Baldur's Gate 3 - Neil Newbon Full Interview

hi Neil hi awesome so I'm just going to do a quick introduction uh so I am Amanda castrello I'm here on behalf of Temple of geek and we are here to just talk video games General Stuff Game Awards we're just talking we're just talking having a conversation talk we're just having a conversation about life amazing uh yeah it's cool no you have to forgive me I'm a little I'm a jetlagged very excited and happy from last night and also extremely tired it's a really interesting mix of stuff right there valid honestly I I look like [ __ ] that's the reason you do not you look great you're lying but I appreciate the liate the my life thank you awesome it's really nice to meet you thank you much nice to meet you too again um but yeah we are here with the lovely talented awesome stunning show stopping never been done before Neil nen and also the winner of performance of the year for balers gate three he portrayed the um sassy we all know and love him aarian and yeah it was pretty awesome and I'm pretty like I'm so happy for you and excited for you and that was like a humongous win and you absolutely deserved it I I did not see it coming I was rooting for Ben star actually oh my gosh and like Ben star is your friend yes yeah Ben star and I have become mates this year and uh we got to know each other we've hung out we're also in Warframe together oh which is really cool um and I'm just I was really really happy to know him he's a amazing act a consumer professional and he's a really lovely guys a true gentleman which I really appreciate but um yeah I didn't think I was going to win I genuinely thought um I thought Ben was going to win oh wow so I went in there happy happily sorry happy to be nominated uh but not really expecting much more than that I don't I didn't really have an idea of what I was going to say if I did win I had like a vague idea okay well I should these are the people I need to remember the bullet yeah yeah I need to remember to thank these people you know but I wasn't really prepared for winning W um because it was such an amazing year I mean you had Melanie he's incredible I haven't met her yet but I would love to meet her her work is extraordinary uh Yuri obviously Lo thought it was like a a voice work acting God uh you know Ben's amazing Cameron is really cool I really like his work a lot Idis Elbert I mean come ont so I mean you know amongst these people and myself as well um it was just like to be nominated amongst these actors I don't think I'm forgetting anybody for anybody that's it Ben I for you forget said you said I said Ben the first one um yeah amongst you know to be amongst those actors is I'd rather be nominated for something amongst the best of the best than have like a year where there's not that much going on and yours is like the game and it be like a shoe in and there's no like yeah yeah yeah because I think to be amongst your peers that you're inspired by uh is a really wonderful experience because it just makes you I don't believe in competition not really um I believe that you do your work and that's the Merit is based on what you do but to be considered to be good or whatever uh amongst the hundreds of actors out there are doing incredible work um is is a really lovely privilege awesome and I like I like the fact that I was up against people that I really deeply respect and think are amazing actors um so yeah it was really special because of that that's awesome all right so we're just going to go ahead and get into the questions and so all right so when you first started working on balers gate did you expect it to become as popular as it has no I thought it was going to be good I I thought it was going to be great actually um but I don't think I I don't know if I knew it was going to be a masterpiece which it is I I believe as a gamer and also a fan of D andd fully agreed um I've been a fan of Wizards of the Coast as well for since I was 14 like I've been fan of sorry Dungeons and dragons as I was 14 and I'm a fan of where Wizards has taken it 5 is a fantastic rule set um I really I started on I think it was either one or two version of Dungeons and Dragons oh wow it was like maybe maybe starting one then going into two early but like to see what they've done with fifth edition is awesome I love it I think it's really really clever so I'm a huge fan of wizards as well because of that um but yeah I thought it was going to be I I played Early Access cuz I'm I'm capture actor as well as performance capture actor I do voice work as well I do everything I'm also a director and I was asked to direct in it I directed performance of voice Boulders gate wait what did you direct I directed some of the actress for Boulders gate oh my God I also consulted so I went around to different Lan Studios all over the world Gua Luma Quebec gent and guilers um to teach animators how to jump into suits better and be better performers cuz they weren't trained that is so cool cool just doing a little bit of everything it prob like a year and a half that was tierry and Alex um who like the animators and stuff at lri and uh and also Greg linston who's now the head of Animation there um that was they got me involved in that and we we submitted and they they were very amazing at championing us and they brought us out to all these different places to meet all their teams so I got to know Lian as a company intimately but I was I'm also a D andd fan I'm also a Wizards fan and a Boulders gate fan as well so for me was like I knew this was going to be a great game there a lot of heart and passion I played the early axis the mechanics were awesome I thought this is a fantastic game to play and I thought it was going to be really well received you know we hoped it did especially the amount of passion that went into it from all the actors of over 248 248 performance capture and then there's also motion capture actors of which I'm one of them and also animat as well that all went into the in-game mechanics Locomotion so what's the difference between you said performance capture and motion capture yes so I have these tattoos which are sort of to commemorate game saving my career uh but this is motion capture so uh motion capture was the old term we used to use for we still do which means body only and head but no face and no hands and no voice gotcha performance capture technically means body data which is so all these things are across your skeleton to make of a skeleton the ACT performs with you put a rig on top of it and then you put the skin on top what it looks like coloring wise and everything uh and that's performance capture with hand data and also with face data too with and without voice it could be a voice scratch track or it could be the full performance which I prefer which is the whole thing being shot in the volume simultaneously maybe ADR pickups afterwards for voice so um but yeah so I got into that about 15 years ago I said something in the joysticks which people still get confused about my oh sorry um it was a Mis A Mis um misspoke misspoke yeah I said um I almost quit games before but that's not true I almost quit acting before I met games so when I before I started doing motion capture about 20078 around that period 8 n something like that um I had a really hard time as an actor I was a character actor trapped in a non-ar actor's face which is a problem um and also I was going up against people with massive profiles and I couldn't beat them because they come with all this body of work and I was a jobbing actor that had done some good work but wasn't like famous or anything like that you know in terms of I don't mean fame's a good thing