playing the Baddie there spoiler um he was uh he was in that big uh big Barker fan but uh was ruined in the classically ruined in the edit the edit of that was supposed to be this big sprawling epic and then the studios narrowed it down to like an hour and a half and then there's been there's been a re-edit to uh reinstate the full Clive Barker director's cut off that and it's brilliant I love it are you a film buff massive film Buffy do you know what we didn't go and see oppelheimer but we did go and see Barbie and uh I loved it I was really I thought this is a beautiful piece of filmmaking it's stunning a little details that I really enjoyed like for instance Barbie's dream house is 22 smaller than the human size because Barbie itself is 22 too big for like the Barbie car and the Barbie house and so they integrated that into the making of anything that's detailing I appreciate that and the fact they ran out of pink paint there was a shortage in the UK of pink paint because of that film no really yeah apparently so apparently so so much of it to paint all the sets there was a shortage of paint love that you got to give him marketing props because there was a billboard I think it was here in Australia it was just pink that's it yeah nothing else you know and that when do you see that power for that you don't it's like the one word names it's like share or Madonna you don't need no I don't need surnames I don't need that just you think you could get away with that Tim there's gonna be one of the blindest signs you'll ever you'll ever think Tim what could that what could that I mean it would just breathe like uh yeah great Tim like Tim the enchanter is probably the only well that may be great from Dalton and that kind of thing but you know we're we're limited we're Limited in Tim's while we're on um film who's your favorite filmmakers who watch some of your favorite films just quickly my Fae but the films I return to again and again and again are The Shining great film yeah which I just absolutely adore I love Kubrick and I love that and I love Jack Nicholson as well so the combination of that just superb um I would go quite old school like I really love Bergman ingma Bergman Swedish director from there 1940s stuff but some of his work some his it is so dark and challenging and I would recommend the seventh seal if no one's seen it it's the classic classic film they parody all the time most famous parody is obviously Bill and Ted where they play Death plays battleships and that is one of the opening sequences they don't play battleships in bergman's ever seal they play chess on the shores of the Swedish coast and it's the challenge of death is coming to take the night during this time of plague and he Bargains with him during the chess game for a bit more time but it is dark and it's it's gray and it asks questions so I will always go back to that and then if I wanted lighter Buster Keaton is an absolute because I love comedy so Buster Keane's the general is an absolute Sunday but I'll put that on I was gonna say what's some dumb comedy what's some dumb comedies you like you know just no brains needed just sit back relax have a bit of fun mine's happy oh that's a great film yeah that's really fun that's really fun I'll put on a Mel Brooks like Young Frankenstein was the film I grew up with and I just find that that's real comfort blanket stuff that is you just put it on and you let Gene Wilder just just blow you away did you watch Faulty Towers growing up oh yeah oh yeah geez I feel absolutely uh I mean I'm English of course I watched it I thought so but watch it that's a funny show I'll tell you oh it's just relentlessly good and clever and just just all together with just physical comedy and funny lines and just brilliantly perform do you think yeah that's that's amazing and there's only 12. they didn't know there is only 12. so that's well done well done it's tough to do these days with all the sequels and that everything yes and all the money being thrown at it but it's it's good to con you know because obviously the BBC wanted to do wanting to do more but they said no that's that's it good on them so talk to me about this is your first ever game right Boulder Escape 3. yo yeah first ever game you pick one of the greatest games in in years how did you manage what are the chances eh what are the charges waiting I'm dividing my time down yeah biting my time I know I I know my stuff I do my research no it was just complete fluke and luck and it's just one of those things that came in and they said you want to audition for this and I said yeah okay great what am I doing oh uh there's a couple of parts and I was looking at what the parts were and one was a cambian devil cambian demon that was one of them which was probably the one I went oh that's quite fun playing some sort of winged devil yeah that sounds that sounds great I'd love to do that and the other one was Gail okay great and some of the um references for that were were the one they mainly mentioned was uh Henry Carville from the Tudors so I thought well I'm an absolute spit I mean obviously I look absolutely identical even better actually even better thank you Dan thank you um so I thought okay well I'll I'll try for both and just see what happens so you send them off and you wait and then they came back and they said they love you to play let me play this and you know you still don't know what the game is you still don't know what the name is even though that would mean nothing to me whatsoever but that was all very kind of kept on under wraps and it was just like a fantasy it was a fantasy game so I thought great fantasy love fantasy big into that anyway yeah this would be this will be a lot of fun but were you trepidatious knowing that it was a game because you're not very familiar with this landscape totally totally totally totally so I was literally starting from Ground Zero like I don't understand or I hadn't been shown what the kind of narratives and structures are of actually putting together a game what a game means how it all kind of strings together how you record it do you learn the lines do you not learn the lines what exactly goes in goes into making it goes into the kind of just the nuts and bolts of it so it was you were literally learning on on the job of kind of thinking okay well these are the lines you get the script um beforehand for your session you go through it you kind of make your choices and then when they throw in the element of oh it's also it's also mocap you go oh great okay and you know you think you you think you know mocab because you've seen those pictures of Marvel films going oh yeah okay I'll be in there morph suit that's that's what that is and I'll be doing all that and it's all very different and then you kind of grow it is a gradual slow process of working out what can I do what what what can't I do is this a good thing to do I'm giving too much of a screen performance and so it's not it's not registering because obviously you're you're capturing it and also there's a whole world behind you that you just you have to make up you have to kind of say okay I'm I'm standing here now and there's a dragon and there's a hustle and there's a horde of drought okay what's a drought what's that what does that look like oh we'll find we'll find a picture it looks like this all right that's cool and there's lots of them yeah they're horrible things oh okay great oh all right okay okay all right we'll do it and so I found it just an extraordinary big steep learning curve I think I went in far too it's kind of casual kind of thinking oh it's going to be like voice over in a few little bits that's going to be that's going to be fine and then the full scale of work that is needed not even knowing what the game is but just the the Artistry of what is needed to create in a completely