I don’t necessarily think every voice actor in videogames needs to play them, in the same way I don’t think Vin Diesel is obligated to spend half of his life doing donuts. I’m starting to wobble on that theory in the face of Charlie Cox who, bless his cotton socks, barely seems to know a thing about Clair Obscur: Expedition 33—a game he gave a nonetheless stellar performance in.
In a recent Q&A at GalaxyCon, Cox responded to a fan asking whether Matt Murdock (Charlie Cox is primarily known for playing Daredevil) and Esquie could be friends. The actor, alas, had absolutely no idea who Esquie is.
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He rushed to re-emphasise past statements that Expedition 33’s success took him completely by surprise—not before checking that Expedition 33 was, indeed, the title of the videogame he was talking about:
“I was very lucky in that I was asked to do the voice for a computer game … I’m not a gamer, I haven’t played it, I knew nothing about it other than I went to a studio and did four hours probably, for this character.”
Cox isn’t being humble, here. While his voicework with Gustave is excellent, a huge amount of the character’s physical performance is owed to mocap actor Maxence Cazorla—the long, yearning stares, the awkward fumbling, the stoicism in the face of death and grief. That’s all him.
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Cox continues: “I remember being in the studio and thinking ‘this is beautiful, the visuals are extraordinary, they’ve come a long way since Mario 64’—which was probably the last computer game I’ve ever played.”
I mean this in the kindest way possible: Cox immediately takes on the air of a doddering grandfather, as he asks if Esquie is the “big baddie at the end”. No, Cox, no he very much isn’t—unless we’re in a ‘Jar Jar Binks is secretly a Sith lord’ situation. It’s after this that he admits: “I need to play the game, I need to get a console first, and then I need to play the game.”
Still, he’s very happy that the folks at Sandfall and Kepler are getting their laurels: “It’s so cool … I’m so happy for these guys, because they’re not a big company that makes a ton of games, and I hear it’s a frontrunner to win Game of the Year.”
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