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Actor Neil Newbon is probably best known to PC gamers for his award-winning portrayal as Astarion in Baldur's Gate 3. We sat down with Newbon to discuss his career, his craft, and his criticism of AI tools replacing human performances in games.
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00:00Actor Neil Nubin is probably best known to PC gamers for his award-winning portrayal
00:04as a Starian in Baldur's Gate 3. We sat down with Nubin to discuss his career, his craft,
00:09and his criticism of AI tools replacing human performances in games. We've timestamped the
00:15talking points throughout, but make sure you stick around to the end to hear his fascinating
00:19advice to anyone interested in getting into acting for video games. Nubin's acclaim as
00:23Baldur's Gate 3 as a Starian has naturally led to lots of job offers for similar kinds of roles.
00:28We asked if he was reluctant to play characters too similar to a Starian now.
00:32You have talked about getting approached for roles that are similar to a Starian.
00:37Somebody once did something very silly and they said,
00:40oh, he'll really like it. We based it on a Starian. I was like, well, I've kind of done that,
00:44you know.
00:44How has that made you feel? Because in some sense it's recognition.
00:47Of course.
00:48It's like, oh, man, this type of character would be perfect for the experience I'm making.
00:51I'm not insulted at all. I think it's a wonderful, when somebody approaches you with that mindset,
00:58it might be a little like maybe not thinking necessarily about what the actor is interested
01:03in doing. But I do appreciate where it comes from. And I'm very humbled by people's attention
01:09and also people that have done a lot of work and think my work's good. It's like, wow, it's amazing.
01:15The problem is I don't want to reproduce that role because that role is there. I'd like to play him
01:21again. Sure. I just don't want to necessarily do something that's so similar to him, the lines
01:27will start bleeding into each other too much because then it's a disservice, I think, to that
01:31version of that idea of a character that maybe another actor would have a very different take on.
01:36So I'm very wary of not trying to reproduce roles because I just think another actor would do it better.
01:42How could I not fight for such a noble cause?
01:45I mean, doing an RP accent, actually, no, he's got a high inflected accent, so it's not even RP.
01:49But there's similarities of accents. It doesn't mean the character's the same. I think that's the
01:54thing for me. The accent might be the same accent. Sure. I'll do my darndest to change register or pitch
02:00to make it different enough so it doesn't immediately sound like this very successful character I've had.
02:05But I think if something's basing the character on a character I've done, that's really the issue of
02:10like, yeah, okay, I'm not sure I'm the best person to do this then, you know.
02:14It's never good news with a mysterious voice, is it? Always warning demons, never warning nymphs bathing nearby.
02:22You might assume that acting in a brightly lit motion capture studio would be more limiting than
02:26on location or on a film set with props and costumes. But that's not how Nubin sees it.
02:31I noticed this back in 2016. Final Fantasy Kingsglaive came out. I did the performance capture for it,
02:38for Nyx. Aaron Paul did the voice. Aaron Paul's mind-blowingly talented. And I met him only one
02:44time. He's a lovely guy. That was interesting because we both got to collaborate through Takashi
02:50Nezuda, who was the director of that. We both got to collaborate in the performance. The reason I
02:56realised that we had subtlety in performance was watching a little eye squint that I did in the scene.
03:01I didn't think they would capture because it was as tiny. I didn't want to say line of dialogue
03:04because I think it was overwritten. So Takashi and I talked about it and he was cool with me
03:09dropping the line. Instead, I just did it as an eye, like a wince of pain when somebody asked me
03:14about
03:14my friend that had just died or something like that. They kept it in. They favoured the camera angle
03:19so you could pick it up. The second I saw that, I realised we had subtlety now. And that was
03:24a big deal in performance capture.
03:25I've learnt so much in performance capture. You get used to the HMC. You get used to the Velcro and
03:31the balls and
03:32that kind of stuff all over your body. I actually think it's weirdly a purer way of working than film
03:36and TV is.
03:37Because it's a complete instrument, total body experience. You get to take your face off so you can play
03:43anything that's appropriate to your ethnic background or alien or monster. You get to be multiple characters in the same
03:50project.
03:51If anything, I think it's more freeing than TV and film when a lot of it is so close or
03:57here that actually a lot of actors
03:59sometimes may not feel in their bodies in the performance because everything is so focused up here.
04:03In performance capture, it's a wide and close up simultaneously. It's theatre technique and film at the same time.
04:10If anything, what people perceive as a limitation, I see as freedom.
04:14My inclination would be to think, oh, if you're in a mocap studio, you have nothing around you.
04:19You know, it's...
04:19That's theatre.
04:20But you're saying that's a pure experience of acting.
04:23Waiting for Godot is a bench. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead is like a coin.
04:29The whole thing has to be created by the craft work and the fun the actors can have.
04:35Now, performance capture volume, you get all of that and you get the closeness, the close-up and the
04:42wide simultaneously of film. So you can be still, you can have a quiet, introspective moment and still
04:49get to play in this wonderful space. Again, it's theatre technique and film technique.
04:54So for me, man, it's like, it's amazing. You get to do everything.