different medium was extraordinary was like wow okay this is this is a real skill this is a real art to doing this and doing it well and convincingly and marrying together voice and physical work so yeah I found it like a yeah a very much a baptism by a fire in those first good few sessions probably a couple of months of sessions um to kind of bed it in and think okay and how I want to move this character on how what what is the character I want to I want to play in this how do I want him to be so that was a very interesting was the first scene that where we made him was that the first sin you ever shot oh I've got absolutely no idea what my first seat was but I think the first the first scene when you're meeting was probably recorded um probably two years into it well I would say something like that quite late so we kind of start you kind of start in the middle you kind of start as the writers have kind of plonked in and that's quite a filmic thing you don't usually start with the first things because you because you've got to kind of find where you are anyway so you start a bit further in and then go back so you've got more of a A run-in or you know more of what the character is and what the sound of it is so I was I was nervous in the sense of going okay well I hope I can do this well but the magnitude of it didn't come into play because I had no idea what it was and no one told me what it was so you just kind of go okay well um hopefully it's it'll it'll do this and maybe I'll just try a little bit of that and this and that and I think it was in those early days and I thought I think I should make him a little bit funnier I don't want him to be too serious I think that maybe that's that's gonna be quite an interesting character thing and I don't know if that's appearing in games appeared in games a lot or not or it's not within the genre or not I just thought you know what that's a skill set I have I will make him a little bit funnier and just not taking things quite as seriously as sometimes the directors would like me to do like oh okay this is really bad you'll get you know everyone's dead there's children dead all over the place and bodies everywhere and I thought we're quite you know quite funny at times for girls who go wow that's awful anyway moving on and I always found that quite an interesting thing to do within within games I don't know if it's a thing or not but I found it quite interesting no I mean that's one thing I think that's lacking in gaming there's not many comedic games or they're very they're quite very serious a lot of the time so I think this character was a bit of a breath of fresh ever people I'm wondering how do you balance the comedy aspect with if he's too comedic you know people might not take him serious or he might turn into a bit of a villainous type because he's not taking things so seriously how do you balance that well I think with things like that you've got to give him heart and a grounding and um not necessarily A morality or anything else like that but it's like building any any comedy character or any kind of even like great works of art even if you take Hamlet something like that then you've got to have the gravediggers comedy of skulls and oh you've got to have that to then make the drama much higher the the Gap in between is greater so you kind of are relaxed it's like the same with horror horror and comedy work very very similar in the sense of you know creep creep creep open the door nothing there you go oh and then the thing happens and it's very similar to Comedy is creating that comfort and then hitting you with with something so it's knowing those rhythms of how how things work and then just with the Brilliance of the scripts you know you can't go too far it's not going to go you know whoops there go my trousers that would that would never oh that might be in the latter part of again I don't know but um yeah so you try and balance it out and also you know people are contain multitudes characters contain multitudes not everything is serious and not everything is funny so it's nice to have those light and shade within it because then it there is a Humanity in that and I think that's the connection that you have with any form of art is you have flaws everybody has flaws good sides bad sides and all the multitudes in between and I think trying to find those and play those just makes a character more interesting definitely how collaborative was the process for you did you feel like you got to make your print does it come through for the players oh good good no I I really think there were it was very much a collaborative thing there was very much because I think everyone's trying to find the voice and find the character because obviously the whole thing isn't written by the time you you first start so you do kind of plod your way through and kind of find little bits and pieces and then you do kind of throw in things because Instinct kind of kicks in and you think well let's try that and they can always say no they can always happens all the time go no that's that's too much or it's not enough and then what I found the hardest was the combination of just saying something and then embodying it and it was that bringing together the embodiment of saying that's really nice the way that line has been said but it's physically you've got to give it more because you won't see it if you see what I mean so you feel like you're going a bit too subtle with the movement yeah a bit too subtle being too uh too cerebral with things and so you know you just kind of sit there and you could just kind of land a joke just as I'm sitting here to you and you think well that's not going to read it's not going to tell um enough for a player so you have to give it a little flourish or a little something so then I think that's when you kind of bring in the subtleties that then make the character the character the little kind of ticks and Twitches or little kind of ways you bend your head or put an arm out and gesture you go okay that's this is all now becoming it's very much like mask work it's the closest I can kind of do it is it's almost like removing almost like removing expression and physicalizing your your work in such a way that that is also telling the story as much as as much as voice you think okay this is and that's like stuff I learned at drama school my God like 20 odd years ago so that was really interesting going back to that and going okay well maybe it's a little bit like it's a little bit like this which is the closest thing that I could wet my head around as to where the art form sits um yeah with varying degrees of success when do you think you found your Rhythm throughout the process how long did it take you to finally get the character and click and then here oh my God three three four years in I would say I finally yeah last session but nailed it he's a winner we redo the last three years is it all right if we just go back a little bit that would be good um I think there are some there are literally moment moments of like Clarity where you're kind of walk into a session and sometimes it can be just the things that have happened before before you even step into the volume the journey there or other problems that kind of go on around or things you just kind of seen or maybe you're just having a particularly good day because of whatever environmental things are going around and then sometimes you can walk in and there's a lightness and a freeness and you'll go oh my God that's it I'm not getting in my own way with my own head of oh it's got to be like this and there's so much technical stuff that you have to kind of factor in which is all part of the artwork um and how it all kind of comes together and sometimes when you just give into Instinct and do a few bits and go oh wow okay yes yes yes yes this is now sitting exactly where