I mean recognition in terms of seats uh box office seats you know oh yeah this person has done these films therefore people are going to go watch oh that's a name that's a name that's a named actor exactly yeah I wasn't a named actor so that was problematic because no matter what I did in the audition no matter how many risks I took trying to always push for character work more than what I look like kind of stereotype archetypes just couldn't get a job and I was so broke I was bankrupt almost three times I was homeless for about um homeless almost for a year uh 8 months somebody took me in on their couch uh and at that point I was like this is I can't sustain this and it got to a point where things got really bad and luckily around 20091 I found games and uh I started doing game work motion capture with audio motion he gave me my first gig with Ubisoft and I realized a I can take my face off now so I can be a character actor B there's all this work that no actors want to do it was only about 12 of us in the whole of the UK that was doing it cuz it was still like what relatively new wasn't new it was just it was unknown oh so people didn't know about it um and it wasn't and games weren't mainstream in the same way they are now yeah they weren't very they were still they were very popular there was a lot of money in them but it wasn't mainstream mainstream it was like you're a bit geeky you play games yeah not like your anybody that plays a game because that's how you like to spend your time Gamers now are everybody Gamers then even then in 2010 ah you know we were there we were Geeks but we were special people it was kind of like a a what is it not a subcategory like a sub it was definitely a a a niche hobby I would say you know for a long time a subculture subculture is a good way to describe you yeah so are you a gamer you know that kind of you know what I mean whereas now it's likeone some kind of gaming system some kind of console some kind of anybody under the age of 30 in I would say most countries not every country but most countries if you have access to Internet or smartphone you're a gamer because you played something that's free or whatever whether it's online or offline you played something so most people not everybody but most people on the planet who have the luxury of having access to the internet and also something like a smartphone or console computer even uh you're a gamer yeah you know game theory is in most economics now as well uh loyalty branding at supermarkets is based on Game Theory really yeah man exclusivity you collect points for for and points being prizes it's game the that is so funky I didn't even think about that people talk about different ages right the information age was the early 2000s because the dawn of the internet and and how the internet became very robust this period of time is the gaming uh age that's so cool like how it kind of intertwines with like everything social media social media Bas on gam and it's like even like what you do like you like okay followership you earn followership you earn numbers you are earning numbers you're earning and numbers give you exclusivity or ticks or what is that's a priz that's a prize and it gives you an exclusivity that you earn through doing it which is like grinding that is so G it's Game Theory this is the age of gaming right now that is so cool oh a good answer damn welome okay so so anyway um games saved me um and uh during that period of time I had a divorce uh which is good was a good thing uh myself and my ex-wife get on super well um we raised our daughter together really well she's little but she's very cool got it um and uh but through through that period of time I was a single dad obviously and I needed to find work and I realized very quickly that I was trying to I was kinding to Aspire to the craft but I was trying to put these ridiculous ideas of what I should be like as an actor and what I should be doing right now and oh I should be doing this and I should be doing that and why isn't it worked out for me and blah blah blah and all of that was kind of meaningless because I was also going into auditions with the wrong mindset and the right mindset for an audition for an actor is that is the job the job is you present your work you take your risk that you want to take you go with your instinct about what you want to do don't give a [ __ ] about however many people in the room look exactly like you and are doing probably the exactly the same choices it doesn't matter competition isn't real um I feel because you're only there to present your work and you are individual and unique and that's your vision of how you see the character and then of course you're presenting your professional side can I work with you can you work with me am I professional am I on time am I respectful am I am I calm and sensitive enough to just treat everybody with respect and equally and not be nervous and not maybe make some bad choices or be too like oh please like me or but at the same time not be so like laser Affair that I don't give a [ __ ] you know it's that Medium of like it's a it's a nice little balance the happy balance of being relaxed in state to work you know so once I got my head around having a daughter and needing to make money I realized well the one thing that's giving me character work Freedom it's teaching me a lot about myself it's wonderfully fun I love it and I understand it really instinctively because I've done theater film and television was motion capture so I started in that and then performance capture became more of a thing I worked with Andy Circus on planet the8 last frer was amazing with Steve K who's a long who's a long-term collaborating director he's like my Tarantino yeah so he wor I've worked with him about five or six times now we will work together on something in the future he's also a close friend of mine so motion capture became performance capture us to hand data face data with or without uh voice whereas motion capture traditionally was just head and body yeah um that it opened up all these possibilities and it allowed me these amazing friendships I've made so many new friends and Graces and great work colleagues as well I'm very close to as well as genuine friendships it also uh helps I think break the barriers between talent and crew because you're sort of mucking in together it's a lot more I think as things used to be some of the good things about it too especially like cuz you said you also directed the other um yeah I directed Dave uh Dave Jones who plays hon in the scene that was revealed the scene darling yes wasn't aware they going to use me as the character darling but rather flatter rather flatter expecting it of course darling but pretending to be flattered you know so um yeah I directed that scene okay D yep uh for performance capture only I would say but and performance capture in voice I directed who else em MC Gregory play far I did I directed Sam be Samantha B was wonderfully talented actor who directed carac directed little I think not all of it but some of her restaurant sing which was awesome which is one of my favorite s oh my gosh I haven't gotten to that one yet it's so nice oh my gosh I know I have to like I literally that was one of the things about playing the game a few of my friends were so excited when I started playing and they were just like if you have any questions tell me let me know everything you're doing so I was basically just like live texting my friend playing it and they're like have you gotten to this I'm like shut up shut up I directed Tim Downey he's amazing he's so talented I mean this is the thing the origin cut Theo Solomon amazing