04:58It's very cool. That's pretty special.
05:00Nubin has been outspoken on his scepticism around AI replacing human actors.
05:04We asked how the industry can protect roles like his and whether he's optimistic about the
05:09direction the industry is moving in with AI.
05:11Here's the thing. AI should be a tool to enhance what people are doing, not to replace people's jobs.
05:19I feel that genitive AI replaces too much because I've heard, you know, different people talk about
05:25how challenging, oh, it's very challenging to do all this voice work. It's like, yeah, that's the point.
05:30The point is the challenge, is the creation of it. Does it cost money? Of course it does.
05:35But then if you don't do that, if you're just scraping performances from all over the internet or from other
05:40things, it's not original. Plus the actor that you're then superseding isn't going to have that
05:47one day or hour or multiple hours or hundreds of hours of money to support their family themselves.
05:53So some of them are going to drop off eventually if their work is marginalized.
05:58They won't be actors anymore because they can't afford to be actors anymore.
06:01So you'll lose those people's talents. I just think it's like, if you have the money to do it,
06:08and we're talking about a relatively small amount of money, it's peanuts really compared to the entire
06:13cycle of a big game. Even an indie game, I would say. If you can find a way to afford
06:18to do it, you
06:19should do it because that's the point. Yeah, we can all, you can now make AI make an entire game.
06:24Somebody did a Doom replica, right? Sure. Cool. Great. I'm not really interested in that. I want to see
06:31some flaws. I want to see the ideas that were just insane that came out of nowhere.
06:37I want to see the humanity in the games, even for us about aliens, you know, because isn't that the
06:44point of storytelling is to connect us all? Game playing is the same thing, to have a shared
06:48experience. So I have my feelings about genitive AI. AI itself can be useful in certain ways. I just
06:55don't think you should use it for performance. I'm optimistic because ultimately, I think with
07:00everything that comes into these spaces, AI is a new thing. But CGI, you know, people had a reaction to
07:05that eventually. People now really prefer it with in-camera stuff, for instance.
07:11I think AI will be a thing for a bit, optimistically speaking. I think people will want to connect to
07:17the actor and the character in a way that you can't do with an AI program. Actors are wonderful
07:22conduits of the players, the audience, connecting to this amazing experience they've had, which is
07:30an active storytelling medium, as we know. You can't do that with an AI program. And if you speak to
07:36an
07:37AI program and they say, oh, wonderful to meet you. I'm not entirely sure I believe them or what
07:41that means. Whereas if you get an actor like Roger Clark, you know, these amazing people, for instance,
07:46Jennifer English, you have this connective moment where you can talk about your experience with their
07:52character and the game as a whole. I'm optimistically thinking that people ultimately don't really want
07:58the program as their favorite character. They want a person because that person has humanity. And we all
08:04have this collective unconsciousness that we can get another person empathically. We may not have the
08:09same life. But if somebody tells us their story, of which I've heard hundreds of stories of trauma,
08:15of desperation, of loneliness, and finding other people through the community, and then sharing
08:21that with the actor that played that character in that game they love, you cannot replace that.
08:26With this in mind, we asked Nubin if he was happy with the level of collaboration he sees between
08:31developers and actors in creating characters and stories. I think there's definitely good examples out
08:36there now where you see, oh yeah, these people really work very closely with the actors and with
08:40the writers and the directors all together, with the studio devs, to actually ensure that really
08:46everybody's chipping in. I'm currently directing a game called Starfinder, which were very early days,
08:51but I spoke to Epic Tellers, who are the developers, when they brought me on to be director and to
08:57help
08:57out in performance. And a big ethos was very much about like, listen, we're approaching some really
09:02amazing actors. You want to get them to add on their flavour for the character so that we can evolve
09:10it just past the words on the script. I remember when I first started acting it was very much like,
09:14we're not too worried about the story, it's kind of like defining why we get to do the gameplay.
09:19Whereas now, appetites have definitely changed, it's more sophisticated, game graphics are rendered
09:26with more subtlety, you can be subtle in the game now. Back in 2010, not so much, you know,
09:32whereas now we have still moments in games, and they work incredibly well.
09:36Despite the massive revenue games generate, many actors in AAA games are paid far less than their
09:41film or TV counterparts. We asked if Nubin feels actors in games are fairly compensated,
09:47and would he support a stronger union push for motion capture performance?
09:51I definitely think mo-cap performers definitely deserve more credit. We've seen that with Maxine,
09:56in Claire Obscure, and I've got to say Charlie Cox is an awesome human being.
10:00I met him only a few times, I don't know him very well, but he's lovely and delightful,
10:05and I like the idea that he's very conscious of wanting to support another actor.
10:10I think that's important that mo-cap actors get, you know, actors in mo-cap get more recognition,
10:15because it's not just doing the body, you're adding to the performance organically.
10:20In terms of, like, compensation, I mean, we don't get paid badly. Can we get paid more? I'm always
10:26going to say yes, because actors are notoriously broke. So if we can help actors get paid more,
10:30yeah, sure, you know, not a problem. It's a little different with film and games,
10:35because the developers are the majority part of making the game. We come on board to help the
10:41immersion and narrative. Do we deserve more money? I think everybody deserves more money.