I want it to sit and everyone else seems to think that okay great this is great and then obviously the problem is if you then have a session and then a month and a half later you come back in you're going okay morning everyone um sorry what are we what are we doing what is what is this oh right could you play back what I did right okay I know I know you're a bit of a a baker and a foodie and I'm wondering have you have you made an edible artifact yet in commemoration for Gail no do you know what I only make cakes for my daughter's birthdays because I'm not not a I'm not a baker I was thrust into this world um I've seen you work you're better thanks very much self-taught Dad self-taught not one lesson unbelievable wow unbelievable just a lot of YouTubers the cakes were layered and everything oh they were layered colored all kinds of things YouTube all from YouTube little ideas ideas and bits and pieces that my daughters would say oh I want this cake and you go really I'll do it I'll try it um but uh yeah it was just learning it through that and I think if I were to make snow actually my uh I've got a birthday coming up in a couple of months so if I can convince her okay what what do you want for your oh I'd like I don't know a unicorn of course you do although what you could actually have is um we could all be resisting the dark urge and maybe some sort of artifact that wouldn't blow daddy up so I'm just just putting it up there you wouldn't want Daddy blown up would you of course you wouldn't so why don't we do that how old are you doing a 67. no I'm not sure yet probably a while away from playing this one aren't they I think so I think so don't worry about walking into a room of going that's a nice bear what are you playing oh Jesus Christ you don't want that uh I I saw this video of you dancing um in the booth what was that all about was that was that last session or something or were you just having a bit of fun no no that's that's usually when um the the calories the calibration of the room so they had to calibrate all the cameras to your to the dots that are on you so they can get all your movements and and all of that things and sometimes obviously technical problems it goes It goes wrong so they say would you do a would you ask for a calibration dance so it calibrates the cameras so you do as many movements as you possibly can um so it can collate all that data so you're working that's called work that's a working thing that's an adult working Dan that's what you're watching there an adult man doesn't believe you mid 40s working hard I know it's unbelievable you try and convince your children that this is what you do for a living and they don't believe you they look at you like you're an idiot but no it's just to calibrate the whole room so I like to incorporate a lot of modern dance uh within my calibration one's got to I was giving you the color move during that particular piece um and how it clashes against modern expectations yeah I thought so I thought so you gotta you gotta do these things um but uh yeah there's a there's a whole multitude of other calibration dances of varying skill and degree that one I'm particularly fond of a bit of how did you find the the um the romance stuff and the horniness of this game is that something you were expecting absolutely not Dad absolutely not just no one mentioned it nobody mentioned it not okay I didn't even know it was a feature didn't even know as a feature so then one day you walk in and it's like nine o'clock in the morning you've you know would you like a coffee I'd love a coffee what are we doing today everything's ready in there great okay you get yourself in there going so we do some romance stuff and you're literally going sorry what the doing some romance oh right is that a is that a thing oh yeah it's a thing oh okay how many oh there'll be quite a lot of this quite a lot of it would you what do you mean so that was quite interesting in fact there was one scene in particular that we had to record for various different reasons technical script changes we had to record it four times four separate sessions so we're talking nearly six hours maybe eight hours of recording and the scene in particular that we had to do was the scene in The Weave and the boat the boat scene in The Weave and we had to do that again and again and again they're playing a prank on you or something without a doubt Dan you didn't need this the technology at your fingertips and you need me to do this four times well uh thank you but yeah I would look into the booth on those particular occasions and there was one person in particular who was on who was on technical mocap duties who was the only person who had to sit through all four sessions and we would look at each other as if we go I'm so sorry I'm really sorry you're gonna have to sit through all of this again yeah so that was but that was it but I had no idea I just did not know that was even a thing when I when I did this now spoilers guys if you need to just skip the next few minutes um so the there's a few endings for Gail I'm wondering which one do you remember shooting them and do you remember which one you had the most fun with I'm guessing or what which one you prefer I'm guessing you don't prefer being blown up no oddly I don't prefer that one oh but though the build up to those are quite fun because it's quite sort of heroic and great and it was very movie-like which I really enjoy you could almost feel like if this was if this was a movie the camera would zoom in as your face is looking away and then you'd turn back and you'd say the line and then it would just got to go white yeah as the thing just yeah that's that's really cool the great thing about actually sidestepping about doing these games is it makes you feel like a five-year-old it does it does me because what you're asked to do what I used to do absolutely in the best way possible because it reminded me of when you're like on a summer holiday as like a six-year-old or a seven-year-old and your parents don't want you in the house anymore so you have to go out in the garden and you have to create a world from like sticks or a tree and that's your world and that's like a [ __ ] Kingdom you have to conquer but by any way and maybe you've you know buried a Star Wars figure in the ground that you've just suddenly discovered it ah oh my God yeah yeah and this this old Stormtrooper with one leg is now gonna we're gonna do this together my friend and it was having to have that childlike sense of absolute freedom of creating everything in front of you but just in your head and believing it you have to believe it because if you don't believe it you can even though it's an animated piece you can tell in the way you move because everything's captured and in your voice if you don't believe it as much as you possibly can and so that was great for that was for me the best thing about doing it was that sense of like childlike Freedom I've gone great well where are we today oh you're in the underdog what's that that sounds awesome what the hell is that oh it's like this and that is great okay okay so imagine like this like this great and then you put yourself in the difficulty though is when you skip from one thing to another so you kind of immerse yourself in this world of going okay you're in the underdark for instance okay you'll hear you here you'll hear and then they'll go great okay we finished that section so you're now on the banks of the children what the hell what where and it's daylight and it's the middle of the day and you've just like oh right okay wow and you have to get yourself into a completely different headspace from being very internal to being very external and that was quite challenging but fun great fun town where does this rank of all the projects you've done in in the fun factor it's got to be up there