talent new to games really lovely kid and is just flying at the moment and I'm really proud to have ADD directed him a little bit as well so I got to work with all these amazing actors get to know them socially like I always chat to everybody basically um and then I got to work with some of them as well and it was just the whole thing was this amazingly beautiful experience in four years Lan incredibly generous they gave me a lot of opportunities within the company as well as well as being acting a star I got to work with Steven Rooney who is just a blessing as a writer a beautiful writer and you know I had a bromance now friendship is great I mean work with Greg linston he's incredibly talented director Tom palali um with tierry with Alex with swen getting to know all these people Adam Smith lead writer Crystal ding he's incredible like there's so many people I got to work with and teach and aome to see you gushing about your team cuz like man I'll jush about laan it's great laan is the best probably one of the best companies I can tell like I've seen also like response of like like which is probably why it honestly did get as popular as it did and did like end up winning game of the year because they've been so good a with their fan Bas their Community Support is amazing and be like it's just like it's unlike anything D is one of the Maring guys in head of the marketing and their their community support and interaction is very beautiful cuz it's very gen yeah it's not just a marketing campaign they they genuinely want to know the feedback they're interested in they listen like the way that they genuinely listen and the way that they like really value their fan base and really value the people that like are playing the game and having a wonderful time and sharing it with their friends and family like it's really great here's a good example quite early on in the cycle they uh they put in the pronouns they them uh it was quite early on and I realized that to do that yeah cuz we were all doing thousands of lines of dialogue over four years uh I think it was something like 200 sessions I had personally full performance and performance capture with voice let alone the map stuff I did for 2 years as well right it's a lot of stuff 248 act thousands of characters between 248 plus the mocha actors it's a lot then you're adding they them on every sentence that requires a pronoun yeah on top of he she I thought about that too I was like like am the sheer amount of time and money that was spent when they they didn't have to they chose to because they wanted to representation to be a big part of dungeons dragons and also a big part of the game and for me personally like I have friends from every conceivable background every conceivable gender identification um it's how my life has always been which is great I'm very privileged to have the have had the education early on to be an ally supporter and just also normalize it so to have that in a game where they didn't have to and the amount of money it would take to do that was quite substantial and they did it because they wanted to was a beautiful moment when I realized what they were doing it was like wow this is a great it's so important too because again like something as as popular as balers gate where it's like so many people even people that didn't necessarily like know about like pronouns or like transgender identities or like different sexualities think you can be trans You Can Be non-binary You Can Be I my character is bsexual you can be asexual I mean carac obviously there's a big part of car like story which resonates with a lot of people that are that identify as being asexual but not being a to touch or or just wanting friendship as opposed to being forced into a certain relationship or what have you or like even just like as simple as like some characters being like down like leel or like wanting a slower burn like well so many will is like romantic character you know whereas my character is like hey what's that what's up and then of course you get into the real part of him you know that's the deflection of course yeah and I I was talking to my friend I was like it's a facade it's a facade I literally it isn't isn't it's it's both actually like he's a headst and he he's a sensorial a big part of my character work was the physicality of him so all the physicality stuff is mine apart from a couple interactions where I'm not available to like hug somebody or something and then we have a Big Mo out team that would probably fill into that but apart from those tiny little things everything else you see about staring is me oh wow and I got to physicalize everything about him the choices I made were very specific so it wasn't arbitary like oh he's theatrical it was like no he does this and it's all deflection cuz he's actually inviting you in so he can grab you if he wants to or he can just you know so I based on K delti and alak Kino which is a Harley Quinn character in this Italian um old very old theier tradition which is very beautiful very funny um and alino is a moral no aoral completely mad Harlequin that's that falls in love instantly and it's all about sex and fun and love and naughtiness is very mischievous I thought it was a brilliant cover for him uh so that's the theatricality there's also I also based it on three of my friends one of whom is Ruben Kay he's a wonderful comedian amazing comedian and he has this wonderful stage presence and it's very much like T aarian is funny as hell too fuing hell B based not the rhythm of his comedy on yeah I've told Reuben by the way so he's okay with it if you ever want to see Reuben check him out he goes all over the world in sashy he's amazing amazing so anyway I based a lot of it on Reuben I have flow as well anyway there's a certain flow that I have kind like yeah yeah I'm you know I have that but then I extended it out to this theatricality well especially when you're doing like something like performance capture and you're doing something that's very like a physical cuz I was going to ask that it can also be very a Nuance yeah cuz uh we used Optical um we used an optical system which means the cameras are pointed inwards they're firing off near infrared light continually which hits these markers that then fire back the reflection essentially uh there layman term so sorry for crew who going say that's not exactly Google this free yeah yeah whatever for so basically this is all over your body which creates the skeleton right but it's accurate within millimeters so um so yeah that's Reuben but it's because it's accurate within a millimeter you can pick up subtleties there's another friend of mine called L van nimen who's a very well-known established makeup artist from Holland but European famous you very well known very talented and he does a thing with dismissal with people which is beautiful uh and it's a very subtle thing it's just a it's just that and and it's very subtle but because Motion Performance capture is so detailed now you get everything you get everything so even just a like that which is based on L which I took from Lander you can see that in the performance and then there's also uh my teacher my amazing amazing Mentor acting Mentor chares Foreman who has a wonderful School in Paris and also in London teaches in Switzerland also in Sweden and America as well in one of the most beautiful teachers I've ever met uh in fact I have I run a a nonprofit um workshops performance capture I based my teaching on his teaching the way that he teaches is how I teach I based a lot of it on J's way and he Champions actors uh but Charles Giles has a way of piercing through people and also he is