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Firewatch's Delilah or Starfield's Andreja was in Bilbao to talk about acting for video games, the AI challenge to actors' rights, and her different roles in popular titles through the years.
"All right, we are at the Bilbao International Games Conference and one of the panels, one of the conferences, one of the talks we could attend to was yours. Cissy, aka Delilah to me, if you don't mind, can I say so? Sure, yeah, of course. So, thank you so much. What was the main piece of advice you shared with young developers and fans about acting for video games? For game developers, I shared with them and I want to continue to remind people that we want to be a part of the process, we really care about the stories that we're trying to bring to life and so often there's so much else that goes into making a game that often we are the last thing to happen and people forget that we don't know the story, we don't know the details, we don't know all the things that have happened, but the more information we have, the better story we're going to be able to tell. So, would you say that is the main difference coming from animation, from movies to video games, that all the information and the sort of the lore or the background of the characters that you know and try to portray are more missing in video games? So, would you rather have a better background for them to be readier? Yeah, I mean, I think in games everything is a lot more secretive, you know, we sign so many NDAs and, you know, we can't talk about the projects that are often years in development, right? Whereas animation and television and movies, there's usually something talked about beforehand so we can at least get some information. Games is very... So, yes, the more information we can get as actors, the better it's going to be. And what about the technical aspects? For example, lip-syncing and the way you guys, for movies normally you would see the character talking in animation, right? But for games we know even with these modern techniques, for actors there are no benefits in terms of you can actually get to see the character talking, even though in the final game will be. No, no, no, we never get to see that really because they have us record and then they animate the voice to us usually. Now, if you're doing dubbing, then it's different. Like, anime is recorded in Japanese and they match it to the Japanese actors and then when we dub it in English or Spanish we have to match the mouth to that and fit within that time frame. But so, starting the characters in English for, you know, an English-speaking game, we get nothing. That's almost like reverse engineering you guys do. So, it's completely different skills you have to develop. I don't know if other actors have problems or difficulties doing the other way around, like the characters are going to be built on their voice. Yeah, I mean, we call it theater of the mind for a reason. You know, we are often alone in our recording studios. We have nobody to have a conversation with, so if I'm recording a conversation, I'm just recording my side of the conversation. We don't have the scenery, we don't have the costume, you know, it's all in our minds. We're all crazy. That's fine. Speaking about having someone to have a conversation with, you bring me back to Delilah and to Firewatch and would you say this was the role that made the biggest splash in your career? Of course, most of the game is built around this conversation. I mean, to date, yes. That game was something so special. You know, the fact that it is just me and Rich Summer having a conversation for six hours, you better hope people like listening to you, because if not, they're not gonna like the game. But luckily, it turned out well. Yeah."
"You did much bigger games, but perhaps not focused on a single character and a single voice, such as GTAs, the Starfields, the Baldur's Gates. So how do you feel about the reception from the fans here? Everyone's been lovely and what I love is that it's developers, right? So it's people who are making their own projects and I want to help inspire to get the best stories out there and let us help you do that. And everyone here has just been so lovely, so lovely. Yeah."
"And with the Starfield being so recent, what can you tell us about your character?
How do you feel about her? Andreja, if I'm correct? How did you feel about her storyline? Well, I first auditioned that character, well, I first auditioned the game in 2016 and I booked it in 2018. And then I initially recorded to be the protagonist, not Andreja. We recorded like 30 or 40 hours of protagonist voiceover and they decided that having a voice protagonist was not the way to go."
"So they cut all of that and they said, we'd like to give you the companion character, which does not happen in games. Usually if you lose the role that's out, you're out, bye, good luck. But Bethesda has been so lovely to work with and they, both the male protagonist and myself, they gave us the main companion characters. And we got to be in there from the beginning to help understand who this character is and let's figure out what her accent is going to be, where is she from, what kind of trauma has she been through that defines who she is today. And, you know, and then I got to record her for five years. And so it's like putting on an old glove, you know, I just, I know her. Talking about love and other than the complex and deep background that you mentioned, you know, with RPGs normally nowadays there is more liberty to do things. You can romance, you can have sex. How do you feel about Andrea being searched for, like top searched, is how can I marry her, how can I have sex with her?