right oh it's really up there it's really up there just for the amount of freedoms and things and just the sheer scale of things that you can do you know you're doing little bits you know that are kind of funny and comical like with the circus and the clown face and the kind of silliness and then you're doing dark stuff really like when you're possessed um you know by the murder things which I which was that was really fun that would have been you would go just push just push it and just go wherever you want with it just just you know but it's got to be dark that's the real [ __ ] version that's the yeah and then the you know the funny stuff like you know Gail is a hologram I loved every second when they said you're doing girl is a hologram I was like yes I love this I had images of Red Dwarf of rimmer I was like yeah yeah let's do that but yeah it's it was great great fun it was a lot of work and hard work to get it all done and to give it all the things that it that it needed and that it warranted but my God it was fun what fun to do just to go and play dress up in a suit see it wasn't fun I'll be honest with you very little very little to the imagination I'll be honest with you Dan but um so I haven't shifted all that covered weight so you know that was that was something but great fun yeah that was for the other day but it's when you're wandering around for like four hours and just trying to have a conversation with someone so how was your how was your trip in yeah yeah it's it's fine I'm sorry about all this do you miss the um the mustache I noticed you got a full beard now yeah I do this is my homage to Gale I thought I'd you know put this on yeah I do miss the mustache I do miss it and because it became such a sort of trademark um and also it's just it's just a funny thing to have because it kind of enlarges your your features that mustache so yeah I do miss it I think it will definitely make a return again once once I finish this I'm going to take this off to give my face a breather and for my children to recognize me again but then I think okay at some point it'll definitely it'll definitely come back I was gonna say what did your partner and kids think well I did the first time I ever shaved it off I was doing um Outlander and yeah I have to be clean a great show great fun to do again enormous fun another one of those but for that particular part because of when it's set I had to be clean shaven and I hadn't been clean shaven so my youngest daughter when she was born I had a massage right the way up to probably she was like I don't know four or three maybe something like that yeah two or three yeah so that's what Daddy looks like that's what Daddy looks like and they always say that when you take off something like that something that's quite as strong nice facial they don't recognize you anymore and it's absolutely true Dan oh no isn't that heartbreaking oh it was absolutely not only heartbreaking it was also very dangerous because I said uh oh don't worry we'll do it in the morning we'll do it together we'll shave it off and then they said uh oh no you're gonna have to leave quite quite early so all right and if you've had a mustache for a while your lip kind of curls down so you do look a bit like a turtle so he needs a bit of time to plump up so I shaved it off and I said no no it's going to be fine I'll shave it off so then in the morning I came in uh to see her and said morning like that morning she literally opened her eyes screamed and poked me so hard in the eye I know that it burst all the blood vessels and it went it went completely black like my eyeball bled so much it went completely black I then had to go up to Scotland to film Outlander and walking in dressed in that thing okay morning morning everyone um if you could just shoot me from this side well why that was the problem it's because of this everyone went Jesus Christ so there's one particular scene in Outlander oh my God only shot from this side and if I do do that then the amount of money it took to CGI my eye out and plays another one in because I mean it was like it was like you know I think it's like the Borg you know that kind of black eyeball [ __ ] just soulless do you know what no it did it hurt it was like stunning at the first and then it was like okay it's fine and I don't know if you've ever had an eyeball bleed down but what it does because it's because it's very thin it's a slow creep so the blood drains down gravity kind of pulls it down but it doesn't have many where to go so it's like blood on glass so if you weren't like to push it together it just goes even though it's tiny so the whole eyeball went went black just blood black how long till it went back normal oh good couple of weeks a good couple of weeks yeah it fades and then you can almost like see the slow drain as it goes down which again is very strange but um yeah that was that was interesting so I don't I don't recommend so taking off facial hair no how did you convince her it was dead yeah he's still a bit unsure even three or four years later now she's still a little bit still working on it still working on it like some dystopian Philip K dick short story of are you really are you really I don't know there's something other yeah uh all right we've got some really good fan questions here that um people have sent through um we'll go through some of them now where did Gail get his abs from that's from Green Harrow I think they modeled it off your real body right it's completely modeled off off my own physique um I insisted insisted on that uh because I'm just in such fine physical shape um so thank you for your question and you are very modest too we should have incredible I think that comes through in girls performance as well it's just incredibly modest you know calm calm man um I I get I guess there's someone incredibly well ripped that they just kind of brought in and when we'll just we'll just dump that up now you really are being modest uh Ashen New Zealand he says could he really hear Clem Fandango yeah yeah yes that's that is that's a reference to toast of London um because I there's there's yeah there's a scene in the series of toasted London with Matt Berry where I'm in the booth uh doing voice-overs the irony of the correct trajectory of an actor and it's all the catchphrase of the show is yes I can hear you Clem Fandango the number of times oh God stood in that sorry stood in that volume I I didn't know I didn't know it was a a sore point I'm sorry oh no no not at all not at all but the number of times I've stood in that volume and they've they've uh not pressed a button and if you put your finger on the button and quotes like that of going can you hear me yes yes all of that um yeah it's good it's it's kind of like um Arnold Schwarzenegger how many times do you think he'd set people go up to him and say you know I'll be back get to the chopper you know oh I think more than he would ever care to mention and maybe like Brian blessed in Flash Gordon but you don't even have to say anything oh my God it's alive you just do it I did an adverb oh no with Brian blessed which I was very thrilled at and uh at the time I was going to India I was going to the Himalayas and I thought oh blessed loves mountains he's a big mountain guy I'll ask him about that that'll be my my gateway drug into a conversation with Brian blessed and he basically walked in before it even said anything he'd walked him and it literally said hello everyone how are you Gordon's alive brilliant just straight into the catchphrase don't even need any prompting really fantastic you're kidding it was amazing it's amazing God get it ever done with now nice enough absolutely give him what they want give everybody sorry I'm gonna stuff people's names up here how did you find the character of Gail to be and was it difficult to get into the character