fearless when it comes to social interaction so then I thought okay well that's a really lovely quality to have he's also so engaging when he wants to that it's impossible not to look at him he's got this incredible Persona and gravitus so I took from my friends a few things and I borrowed from Tom Holtz Tom holtz's laugh uh which not his real life but his laugh in a particular project he did amas favorite things about AAR yeah yeah I can't do it right now cuz my voice is so hor good my voice is also gone you can't hit it right now cuz I'm too tired but his laugh is piercing in the right way it cuts through conversations it's unapologetically piercing and I thought isn't that a beautiful a beautiful way of showing something about Asian's uh personality that he doesn't give a [ __ ] what you think about him unless he can use it in some way but he's when he laughs it's mischievous it's naughty that it's piercing through a crowd like I could be here I could laugh now I bet everybody would like react yeah yeah I can't it's a shame I can't do it cuz I quite like to do it but like um if I could hit the you know if my voice wasn't horse right now it cuts to conversation I thought that's cool that's a really cool thing about him that I could really incorporate so taking these things in but that you know I'm lucky that I'm very well-trained actor that has a lot of um great methodology great tool sets from people like Giles uh Lindon NIS for movement uh also Lindsay Robertson who's great voice um other friends of mine like Keith he can both my go to with voice as well uh and also Roberta Wallock who's Eli wallick's daughter he's an amazing actor and also one of my mentors I've been very fortunate to have been exposed and also learn with masters of their trade and also ones that love actors that they they want you to love the craft not just teach you the skill sets they want you to find the passion again so I've been very lucky and I threw everything I had at aaran over four years honestly show method acting M Lin everything so that's one thing I did want to um ask about it um so there were some very emotional Parts in each of the character stories y aaran especially has a very heavy and multi-layered backstory quest mine was there anything you had to do to get into the mindset of a character like that I think the the cool thing about the way that we worked was that I established the character through the script and through the actual work itself quite early on we had a happy accident the first time you meet aarian was right at the beginning of the shooting period very first month of the fourth of the four years oh wow and at that point I hadn't fully worked him out yet cuz I didn't know everything about him at that point so I was quite guarded and quite cautious cuz I knew I wanted to explore him further and push him further that was a choice quite early on but I wasn't there yet so when you first meet aarian his voice register is lower he's a lot more guarded he's less flamboyantly theatrical cuz he's actually more bound and he's also trying to work out the player so when you meet him he's actually like look there's a be over there it's very low and it's down it's not like Hello darling look there's a beast over there can you get him yeah it's very much like that because he's guarded and then for the first night of Camp the first couple of days or whatever he starts opening up and then he's Becomes of course he's who he really is darling you know he's out here so that was a really interesting happy accident because the more I got to know him was like I can push him in this direction I can push him in that direction I'm going to use this tool I'm going to start creating more and more for him and it was it was a happy accident it wasn't designed like that but it works really well because we kind of shot kind of chronologically and we didn't know where the story was always going because it was so vast there's so many possibilities and it hadn't been written at that point you know that we were finding out as the character found out within a few days so I get the script 2 3 days early I go I mean I'm I'm a consumer professional I hope so I go through all thousands of lines I get given it's like cool and I'm starting making choice no it's part of the work it's it's normal it should be normal that's so like incredible though that you get like just kind of like get that stuff like a couple days in advance and then yeah but here's the but here's the thing it's like you know that that's the work you get it whenever you get it you start working on it no matter what you're doing that's the job right so I was very lucky that um I had a great communication with pit stop Productions where we did the the wonderful Voice work oh sorry the wonderful full performance work and with Lan as well we're fantastic even though the volume was massive so I got lucky that you know I had I could make the time available to do that um I'd start like having little inklings of ideas and stuff but at that point the character had been kind of set more or less apart from a few new things that we discovered as we were going majority of assarian was set after the first couple of months I would say so then it was a case of okay that's a new bit of the story how is he going to react to that and it became this wonderful experience of I know him so intimately especially after the first like few months I was like I know exactly who he is now and I know where he's going kind of and I know a little bit more about story of Cazador and all that kind of stuff is trauma so I was like go I got a lot to work on so every time we came up against the new storyline the new aspect new thing I knew exactly how we'd react and we did it we kind of did it so immediately it became beautifully organic so it's kind of like you just you lived with him oh I liveed with him in my brain for years you know um apparently I once woke up and said to my daughter something in aaran voice oh my God I also said it there also said it to somebody else in aari's voice and it kind of freaked them out a bit they were like what I was like what what happened like you spoke to me like a staran was like sorry um it's like okay darling all right see you soon or something like that as was asep [ __ ] weird it's something that you literally just like again live with and like have something that you're doing almost as a habit for like years well you're living you're living I I mean I'm I believe in in developed full craft work so for me you know I'm a method actor some things about method acting people don't understand it's you don't have to be an [ __ ] to people know you don't to no no no there's a lot of [ __ ] in the world like Oh I'm a method actor there I get to be horrible to people while I'm in character no no no it doesn't work like that but it does mean you pick up the trappings of of character you live that privately so that you can explore things that aren't in the script to give you a better insight into the character def find their habits and Define the way that their life is actually exists because of that kind of training especially as well as Lan work and the other stuff I brewing in animal work is what I used there's a stray cat that lives I used to live in my garden I would observe the cat and use a bit of the cat was really cool um it's called cat I respect his privacy uh so anyway um a lot of that stuff came into aarian and then then it was case of okay what's the story because I know who he is I know how he's going to react so then eventually I knew the trauma work was coming um you know I'm a Survivor as well um it's not an easy thing as an actor to go through something