10:46Are we fairly compensated? I think we are far better compensated than we used to be,
10:50that's for sure. And do we deserve recognition? I think for our part, but so do the developers,
10:56you know? So it's a little different, I think, in terms of, you can't think about it as you would
11:01do
11:01with film and TV, or even theatre for that matter. It's a very different structure, and the developers
11:06will spend eight years on a project. We may come in for, well, Bodger's Gate is an unusual experience of
11:12four and a half years, but we may only come in for a couple of weeks, you know, to add
11:16it in.
11:17So you have to levy all that kind of stuff. Bottom line answer, actors deserve more money.
11:22Sure, why not? Do we deserve all the credit? No, because the developers spend years and years and
11:29years on making these games, especially with indie developers where the money is very tight.
11:34We asked if there is a studio or franchise he hasn't worked with, but really wants to.
11:38Oh, so many, dude. I'd love to work with a CD project on literally anything. I really admire
11:46their work. Santa Monica are amazing. Naughty Dog. I mean, dude, there's too many. I'd love to work
11:53with Bethesda. I haven't had the opportunity to work with them yet. I don't really care in many ways,
11:59as long as the studio is cool, the project is interesting, the characters are fun. Again, I've done
12:05like tiny little bit parts on Fallout London, which was a passion project because it was fun.
12:11I've also done massive AAAs. I'm working on some things that I really want to tell you about I can't,
12:16and those are really fun jobs. Again, playing characters that are one of whom is the literal
12:21antithesis of Astarion. So I get all these wonderful opportunities to audition and sometimes get to work
12:27as well, but there's way too many. The list is way too long. Like, man, I'm just playing Dispatch at
12:32the moment,
12:32and that's like, dude, the performances are off the hook. I'd love to work with those guys too.
12:38Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
12:39Great.
12:39Yeah. I come from theater and I went into film and TV and then games. So for me,
12:45I started off with the wonderful Ed Wilson at National Youth Theater. He's long since passed,
12:50was a very beautiful human being, and he really installed in us during those early days when I was
12:54still a teenager. It's really all about storytelling and character. So don't worry. I'm never too worried
13:02these days about my career. For me, success was always putting food on the table, a roof over my
13:09head, and never having to do any other job than the job that I love. That is success. Everything
13:15that's come after that has been this wonderful bonus and privilege. And the fact that I keep getting to
13:20work, people still take chances on me, still offer up all these wonderful, exciting characters.
13:25I mean, it really brings me very emotionally almost to tears sometimes to think how privileged
13:31and lucky I am. So the fact that I get to keep working, I don't care which honor it's in.
13:39As long as it's fun, interesting characters, working with great collaborative teams, I'm there.
13:45And finally, what advice would Nubin give to people aspiring to work as actors in video games
13:50specifically? The number one thing that people come up to me, like conventions and things like that,
13:54they say, how do I get to be in the games as an actor? First thing in question is, have
13:58you trained?
13:59And specifically, have you trained in theatre? Do you read? Do you watch films? Do you watch,
14:04do you go to theatre and plays and da-da-da-da? The answer is yes. Cool. Great. You learnt
14:09how to sing,
14:09learnt your voice. Great. So now you have to go out and reach out to people. Do you have representation?
14:15Do you have representation? And so on and so forth. It's not an easy way to get in.
14:20But there are very conventional ways of getting in. Get an agent. Do other work. Have a life.
14:25All that kind of good stuff. The worry I have is when people are focused on just doing voice work,
14:31which you can start in, which is great. If they skip over the training, especially things like theatre,
14:36they're going to lose out on character work, on really understanding what it is to embody the life
14:42of a character, regardless of which tool or technical skill they follow, because everything's open.
14:48Meissner, Method, Laban. All that stuff is good. There is no one path. But a lot of people skip over
14:54that.
14:54Because they can do a funny voice. They can do accents. It's like, well, that's not enough. That's not really
14:59getting to the soul of a character. That's not creating and having fun with ideas.
15:03So I would say to young actors that want to get into the work that I do, start at the
15:08very beginning of
15:09your journey. Take your time. Learn the craft work. Learn theatre work. Do a play. Even if it's amateur
15:15dramatics. Get on stage. Burn and crash and burn a scene or a play to the ground. Because there's
15:22nothing that teaches you more than a making mistake. Here's the thing about all this.
15:28Failure. If you're not failing, you're not challenging yourself. If you don't make mistakes,
15:33you're not going to learn anything. Success doesn't teach you anything. It reveals who you really are.
15:39Which is, again, another interesting thing about being successful. It actually shows the person
15:44that you are, deep down. So if people are afraid of failing, it's going to be a tough road for
15:51them.
15:52You know? But start at the beginning. Start all that good stuff. And maybe eventually you might find
15:56yourself in game space. Thanks to Neil Newburn for this fascinating chat, and to you for watching.
16:02For more in-depth interviews like this, subscribe to PC Gamer.
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