it wasn't difficult to get into the character but it was it was it was a a kind of continual experiment in finding like his heart and soul and kind of where he's from and all of those little things that make characters nuanced and really interesting you kind of start with a broad palette of going okay well I'll do this this and this okay well that's quite a good place to start but then it's the subtleties within within all of that that are the bits to find like when it gets very serious or falls in love and so you really have to kind of dig deep for those to make that truthful I mean it all sounds very methody but you have got to find it within to make those things as honest as you possibly can because also then if you don't what's the point in doing it like that's the job of an actor regardless of what you do is to find the truth as much of the truth as you can and then to play that um as much as as as you can as is comfortable and then to go beyond that and just kind of really push yourself um so the struggle is challenging do you struggle pushing yourself or do you I'm just not an emotional man Dad I'm not emotional that no no I'm um it's it's not it's not necessarily a struggle it's just you know it's hard when you're jumping around as well to go from something like battles to then romance to then break no that's what I'm saying it's so the jump around is is hard because usually you would have a kind of a kind of run into it so you go okay this is where this is where the Scene goes and then you run into it and it's exhausting to do that and to hopefully do it as well as as well as you can um but you find it again you go back to being like a five-year-old again you go into your head and you find those spaces that maybe you haven't really looked at for a long time or maybe you haven't looked at for a reason and sometimes they're they are the ones to go into within the kind of dark recesses of your head to go okay yeah let's let's unlock that let's unlock that bit of pain let's unlock that little bit of sorrow or heartbreak because that's going to be that's going to be the truth of the matter is if you tap into that and try and play that as as much as you can who was your favorite love interest for Gail from Big Bad Beetle boy great name yeah favorite love interest if you have to pick one I don't know it's really it's really hard I think Gail will probably just pick himself you know Jennifer was saying you know he's probably the easiest to romance um kind of you know calling you out a little bit as a bit of a you know quite an easy target yeah he is quite easy target but he's also he also I think feels things very deeply and so therefore yeah it's probably easy to start off but then then yeah then it gets a bit you know it gets a bit trickier it almost gets a bit more like I would almost imagine like a proper relationships as in well then it's a two-way street it's a two-way thing okay we're gonna have you're gonna have to do stuff as well it's not just me it's the two of us together we're gonna create something um which I then I think makes it a bit more a bit more interesting so yeah easy and easy to start off God he only wants to be loved he's got a library and a cat I mean yeah I mean an elmidster I mean come on you know what please give them out a break was that discussed what you just said then was that something you discussed with the guys at larian or any of the team the directors or is that something that just naturally happened kids you kind of it it is disgust and it is talked about but then it's discovered a lot of it is through discovery which is almost almost kind of like it's kind of like a rehearsal and it's not really a rehearse because you're actually recording it but you you tread Softly on things and you begin to kind of find out okay well then because also there's a lot of Divergence within the script because there are so many choices how you play the start of something like that then you then Branch off into so many different permutations of what that germ that seed will then bring out that it makes it quite complicated in your own head because obviously as an actor you have a script it goes from A to B to C this is a trajectory either it's a good outcome it's a bad outcome it's you know the miscellaneous outcome but on this it could be any of those things and all of those things and none of those things so that made it quite a sort of mind [ __ ] at times especially with the more emotional darker stuff because you have to put yourself in so many different forms of an idea and then play those quite quickly like it will dip from here to here to here to here to here and you'll make assumptions sometimes to go ah okay I think I know where this is going up no it doesn't go necessarily go that way it may go this way or that way so that's where though yeah that's where the technicality comes in as well okay right so I have to pitch this in a uh a more ambiguous way so it could go this way or that way rather than oh I'm angry now or I'm upset now be more ambiguous and then as it branches off then you can explore so that's fine but you had the core values that you kept throughout no matter what um yeah no matter what you were what path you were going down yeah yeah very very much because again I think that gives it layering and character interest is sometimes the conflict within yourself yes I may be doing this particular thing that I don't like or feel like I should do but it's got to come from a place the the the the audience understands it's like watching an evil character doing something bad it's got to come from if it's just outright evil for the sake of it you kind of lose interest because it's like well that's just horrible that's just there's no there's no reason for it but if you give the character a reason and the reason kind of go okay well okay it's extreme what you've done but I can't I do see why you've done it or where you've been to get to that point then I find that then as an audience as the player is far more nuanced and deep and questioning you then begin to question your own choices in things or your own kind of place within oh okay yeah maybe I would have done that why would I have done that and that makes it a lot more meta and a lot more interesting I think have you seen much of your work have you been looking stuff up have you seen many clips I've seen little bits and pieces um to be honest with you I just don't know where to start it's so vast and so big I've seen kind of clips of things and bits and pieces I almost wanted to kind of be laid out in like just all the kind of sequences of everybody's kind of bits no gameplay because I wouldn't know what on Earth I was doing but just kind of just to see I know what you mean yeah the story and just yeah and just kind of watch it passively kind of just watch it because the other thing I was blown away with is just how good the animation is just extraordinary like in my head it was still animated like the lawnmower man do you remember the lawnmower man Stephen King adaptation that's what I imagined in my head the animation was still like oh yeah you could imagine my surprise down and they said oh here we go we'll just show you this little clip and I was watching it going oh is this a trailer is this just a trip this is it the this is the game but when you sing absolutely blown away and when you're seeing your facial work in this character because you can see the little nuances in the facial were you thinking wow this is crazy yeah it was one of the most freaky things I've ever seen yeah genuinely it really really took me back you know obviously as an actor you're used to kind of seeing yourself but you're seeing yourself as yourself and this you're seeing a character you know vaguely looks like you you know it's a band with a beard okay I can get behind it but does it isn't you