that you you know well and you have your own experience with but I felt okay I know I'm a good enough an actor I believe that I'm not going to present a story that is my affecting my stuff I'm just going to be it's just going to be focused on his stuff but I understand his point of view and for me that was very um very important to do that Justice because I think it's important to represent people truthfully without Glam without oh okay he's a trauma Survivor so it's like oh this great big [ __ ] drama it's like no let's be real let very Earnest betrayal yeah because it has to be embedded in the reality of it and that's a testament Steven Rooney and the other writers that contributed towards starian Testament towards Lan that they wanted to do a real mature very realistic gritty as well as funny and Fantastical story but when it came to these subject matters they didn't they weren't trying to be clever they were trying to be honest so as an actor as an actor to to see the like kind of care over something um as delicate as this it's an incredibly incredibly wonderful experience to go through because it's art it's real art it's affective art going get me too no it's okay it's you know it's a thing so I think that's it's important that as artists you don't pull back from ug ESS you don't pull back from difficult things but you engage with it truthfully honestly in a fictitional world but it's still true and they did an incredible job and it gave us the ability to really fly in those moments to do it honestly and I think for me that was a big thing I definitely think it paid off cuz a lot of the time too I noticed in media cuz I I'm also a Survivor so I know you are um I saw it in your walk I'm sorry I saw it in your walk yeah yeah I saw it when I met you oh wow body language gives it away I'm sorry body language gives it away yeah yeah and did um when I played that part I had I took a moment and I just remember thank you so you know going through this story you know obviously there's a lot of things about life that isn't fair there are good endings there are Bad Endings to good people and it's not fair and the fact that you can choose whatever ending you want want for any of the characters is completely legitimate because they went everything is permissible good and bad and that should be included in story otherwise you start I think people start um protecting the characters in a way that for the wrong reasons you know what I mean like as an actor I'm talking about I don't mean I don't mean the players I mean as an actor you can't protect your players sorry you can't protect your characters you have to let the characters go through the Journey and with our our journey because everything was permissible we got to do it in every possible way and the thing about you know everybody is that life is not fair people can be fair if they choose to be fair and one should choose to be fair because that's the best of life but life isn't fair no you know that's not real it just happens sometimes and it's awful and wonderful and all that stuff there is and I firm I'm a firm believer that there is no Cavalry coming because you are the Cavalry and if you can get through that other people will be there to support you and they'll come with you and they'll help you or or counselors or therapists or friends or chosen family or family they're there to help you through it but don't rely on the Cavalry you are the Cavalry and with that becomes the evolution that you can get through it and that's the beautiful thing about hearing so many people's stories about how they just given up or they lost hope or they some we've even had people said they were suicidal genuinely suicidal um and or alone or isolated or not represented trans men and women which is amazing to see that we have transactors of course in it you can be transident or non binary or whatever they found something in the story that said okay that person will get through that carard can get through it I can do it or I can relate I'm not alone in this that's what I said at the end of the awards you're not alone in this none of a I'm going to bring that up yeah you're not alone in this none of us are the reason I said that is because of the of the reaction from the community yes and it's true it's like it's amazing to see that normalization of everything because everything in life is normal it's only other people make it weird it just is so you know to find people that have come through this sometimes awful experiences in a way that you can Thrive through it and it's not fair and it's painful as hell but the work to get through it the challenge of it can give you so much as well I find that evolving through your own pain the challenge whatever the challenge is whether it's something as heavy as trauma whether it's just a rough [ __ ] year you know I'm just [ __ ] stuff you're going to be okay yeah but ultimately you're going to be okay it was just a [ __ ] year nothing went your way that's still valid you know it doesn't have to be traumatic can be just like a [ __ ] time yeah and that's okay you can live through it and stuff you know all of that stuff to evolve through that there is no Cavalry you are the Cavalry your friends are there to support you there is help if you need it but taking those first steps through is so important and I think the game has offered up from what people have told us it it gave them the first step and man honestly it's so beautiful it is cu it's then it's it's real art you know and I feel like that's why it resonated with so much like I I was going to go ahead and just say like moulders Gate 3 has exploded in popularity he already has in a way that I haven't seen a honestly a lot of things um so what do you think makes the game so appealing to so many different kinds of Gamers both old and new all of that we just discussed all of it um I think the game is super fun yes the game is a beautiful game so not even the narrative the game itself is incredibly well done it's a beautiful it's total freedom you have freedom in narrative you have freedom in the gameplay you can try anything you want to kill somebody with a a boot you just picked up you can do that you want to throw a goblin at another Goblin I did yeah right you want to you want to work out okay the water and electricity don't mix in real life so what happens if I do that in the game and then create a field I mean you can do almost anything anything it's genius awesome and it's free forming and you can kill everybody and if you want to and and yet the game keeps going or you can save everybody if you want to and you can change the nature of everything I mean it's just mind-blowingly good mechanically it's one is Nar it's only my second playthrough and I I feel like I'm playing another game like it's so like cuz I especially even like within the races oh I love it like you get a different experience depending on who you play how you play and which companions you're interacting with also too that's one thing I noticed is like bringing certain companions to certain places completely changes the whole like there's ret there's um reactive dialogue yeah which I when it first came out about a week after launch I did mention it uh in a way that wasn't particularly well detailed I should have I've learned from that but you know there's a bit where in the in the G spoiler spoiler giane crash where you have to do a certain thing in a certain way and that's about 3 hours of gameplay right to get through or something like that but you have to do things in a certain way to make a certain choice to kill a certain character uh in a certain way and then resurrect the character in a certain way