While there are a few well-known method actors across screen and stage, Baldur’s Gate 3 star Neil Newbon may be the first self-professed method actor for video games.
Newbon, who plays the role of Astarion in Larian Studio’s iconic CRPG, spent more than four years in his role as the suave vampire. As the actor returns to the role to narrate T. Kingfisher’s upcoming book—Baldur’s Gate 3: Astarion—Newbon is channeling the vampire once again, although he never really left.
While actors often research their characters, Newbon worked hard to become the vampiric party member alongside his burnout-inducing performance capture as other BG3 characters. “I’m a method actor,” he tells us at FRVR, explaining that his career began with “four years of hardcore method”.
“Sometimes, when I wasn’t allowed to play music loudly, which is a shame, I’d put an earpiece in.”
Neil Newbon on becoming Astarion
However, while Newbon is a method actor by trade, they’re aware of the horror stories of others who claim to be method actors. “I do hear horror stories of people using ‘method acting’ in Hollywood,” he says. “You kind of go, ‘wow, you’re terrorising the cast!’ That’s not method, that’s just you being a d*ckhead”.
Newbon believes character immersion is a deeply personal process. It doesn’t always need to be shared. “When I’m doing the job, I’ll never say to somebody, ‘Oh, I’m referencing, you know, a dead cat from my childhood dad’.
The actor explains that playing the role of Astarion meant drawing from a number of places, a common one being the use of music. Multiple Baldur’s Gate 3 actors made character-themed playlists during the game’s development. However, Newbon’s—which you can check out here—was the longest of the bunch, coming in now at 13 hours in length.
For Newbon, his playlist was essential to cementing him in the role. During scenes as the vampire, he would be acting with an earpiece, feeding music that allowed him to channel the emotions he wanted to in specific scenes. For the actor, that music was for him and his performance, a secret to keep that shouldn’t affect his acting partners.
“Sometimes, when I wasn’t allowed to play music loudly, which is a shame, I’d put an earpiece in,” he says. “And people will say, ‘what are you listening to?’ it’s like, ‘music’, or ‘Astarion’s playlist’. I’m not gonna tell them that this is the musical beat that I want to get for this particular scene because it helps me, it a nice drop-in for the musicality of the moment. Because it’s not interesting to anyone other than me.”
As far as method acting goes, Newbon spent a lot of time as Astarion, so much so that he’s previously explained a few of the characters quirks are now his quirks. With that said, method acting isn’t designed to be egregious or to traumatise co-workers. “I wasn’t nibbling on the necks of my co-workers,” he says, adding that, in the games space, he “hasn’t seen anyone doing methodology in the wrong way”.
“I’ve definitely met insecure actors, not many, but a few, that have caused energetic problems because they’re just deeply insecure about what they’re doing,” he explains. “But that’s true of any acting medium. You do get people that really feel out of their depth and then they can either get very insecure and nervous or they can get very insecure and act out, and that does happen in any medium. Again, I’m pretty tolerant and pretty open-minded with people like that.”
As far as the games industry goes, Newbon explains that “largely people are very cool”, adding that the “environments are usually really positive and happy”. While it may be a younger industry compared to film and stage, it’s already matured, and there’s a lot of creatives that are simply happy to be there.
Newbon’s return to the role of his iconic RPG character, Baldur’s Gate 3: Astarion, releases on September 29, 2026.