that it has all your little ticks and the way you just kind of move a hand or you just do a like a tiny little motor gesture and it's all there it's all captured and that I found absolutely mind-boggling like wow that that's that's incredible that was one of the most revelatory things as part of this game that I've seen going wow it really does it really picks up everything and records everything and the choices you make do go in so it is a performance it really really is a performance you're not just kind of going in doing the numbers it is the performance a full performance you know which is yeah I mean amazing this kid Paladin what is your favorite spell Tim my favorite spell I don't know is the answer to that there are so many spells it's one of those things there's too many you forget even one when you've got to do them one after the other after the other after the other after the other for about an hour you kind of got I'm I don't know what I'm saying I don't know what I'm saying anymore the word the best part of that well best and worst part of that was actually during covid because during Kobe we obviously couldn't record so we had to get a home you didn't have to but it was suggested you get a home studio so then you try and pull together a home home studio over that period and certain little components of that were like [ __ ] gold dust like you couldn't buy like a little there was a little thing called a Scarlet I think it's like a Scarlet receiver or something which is what you plug your mics into and then it goes into your uh into the into the computer golden ticket sort of thing yeah oh my God you couldn't buy they were sold out in the UK completely sold out you had to go to like Germany and get them shipped over it was unbelievable so anyway you had to do that and during that particular first covid summer in the UK it was unbelievably hot it was a glorious summer no one was allowed outside but it was beautiful and they said would you start doing some recordings just for spells and noises and things like that just you know in the interim yeah yeah it's fine so I set up this studio in my daughter's bedroom at the top of the house like a [ __ ] furnace and obviously what you have to do is I had to open up her wardrobe because obviously the clothes dead and all the sound throw a duvet over that then get a light with the laptop and all your kind of bits together and then you were up there for two or three hours it was so unbearably hot I was it was absolutely it was like a sauna and they were saying okay so what we want you to do uh today just as you know just as a starter we're gonna do some death sounds great what does that mean okay you've walked into a lake of ice now we want this to sound different to walking into a lake of fire [Laughter] right um I haven't got much of a reference for that okay I'll I'll give it a whirl so then you're doing that now you've been hit by a sword okay now you've been hit by a by an arrow okay a flurry of arrows okay a spear I should have been unbelievable I then had my youngest daughter run up the stairs screaming going is Daddy okay is Daddy okay because I was just all of that which I thought no sorry Dad sorry yeah he's yes he's sweating quite a lot I know he's in shorts go on off here off your off your pop that's that's great now just another couple of hours no don't take that don't take that yeah that's so random but it's it's you'll never forget before yeah you'll never forget that needable shape but with that in the middle oh [ __ ] um crazy Kirby bless you for nailing the voice and performance of such an adorable pathetic man is that accomplishment that's very sweet of you thank you thank you your performance is what sold me to romance him and pre-order the game on PS5 there you go well then you know Larry and can thank me later you know you're welcome uh larion what can I what can I say I've hit uh I've hit a a real pressure point there um no thank you I think I think it all you know if people like it for whatever reason or however they kind of connect with it great the worst thing as an actor is if someone says yeah it's all right that's the one I know I want a reaction I either want someone to say this is one of the worst things I've ever seen in my entire life and I've had to burn my computer because of you I would say that as a great compliment as much as it's wonderful I love it you know all of those all of those things but just gotta go yeah it was all right who are you again get out of here I'd say get out of here how dare you are you also a cat person like Gail that's from Aussie nugget no uh I'm not really an animal person mainly because I like to keep things nice um and you know that kind of I just don't want to be I don't like to hear of your animals enough I don't want that cleaning up other other I don't know [ __ ] everywhere I'm not in the mood for that or walking down the stairs at six in the morning what was that oh oh you know chairman meow has done it again I don't want I don't want that on the stairs thank you uh what's the least scale voice you could think you could do imagine you were working on another project it's something other than the clever wizard what voice would you come up with um Cedric I'm quite I'm quite a good mimic of things I used to do because I did a lot of Comedy as a kid and then in like my early 20s did stand up and lots of other bits and pieces like that you know I could do a lot of accents and changes of voice and things like that just because it was a necessity to kind of create different characters it's just you on stage to create different characters and different characters talk to different things you kind of got to get your ear in the game of oh okay and the first one I ever the first one I ever did was my dad's from Scotland so I did when I was I mean this is so precocious as a like 10 year old doing a school play and I had to play the Sheriff of Nottingham and I made a choice then of going wouldn't it be quite fun to do it in a Scottish accent to which every teacher's like okay this could be [ __ ] okay yeah why not why don't you give give that a go and I think that's the birth of where the acting bug comes from is when you walk on stage as this little kid dressed you know almost like Henry Cavill in The Tudors being the Sheriff of Nottingham and then it comes out with you're right there upon what you're doing and you're going oh [ __ ] that's good the hell is that and it creates a laugh and suddenly you kind of go oh wow okay this is quite different from the crowd yeah yeah you do and that's quite yeah that's that right so is that the moment is that the moment where you wanted to become an actor I think it is yeah I think it is I mean I didn't know at the time there was even like a a thing you could do like it didn't feel like a thing you could do because it's it's Play It's it you know all your what you're doing is you're playing and creating and doing all the things you would do as a child instinctively anyway so then the idea that you could do that as a as a living as an adult it doesn't seem that doesn't seem no it doesn't seem real that doesn't seem like a job you do you have to kind of because obviously you look at your parents and you look at your parents friends and you think well that's jobs you get dressed and you get in a car and you drive to work and you drive back again at the same times all the time you you don't really think this is something you could actually do so you just treat it as oh this is really good I'm good at it and I enjoy it so you know maybe I'll just do it for a bit and then a real life will kick in but then obviously the you know the dangerous thing for any parent is when the child realizes wait a second I can do this as a living I see yes but you might not work around any money but I can do this as a living then yeah is it harder