Since video games introducing voice lines in the late 80s, actors working on video games have been labelled as “voice actors”. Whether an actor brings a voice-only performance or even a full motion-captured performance to a project, they’re still often labelled as a voice actor, something that Baldur’s Gate 3 and Resident Evil Village star Neil Newbon does not like.
Despite spending four-and-a-half years working on the performance capture of Baldur’s Gate 3, Newbon has been labelled as a voice actor more times than he wants. Speaking to FRVR, the beloved actor explained that the term is simply “old fashioned” and creates a form of otherness to acting.
The actor says that they “don’t like the term ‘voice actor’, I quite detest it, actually”, although they explain that they’re “not gonna get angry” with fans who use the term to describe them. “It’s an old term,” they said. “I think it’s a term that was used to justify, sort of, the lower quality of work in games because people didn’t really care as much”.
“Even just motion capture work, the best actors that do that take it really f**king seriously, so I don’t see the difference.”
Neil Newbon on the term voice acting
Newbon explains that he is “trying to course correct the term because I think the term is old fashioned and we don’t need that term any more. Even for actors that only do voice work, they’re still actors and it seems reductive and dismissive a little bit from my point of view”.
The Baldur’s Gate 3 star explains that every form of acting—whether that’s voice performance, motion capture, or any other form—is simply “acting”. “Motion capture is acting… if you’re not using your voice or if you’re just doing scratch track for another actor that’s coming to do voice work, it still comes from the same place,” he says. “It still comes from the soul of the artist, the psyche of the artist, the instrument of the artist, the craftwork of the artist. It takes a lot of effort, and it’s fun, and there’s a focus to it”.
Newbon explains that actors who take motion capture gigs or voice gigs are still the “best actors”, whether they jump into one field or cover every form of the art form. “Even just motion capture work, the best actors that do that take it really f**king seriously, so I don’t see the difference. In terms of craft, it’s the same thing. They’re all actors.”
As video games have become more technologically complex over the last two decades, there are more acting roles available in the field. Newbon explains that, even with the large amount of roles in the gaming space, actors can’t just be “very lucky”. Those who still want to jump into the acting space—in any medium—still need to train, and they “have to be ready to be lucky”.
“You can be lucky with no readiness, with no training, and it’ll go,” he continues. “If you’re very lucky and you’re committed and you’ve done your work, you may have a fantastic career, if all of those things line up and if you stay a good person throughout all of it.
“Failure taught me a huge amount, and I learned a lot more from failure than anything. Success reveals who you are as a person. That is also a lesson in there as well.”