and then you get a whole bunch of dialogue that you would never see unless you did that that's just one example of the many many many many hundreds of examples of things that are very specific to certain situations and certain characters so this game is is is gorgeous like that and I'll find like dialogue options I thought I I thought I would have p through stuff and I'll find like brand new things even just talking to like NCS I like to every animal laugh my ass off yesterday like this is what the and it's also reactive to your what you want to do and that's the point about Dungeons and Dragons and tabletop games anyway is it's a shared story experience players and dungeon master going together creating the story together so this is the first game I I've played many games I ad like Fallout dos again Doss one and two are great there's loads of amazing crpgs out there um but this is the first time I've ever thought this feels exactly like a tabletop roleplay game exactly because I have the freedom to do anything and it's reacting to what I'm doing and there's narrative to support it I was like I'm mindblowing you know I'm a fan of Boulders gate I'm fan of tabletop I'm a gamer anyway but this is a mindblowing experience it's it's unlike anything I've ever touch like it's honestly a new it's a Marvel it's you know you're not going to see many games like like this perhaps um but I think the the the weird criticism that came out of oh it shouldn't be expected it's like why why not why not raise the bar why if you and here's the thing Skyrim raised the bar Fallout rais the bar you know all these different games raise the bar why not exact it's like that's what any media like any media like it's always progressed it's always like snowballed into something bigger grander greater something all-encompassing and I feel like it's entirely possible and it's also it's a good thing here's the thing like nobody's comparing like Indie Games to Boulders gate it's insane you can't do that Dave the diver amazing game it's considered an indie game right um really awesome I mean I didn't really like restaurant management games until I met David divver I love it it's I want to go to the restaurant and work out the sushi for the day and yeah it's not like you know massive AAA thing there's every game has its value and they shouldn't be compared to it and you just go into something and you you know what you're going to it for like one of the reasons I went to bers G I love story I love like like complex characters I love narrative and also I love chaotic faired vampires it's a niche I have no idea who you're talking about it's a niche vampire it's not B Niche it's a specific like just a subsection of like I love vampirism and horror to begin with but I was just like oh this looks interesting and just just by looking at like things on my for you page like ni it I was intrigued enough to be like I'm going to play it even though I hadn't played a game like that ever and I only ever played D and D for like three months out of my life the cool thing about it is that we heard people that were getting into tabletop games rather Dungeons and Dragons specifically from our game yeah that had never played a roleplay game in their life or people that had seen this stuff going on from the actors were doing and got into Bow's game and then you know and so and that all the other way around I played both never played a video game I played tabletop and then got into this one cuz it was an extension what they love it's been a really really interesting experience brought every single person like people that love movie people love TV shows people that love TableTop people that love video games in general like every I think that's really important that's what art is isn't it it's about shared Universal commonality understand each other's the same story different points of view but you all understand the same point like you all went for different things all came out fulfilled and it's sure it's great and that's the thing you all you know then you can but then through that you can meet each other through that you can ask questions about each other through that you know a little bit more about the world that you may not have known before and through that you see the others that you don't know not as different foreign but actually as human very much as they were all at we're all like sitting at our desk playing the same fun game yeah and you're all having the same experience I mean I detest the term race I think it's a redundant word that shouldn't be in the language anymore because it comes a it's a slaver's word yeah it's a Supremacy word word but also it's not accurate the accurate term is ethnic background and nationality and culture right it's not race race inin this idea races and d and d work that works CU you got teing gnome dwar drag physically genetically different [ __ ] but in our world it doesn't work it's ethnic background if you want to nationality if you want to uh and culture if you want to all that kind of stuff like you know religion or whatever race doesn't exist it's One race it's human and games movies art books stories music sport I guess as well in a way alth that's more tribal like oh [ __ ] you my my team's better than New York I'm not a sport person I have no idea what people say you know what I mean but but the idea is that all these things this common story shared story that isn't against each other but with each other they create they they help us understand each other which means that when we have a problem with each other we're more prone to talk about stuff than we are to hate each other for that you know so I'm not going to say that computer games change the world they definitely are a power of good and media is a very powerful tool and Med like being literate in media and understanding the media that you consume like it's very powerful it makes your brain work yeah it makes your brain work and it makes you think beyond what you've been taught just by the echo chamber around you right I think that's wonderful and that's the thing I think if you're challenged a the representation of this game is amazing yes everything's everything's permissible everything's normalized yes and if you look at the dialogue of Boulders gate you also see that it's normalized language nobody's like oh oh you like you're gay oh you're gay it's more like who do you like oh they're quite nice or you like that person really that's what you like not because of their gender or their sexuality because they don't like the personality it's like that personality is weird you shouldn't that's toxic you shouldn't do that as opposed to they're a man then why are you doing that I was delighted when I'd be talking to like and they like casually mentioned their they casually mention their wife it's not a big thing I like oh my God like it's so nice to just like be like oh wow cuz like IR bisexual so I'm just like it's it's very much like a like oh like I I needed this like I needed this kind of thing growing up I kind you need it's like I that's me yeah and it's normal yeah and I think that's important um especially now onwards now that it's clear that it doesn't hamper your story to normalize everything exactly I think it's important that now that becomes normal because ultimately like if there's a whole ass Dragon like I don't want anybody complaining dragons aren't normal dragons rare that [ __ ] should be not normalized I'm like whole dragon and you're coming to me being like everyone being pan it's unrealist I'm like shut up do you see where we are there's a [ __ ] Dragon who gives a [ __ ] about your antiw work whatever thing there a [ __ ] Dragon man a dragon be worried about that's a real threat like there's a whole Aid Empire there are squ also this game CES to straight people yeah it's like everybody's included what want to my guy like this I think normalization is important because it's what real life should be is but we get all this stuff in the way and we also manipulate I think we manipulated a little bit by polit politics agendas and actually when you get down to Brass tax if it doesn't affect your life why the [ __ ] do you worry so much about live your life live love who you want to love live how you want to live drink water and mind your business yeah man and also maybe you might learn something about the other person maybe you might meet somebody that you wouldn't have met and actually maybe you'll be happier for and you didn't like close your mind off to like the possibility because like you were taught that something was wrong even though and also neither does it mean that if you are CIS male female straight not that's not a bad thing either that's who you are that's who you are you can't control that either and therefore therefore nobody you know so ultimately you know art changes people's opinions faster than politics yeah and I think that's why games are which are art and they're are active art they're not passive where you're just watching they're interactive art I think it's really important that games like this have been so well embraced cuz they serve as a good example of how you definitely can represent everybody and make it just not a thing just fun like it's just freaking fine and I'm trying I'm trying to find a question that you have not answered we have rambled a lot I it l um that's okay so what is your favorite element of the game don't have a favorite element of the game don't it's all encompassing I like everything about it I'm a huge fan I don't have a favorite element I like everything about the game the game is I'm a massive fan of DM D BS gate of Lan and also AB acting and narrative the whole thing is [ __ ] amazing I don't especially with the updates like the epilog and all stuff oh my God the epilog I literally I killed the brain in my first thing just to get the for me you know for me it's a perfect game it's now perfect game I love it I AB when I I literally like I went back I reced the brain and then I went through all of that again and I just I was like I need to know where they went you know like I need to know where they what like what became of my character what became of everybody else's character I think that's genius well I think they I think they probably always I don't know if they always planned to do it or not I wasn't in that part of the conversation but I think they I think when the decision to do it was very much like we know we this is the right thing to do and it's we're not going to wait for a while we're going to do it right now you know I remember we got the scripts in pretty early after shoot that oh dude pretty much straight after release yeah they it was pretty close to that um it wasn't like oh an emergency thing I'm pretty sure it was by I I think it was by Design not like a reaction to something it was more like yeah we want to finish the story yeah it's going to be there we just we need to get the game right first and then we can do that after what my feeling got it uh I'm involved in this conversation I don't know it's not official but I feel like yeah it was very much in the in the mindset of yeah this is a great way to finish up now the game is stable and happy and Polished and looks great and and we're dressing cuz there's so much work and people are still working on those hot fixes and stuff we got what like yesterday yeah it was a hot fix yesterday patch five came out recently obviously yeah I was like oh my good I'm like y'all are feeding us for Christmas okay Lan are exceptional company man they really give they really care about their game about the players uh lots of game companies do by the way sorry lots of game companies do care about their play I'm not saying they're unusual but they they really care and they really want to get this experience in its totality right I I dig it I think they're amazing you know amazing so yeah I feel like you literally like answered some questions without me even asking them which is incredible thank you for that you are welcome darling for guessing what's in your T tab pole link darling T link it's it's the link oh my gosh so we're gonna just before we close out uh just like a generalized question like um what is your dream project roll don't have a dream role I like I just want it to be a really interesting character I can work on I like doing stuff that I haven't done before but I don't mind doing stuff that have similar territory um I'd I don't really have a dream genre I've done loads of different genres um I'd love to work with bethesa I'd love to work with Naughty Dog I'd love to work with Santa Monica I'd love to work there's so many companies I would love to work with because there their stuff is amazing yeah um you know I I look for I here's the other thing as well I'm now a multi which is weird I was telling my friend I'm just like I was talking to Neil nben the other day and now like I'm now talking to multiple award winning act NE I literally do not wake up and think like that but it's weird to say l but here's the thing I still do Indie Games I still do in-game Locomotion motion capture I still do combat and stunts as well as full performance as well as Voice work I do for Indie a a AAA so I still work with Indie budgets I still work with doublea budgets I still work with triaa budgets um you know that's not going to change I'm still going to be available to work with anybody that wants to work with me uh obviously negotiations aside but I I wouldn't stop doing Indie work simply because I've now done I've now had the the privilege of being in award ceremonies um if anything it means you know I want people to understand that I just love the work yeah that's what I'm about you just want something that's going to like Vibe right feel right yeah man yeah and somebody's got an interesting project that want me to direct consult or perform in I'm up for all of it you know I just like I just like the work that's why I got into acting that's why I stayed struggling because I needed to tell a story I needed to act and that's why I went through near bankruptcy and homeless technical homelessness I wasn't on the streets you know like one day but like I was safe so I was lucky but I had no way to live I was living in somebody else's couch you know um all of that sustained me was the drive to just find the work and stories and Great Character amazing like so many actors you know I'm Not Unusual I'm very common in that way that the the work is the driving force that's why we became actors most people yeah not everybody sure you know the fame fortune thing is nonsense really but you know it's really an art form and it's really it's art man I'm an artist it's it's a way like I feel like actors operate especially the ones that are in it for the craft for the art they just operate in a different way that's not conducive to just like ultimately you're exploring The Human Condition you're exploring what it is to be a human being it's the reason I travel so much a I'm lucky I get to work and travel a lot but if I wasn't I wouldn't be traveling anyway I spent all my money traveling as a kid you know so it's to understand this world to understand the people of this world or One race different flavors which is awesome and to understand your place in the world nobody on their deathbed is going to go I only have so much money in my