to be I want to get into the stand-up but is it harder to be a actor when you're a parent do you think I don't know I I because I think is there like a something over you like I've got to find the next job sort of thing there is but I tell you something I it's it's freed me more than when I didn't have kids and the reason being is I think uh purely from from my perspective is you know as an actor you can be quite selfish because it is kind of about you and your emotion and all of these things that you do to create character and create the scene and to make the scene work so it can be quite a a selfish Endeavor in order to create something and when I had my kids I suddenly realized actually do you know what I'm I'm now not doing this for me I'm not doing this just for me to either become rich or famous or all of those things that you think of when you're young and aspiring I'm doing this for them I'm doing this so that they can have stuff and they can have the things that I didn't have and they can do all of this and that is such an enormously freeing thing that then it becomes so altruistic that actually it almost makes you you'll make me more relaxed of going okay well this is not about me now I'm doing this for someone else and then and having that altruistic feel of your work just makes you or made me feel more relaxed about oh my God oh my God oh my God I need this I need this I need this yes you know that is there of course I wouldn't be crazy enough to say oh yes and then the work flooded it you know it it doesn't work like that no no but yeah your your mindset is all important in this in this job and then to have that that shift in that change I've found revelatory and great and really nice and then when you do do things and you can give your children those things because of the work you are doing because of a dream of a five-year-old 40 odd years ago on a stage in a village and now that's created where you are now I think that's that's an extraordinarily magical wonderful thing that you can that you can that you can do and still can do like I could still do it now where I am now which I just think is and you can show them that you're doing something you love like this is your passion you know very much very very much and that's great that's great you know it's following that dream and it's following that sort of you know you only get one chance of this so try it it might not work it doesn't work you've tried it and you'll know as time goes on as age teaches you things shift and move you don't always get one go round you get many bites of the Cherry you get many chances at things but you just got to keep trying and if you really want it then you just got to keep going and hopefully it will happen and then there's also the other aspect of that of knowing when enough is enough but why not for the moment try it go for it what's the worst that can happen they're going to say no well you already you're in that position anyway you're already not doing it so you might as well try it why not yeah it doesn't change what your current circumstance yeah how was um the how a stand-up how did you find that that's not a brutal I was absolutely brutal absolutely brutal we used to do um uh so I joined this comedy comedy class which was an improv comedy group um which I thought at the time okay that could be that could be quite fun it's absolutely brutal like doing in Pro comedy in front of an audience oh on a barge on the Thames on like Friday nights was like okay this is because you're going on stage thinking I have no idea what to do oh Christ there's a lot of people here and they want to be entertained right I have absolutely no idea what I'm about to say and you know then you really have to kind of trust in Instinct and you have certain things that you can hook things on gonna go okay well that's quite funny that's quite funny and that's quite funny so if we're anywhere near these things yeah yeah I can reel that in and then hopefully that's right that will kind of so spew up something else but it was absolutely a baptism a baptism by fire but it teached you about audience and it teaches you about reading a room and just how to kind of shift things if things aren't working thinking on your feet and moving things around and not being frightened to just go okay it's not working ditch it let's do something else let's try something else and just having another go another go another go until it sticks okay that's good remember that and then you move on from those kind of things but it yeah it's um it was an absolute bad baptism how do you how do you bounce back when the when the crowd just don't laugh you know you just leave down you just leave the [ __ ] stage because there's no point if they hate you just leave just girls but a great night you've been awful and leave um I mean there are there are ways there are ways back all right You've Really Got I mean it's it's tough test your metal the likes of which you have never you've never seen also sometimes but it's just you on stage and there's like I don't even I don't know 30 people or something that's quite okay if 30 people hate you nobody likes all the room is just completely silent okay oh man how can I the energy of this room how can I do what can I do what can I do which is why you need those little hooks to kind of go okay dine on its ass and let's go to something I know will hopefully bring them back around to them so did you have a bombing experience did you have a an experience I can go through you go through quite a few you go through quite a few of them um and they are big big learning curves and it does make you think do they Sky you to them they they do and they they do and they don't they do Sky you because it does it almost sets the seed of fear in you yes knowing it can happen it can have to happen yeah and you need it to happen if you're gonna pursue that particular thing as being a stand-up you need it to happen because if if it doesn't then you will be completely wrong footed the first time it does happen which inevitably it will or a Heckler or somebody does something or you pick the wrong person in an audience and all those all those kind of things so you do really need it to happen because then it just is it will just make you more comfortable in future performances to go okay well I've seen every permutation of how this can go absolutely terribly okay well then we should be okay no matter what happens I mean things still surprise you I had a friend of mine who uh was doing a gig at a university he's going so badly um he decided he said I'll tell you what I know what you people want so he got in a shopping trolley with a crash helmet pulled a box over him and have one of the other Comics push him across the stage as they throw bottles at him um so it can go that bad [Music] at least he um went out of the bank I'll give you a couple more from the fans um did you associate purple with Gail if not what would you have imagined his favorite color would be I think they're definitely the blues I think the blues are nice and those kind of I would probably go quite autumnal colors with him just because the one thing I think I really share with Gail is that love of books and libraries and things like that and so I always associate that particular kind of aesthetic with autumn so I would always put those autumnal rustity sort of Darker blues and kind of hues into it and I think there's a deep romance in all of that as well it's not just kind of like someone's going to the library it's more there is a a beauty and a real yeah a real romance in books and old things and it's a comfort blanket as well and it's sort of really oh I couldn't think of anything better rain coming out rain outside yeah Glory glorious yeah is that what about with the Poetry are you because he loves poetry as well yeah yeah no I'm a big fan big