My Favourite Game

The actor and voice of Marvel’s Spider-Man on bringing theatre to games, and the magic of the text adventure

Yuri Lowenthal, voice of Marvel’s Spider-Man, p , on theatre in games g

Yuri Lowenthal is an actor best known for his voice work in videogames. His career has included work in theatre, film and TV, and roles such as the Prince of Persia in The Sands Of Time and Yosuke in Persona 4 – but these days, he’s perhaps best known for voicing the web-slinging star of Marvel’s Spider-Man. Here, Lowenthal discusses a dream role, an industry in flux and his ever-worsening skills with a controller. What have you seen change in the game industry over the years as an actor? There’s been an increase in the amount of motion capture that is done with the actors who are also performing the voice roles. That’s been exciting, because I come from a theatre background originally, and it’s sort of like a return to theatre in a way. Normally, when I’m recording for videogames, I record solo. But when we’re working on performance capture, it’s a group event. So what have you taken from theatre and screen work to your game work? ‘Filmic’ and ‘cinematic’ are two buzzwords that often come up when directors or casting directors are casting for or directing these projects. “We need to bring your performance down, we need to be more cinematic, more intimate”. I definitely use that training from film and TV and theatre, I’ve brought that to videogames I think. I’ve had to. How did Spider-Man differ from other roles that you’ve played? Because I’m a comic-book nerd, it was a huge honour, a huge thrill – and also a very heavy weight, at first. I think there was a lot of trust in this one. There was the team’s trust in me to do it, which I felt was a huge responsibility, and then there was me really trying to trust myself. To know that I didn’t have to go and, you know, find a golden fleece or something so that I could do it. That I had it in me. Following the voice-actor’s strike, do you feel that what needed to be achieved has been achieved? I don’t feel we got everything we might have asked for, or deserved, but I do feel that it was definitely a step in the right direction. It’s going to be a matter of everybody staying on top of it, especially the vocal stress. I think the people who are hiring us are more aware of that, the people who are directing us are more aware of that. What’s the worst voice-acting experience that you’ve had to go through? Not so long ago, often there wouldn’t be a vocal director – it would just be one of the devs. They just weren’t aware of what a toll it could take. On some of these war-type games, I’ve done the same line 15, 20 times, and most of those were at a screaming level. Going back to my theatre training, one of the things they teach you is diaphragm control. But even with good training, some of these games after a while can just burn you out. There have been a couple of times where I felt like they really didn’t care. But I think that’s happening less and less. Is playing games a prerequisite for being a good videogame voice actor? I don’t think so. I’ve worked with plenty of very talented actors who don’t always understand how games work. I mean, to get to do this kind of work is really a dream come true. The only downside is that I’ve been so busy recently, trying to produce my own projects and be a father, and work, that I’ve had less time to play. And I’ve become a terrible videogame player of late! When I started playing Spider-Man, I was glad nobody was watching me, to be honest. Have you found that having a child has affected how you play father-figure roles? My heart has opened up in a way, and my emotions have opened up in a way, that was not accessible, I would argue, before I became a father. So I guess I have my son to thank for becoming a better actor. And it isn’t limited to just father figure roles. I think it’s everything I do.

“When I started playing SpiderMan, I was glad nobody was watching me”

Okay, then. What’s your favourite game of all time? I will always go back to text adventures; I was once obsessed with Dungeons & Dragons. And then I started playing Zork, which takes place in that fantasy type of universe. It fired up my imagination. So: Zork. If you had to go back to a game that I was involved in, it would be Prince Of Persia: The Sands Of Time. Always. There was magic in that game.

FOUND IN TRANSLATION Lowenthal speaks Japanese, which sometimes proves useful in his work. “It’s nice when they’re playing the reference video, and I’m hearing the original Japanese performance, and I may have a little more insight into what’s being said than other actors,” he says. It’s also useful for interacting with Japanese clients who attend sessions. “I used to let it be a surprise; but I found that it wasn’t always a pleasant one. Because if they thought nobody could understand what they were saying when they were talking to each other, and realised at the end of the session that I could understand the whole time, it made them wonder, ‘Oh, did we say anything that we shouldn’t have?’ So now I always establish it at the get-go by greeting them in Japanese.”