account I wish I had another twice as much money no one thinks like oh that that watch I bought wasn't expect I wish I'd owned that watch or the car wasn't quite as nice as I thought or my house wasn't quite as big or I didn't what nobody's going to think that on their deathbed whether they're surrounded by people loved ones or not they're going to be thinking I didn't see the world enough I didn't spend enough time my loved ones I regretted missing these amazing events I could have gone to but I chose not to I didn't see my family I didn't tell people I love them every day enough or at all or I didn't that one person that I was in love with I never told and I missed the opportunity they're going to think about those things in life not the material Goods that quite frankly will be somebody else's after we die or throw into a landfill after we die get recycled or just trash you're going to think about I do not understand myself in the world as much as I want things that you can't replace which is experience the experience yeah so that's the driving force I think of most craft people in art dancers musicians actors painters whatever the art form is is to understand my place in this world if I can affect to change amazing great bonus but to understand what it is to be a human being here regardless of the circumstan just to exist and I think I'm lucky I'm privileged I'm extraordinarily really lucky and privileged cuz I get to do that for a living I get paid to do that and I have no right to ask for that I've worked hard I've applied my craft I'm trying to be as generous to people and Champion other people as well but I don't have a right to this I get given this because people think I'm good enough to do the work it's an incredibly beautiful experience I deeply lucky and it's like just to be able to live every day doing something that you love is not something that everyone can say oh my God I'm the luckiest special world it's amazing yeah it is and and it's privileged like your own personal like Disney World it's just wonderful like well you know I've done every shitty job you can imagine as well yeah you know I worked I worked since the age of 14 in between with at school I still had part-time jobs I worked in Furniture factories worked in bar backing bars catering for years you know I did hard labor hard work and I I respect it and one thing that my old man who's a sports journalist actually he taught me was we always treat every single single person you meet regardless of their job with the same respect you treat your boss or somebody you want to hire you you treat everybody the same it's it's a just like don't be an [ __ ] like just be like treat people with kindness treat people with respect because like I've been not treated with before I've been treated like below other people before and like you don't know what kind of person that person is like you don't know what they could be the best person to ever be thing about them is they are human and they most of the giv of their life will resonate with your life you know that they'll they will hurt they will they will be destroyed through grief they can be affected by all these different things that you can be affected by you know that and so the idea when people treat people as lower or lesser is a deep sadness I have with Society it's always been that way the Deep Side the deep sadness about humans is that we still haven't evolved to a place where we are willing to share more than we feel we should in terms of materialism in terms of money in terms of support in terms of our time a very self-centric way of thinking we still haven't got there yet you know make your money yeah back get your back make your money do hard work get paid for that well absolutely have a great life but give more than you normally do back yes because I I think about it the way too like I think of at least for myself where it's like I want to be the person I needed and in that too like I need to be you're the Cavalry yeah like I need to be the person I needed and I also if like kind of like you said it's like if I can AFF change and if I can make that so that somebody else is like oh that's the person I needed that's the person I needed to proceive then I did something good I believe in in being generous expecting nothing in return Yes you be generous you do people favor obviously you don't get taken for a fool yeah that's that's being exploited that's exploitation but I believe that you should be generous and expect nothing in return because what that does to you it comes back to you later when you need it the most in a way that you never saw coming yes and you won't know it until it happens it's what I believe kic it's not even it's not Karma it's it's literal it's almost kinetic because you're doing that and that's the way that you live your life and because you genuinely feel that way people take note of that people respond to that in kind and when you need it the most I I I'm almost certain that always it'll be there for you in a way that you won't see coming that's my belief structure I really believe that and it's the only way that this world will survive through all this [ __ ] we're going through is people being more generous than they they feel fundamentally they want to be just going a little bit further just doing a little bit more without expecting anything in return you know that's awesome you can do that [ __ ] we'll be okay that is damn a word and um also just like oh wow after that I'm like so before uh we finish up but what's what's going on in 2024 what are some you can't tell me [ __ ] man you know that as well you know I cannot tell you anything I am ND not even a little bit I am ND the eyeballs you know that got you but Warframe is coming out this year Warframe I can talk about littleit can talk about I'm involved in Warframe I worked to the amazing re Ford she's awesome very cool I really like um the whole company's really F did da is is a really fun company to work with it's really cool to hear their story they started with like a 10 people now they've got like 200 people whatever it is they've been going 11 years or 10 years and to be a part of that it's 10 years I think I think I'm part of the anniversary say things um during the event a decade yeah DEC so I'm me part of this update to sort of you know um it's 10 year anniversary and so this update is a big part of that so to be a part of the 10 year anniversary with this update is really cool cuz I really like I love the fact they had this endeav they started so small and they've grown to this really positive really fun really fun game and also a fun company to work with have you played it yet I have not played it I've been aware of it for years but I'm not I just don't have the time to sink into stuff like that really um so I haven't played it yet but I'm going to be amazing well um I think that's all we have today um thank you so much for your time your energy you were honestly like amazing you are amazing and um I'm so happy for you I'm so happy for laran I'm so happy for all the incredible things that balers gate has done and for how much like you and the character of a staran mean to so many people thank and incredible like amazing show stop it I love it uh and thank you so much again on behalf of Temple of geek as well and also than for from Temple of geek he also said congratulations thanks miles thanks thank you n darling thank you dinner soon a little bite

Channel: Temple of Geek

Views: 7,038

Keywords: baldurs gate 3, neil newbon, astarion, the game awards, gaming, video games, larian studios, interview

Id: BOOdku5dMug

Length: 59min 3sec (3543 seconds)

Published: Thu Jan 11 2024