fan of poetry I wrote a lot of obviously embarrassing poems as a kid obviously that's what we all did unrequited love etc etc maybe exploring you know what a tree means or a chrysanthe and all that kind of stuff um but no I love it I love poetry I mean there's some terrible poetry but honestly when you hit poetry that is great that something just absolutely Taps into into you there's nothing I don't think there's anything better so and the master of her I mean one of my favorite poems is Ted Hughes love Ted Hughes and for me he can drop a line that will just go straight through you and it is I mean he works a lot on or drawn a lot of influence some sort of ancient Britain pagany [Music] um styles of writing it's got this very Anglo-Saxon in his way he all kind of combine Words which I find extraordinary and it just Taps something in me that just makes me go oh that's brutal and beautiful at the same time um like the Hawking rain is an extraordinary extraordinary piece um so yeah I mean I I love poetry I can tell spoiler question as if you are Gail would you recreate the crown for yourself or only if it's needed like to get rid of the orb does that make sense yeah yeah when I create the ground um I remember doing those scenes and thinking because obviously all the permutations that come off a bit of thinking well obviously you you'd keep the crown keep the [ __ ] crown that sounds amazing you'll become like the king of everything and you get back with mystra please don't keep talking about Mr Dan I'm over mistra we've established this it was a long time I broke up I broke up with her I broke up with her if she's still going on about me that's her thing we're done with it please don't bring it up again Dan um but um I think you do that to them be on a level with mystery though yeah he could keep that and it would kind of get rid of the orb as well I think yeah keep the damn ground don't give the crown away goodbye Boulders good luck with everything good luck with all of this so it's been it's been great really hers oh God um why choppy he says why do you keep trying to sleep with me despite me saying no look this guy's been trash talking me for a while now okay it's honestly it's your thing not mine I'm just trying to get on just trying to get on with my life all right um you've got to get over me it's basically what what that is uh it's quite quite toxic um [Laughter] and then finally how what do you want people to take away from the character uh what about them to take away I think there's so much to take away that there's I think there's a real joy in Gail and I think there's also longing and sorrow and hope and there's so much like he yearns to to go back to Water Deep and he yearns to be in his library with his tressim and he wants all those things he wants a simple existence at the end of the day yes to kind of be the greatest wizard of all time but there's also those elements of homeliness of just kind of wanting to be uh be at ease and calm within your space in a world that's actually gone you know insane and crazy so I think there's a I think actually a little bit of everybody in girl whether people want to admit it or not is that yearning for a better thing he doesn't particularly want to fight he doesn't particularly want to do this he's thrust into it because it kind of well this is where we are and we have to you know it has to be done we have to do this um but all he wants to do is you know have a Sherry read a book not talk about mystra because I'm over that we don't need to do that and yeah lead a quiet life filler in water day probably eat some cheese sit on The Veranda you know so I think that's I think there's a little bit of that in all of us whether we want to admit it or not do you think you want to do more games in the future or do you think this will be it for you or what what do you see you're open to it I would love to do more games I would love to do more games I mean I know I've started quite High you know my [ __ ] but it's it's such an extraordinary vast art area that I didn't really comprehend or kind of really knew existed Within how this thing is put is put together and now I just find it endlessly fascinating as to how it all just the technical parts and how you can convey so much and you get to go do so much story because of all the different permutations of what can happen and how they can go I tell you what it reminds me of you might be too young for this but do you remember the books of Choose Your Own Adventure there was a whole series of books which Choose Your Own Adventure and there was a there was a like a series of Dungeons and Dragons based ones that came out and I remember reading these in school and I think the bit that hit for me some absolutely subconsciously was feeling like that again I'm choosing my own adventure in this and then feeling upset if it doesn't really go the way you do so you kind of do a couple of pages back and then you go off in a different direction and that I think I find it's like a modern well it is obviously it's like the most hyper modern version of that that you can get and so yeah I'd be well up for for more did you know much about DND Dungeons and Dragons or did you have to be only about I don't know I knew I knew of it I watched obviously what stranger things I watched the cartoon religiously as a kid growing up which I think was like late 80s early 90s um I watch that all the time and I remember one particular episode which for some reason I recorded and then just kept on no you kind of put your videotapes back in and that would always be the one that came up which was one called the eye of the beholder um a lot of these kind of weird ball creature with one eye with lots of tendrils and it was just kind of slightly scare me as a kid but I was fascinated by it yeah but it's still kind of okay yeah I like this I don't really understand it amazing and it was one of those cartoons on those particular kind of Saturday mornings that seemed to never end just you just kind of just endless endless endless amounts of episodes it's like okay here we go what more of this so I knew of it I didn't know how to play it I still don't know how to play it as a board game or what goes into it or any of that but I get that what I kind of vaguely understand yeah the world that it sits in um thank you for taking the time man I really appreciate it is there anything you wanted to say to the fans that have tuned in today um thank you for your for continuing to play and to kind of you know put Gail in your party yes I know he's easy to die at times and yes you should pull him out of that rock and not cut his arm off as people have told me but it's been a real unbelievable journey to get to this point and now the reception has been overwhelming absolutely overwhelming as to how it's been received and how it's kind of taken with people so uh I I guess I just want to say thank you and I hope it brings many many more hours of joy yeah and you did a phenomenal job man so well congratulations and you've got uh Instagram Twitter Cameo what am I missing nothing that's it yeah you've done my my full compliment and I thank you and I'll leave those in the description and make sure to follow Tim on there and uh Before I Let You Go Tim can can Gail say something to Dan to wrap this one no absolutely okay uh how about um you've been listening to Dan Allen resisting the dark urge talking to the greatest with it this side of well anywhere available for weddings children's parties and world ending apocalypses just turn it on like that there you go just like that oh thank you Tim we appreciate your time absolute pleasure thank you mate [Music]

Channel: Dan Allen Gaming

Views: 99,626

Keywords: gale bg3, gale, baldurs gate 3 gale, baldurs gate 3 interview

Id: Lsl5iQlNn5Q

Length: 72min 5sec (4325 seconds)

Published: Tue Aug 29 2023