It's a little awkward. Those sessions were real weird. But it's, you know, I love that that games are now continuing that level of realism to have that much immersion into a story, you know, because if you do spend that much time with somebody, there's usually a likelihood of a romantic connection. So why not see where that goes in games? Any memories that you would like to share about your other roles in both, for example, Baldur's Gate 3 and I think it's a minor one, but also American Arcadia, which we were talking about very recently with Tatiana over here. Yes, yes, I play the villain in American Arcadia and the villain in Baldur's Gate. I'm a villain everywhere. I'm always the villain. You know, I think Baldur's Gate, I had no idea how big it was going to be and it's been very surprising and wonderful. And American Arcadia, man, the second I read the script, the second they told me what the script was going to be about, I did backflips. It's so good. It's so good and it was so fun to play, you know, alongside Yuri Lowenthal and Critzy Abajos and just amazing actors and you know, it's incredible. I can't say enough good things about it."
"Luckily, or not luckily, but you deserve it somehow. You are part of many of the games that won awards this year. We've mentioned Starfield, we've mentioned American Arcadia, Baldur's Gate 3. You're not in Zelda because they don't speak that much, but we mentioned before that for some of the games there's a lot of secrecy and you have to keep your lips tight-lipped for many years and you worked on a little game that is GTA 5. So a little game called GTA 6 has been just revealed. How do you feel about such big projects and the way they, of course, mean new, bigger and grander opportunities for voice actors or even performance actors where your whole body is going to be captured. So I'm not in GTA 6, just for the record. If I am, it's under a 15. So far. I don't know, right. I think what games are able to do now is remarkable. You know, again, it's just taking the immersive experience to a whole new level. To do the performance capture, to have something like Red Dead Redemption, you know, where Roger Clark really is all of it. It's astounding to me. And then to have the open world of it, where you can just explore as much or as little as you want, let alone do the main storyline. It's incredible. I recently got to do some performance capture for a game called The Texas Chainsaw Massacres. So I play a villain. What? No way. A villain you can romance? No. Okay. I mean, you could try, but good luck with that."
"Yeah, it's just a different method of storytelling. It's so fun. I love it.
You just mentioned this game and we mentioned several games that you've worked before for. What can you tell us about what's coming next? Where can we expect to hear your voice in if you at all can talk about other projects, both movies and video games?
My God, what can I talk about? I've been announced in the Ark Survival TV show. I don't know when that's coming out."
"You're not a dinosaur.
No, I'm not. I'm a villain.
Who could guess?
Just typecasting at this point. I feel like I should be offended. I don't know if there's anything else I can talk about yet. But I have just started a company that is the ethical use of AI and voiceover. So I'm working on that to make sure that anytime we have an AI voice, we are working directly with the actors. Anytime the voice is used, the actor gets paid."
"It's very important to me.
And very trendy coming from the strikes and the situation that we see with both the scriptwriters and actors.
Yes. Right now, a lot of the companies that are out there have been scraping what's publicly available to create voices. So my voice is on multiple websites without my consent. Now I'll be a villain. But we wanted to work directly with the actors to make it something that works for all of us and that benefits all of us instead of just the few who have made a lot of money off our backs."
"Have you out of curiosity fiddled with it? Have you played with AI portraying your own voice as out of curiosity? And to see what was the outcome? What's the result of that?
Not with the tools that are publicly available, because I don't want them to have my voice. But with the tool that we have built, yes. And I think it's, I think there are really fantastic use cases for it. I don't want to see it take over, you know, lead roles in games and animation.
And, you know, even dubbing because there are huge communities of actors that do dubbing for a living. I don't want to take that work away from them. But there is work that does not currently have voiceover that could have voiceover that could get us all paid. And that I will do."
"As long as they get a cut. And it's very fair and very legal.
Yes.
All right, there you have it. We started talking about Delilah, but I think I can now say this is Dejan Carlos Posito of voice actors in video games, only villains, just one character that you can romance with. So thank you so much for your time, Sissi, and enjoy the rest of the show. And good travel back to LA."
"Thank you so much. It's lovely talking with you. Thank you."