met voice actor Dominic Armato, best known for his work as Guybrush Threepwood in the Monkey Island adventure-game series, on Saturday afternoon at the Penny Arcade Expo. We strolled to a nice, quiet location away from the show floor. He couldn't have been a nicer, more charismatic guy, and his colorful voice had me searching for combinable items in my pockets. Armato used the phrase "'weirded-out"' a couple of times, which I could only take to mean that I, in fact, was doing the weirding out. Either way, here's the offbeat interview:
I'm here with Dominic Armato, the voice of Guybrush Threepwood . . . and the voice of a Navy Seal in Metal Gear Solid 2—- of which I would love a recreation of the performance if you remember exactly.
If I were to try to recreate that performance in here right now in a crowded room, there would be a problem. As much as I would be happy to, I don't think that's a very good idea — a lot of screaming, a lot of dying.
For some reason, I did a whole bunch of LucasArts stuff, and then the other thing I seem to get cast for is marines in firefights. I'm not quite sure why. I don't exactly have the stereotypical, muscular, beefy marine-voice. But I'm starting to think that what it is, is at any of those auditions they always have the manly-grunt stuff, and then you get to this one part where there's this one guy who's freakin' out and totally losing it and screaming like a little girl, and I think that that's what gets me cast. I'm speculating, though. I'm not sure. If that's the case, then I'm OK with it.
Do you envision a future where voice actors for games will be just as popular as film actors, and by that I mean, being on the cover of the box along with character models and description of gameplay? Because, for me, it's really a make-or-break thing to have great voice talent in a game.
No argument here, although, that's a tough one to wrap my head around. I can't even imagine who I think of as the grunts of character voiceover ever having that type of exposure.
Honestly, I'm a little weirded-out by the amount of attention that people are paying to me here.
I got into voiceover a long, long time ago, and part of the appeal of voice-over is that you can do that kind of creative work, but it was sort of low profile. You just have your life, and you go in and you do fun, creative work, and you do a good job, and people don't really think about it. Certainly when I got into it, people didn't really think about voiceover — it wasn't on people's radar.
I remember when I moved out to Los Angeles the first time, people would say, "'what do you do,"' and I'd say voiceover, and they'd say, "'Oh, what's that?"' And a couple of years later, I'd say I do voiceover, and they'd say, "'Oh, yeah, I've heard that's kind of fun."' And then by the time I left Los Angeles it's, like, "'Oh, I do voiceover,"' and they'd say, "'Oh, yeah, I'm trying to get into that. I hear it's a great business."'
But to answer your question, I almost feel like it could go to the light side or the dark side. It could go to the light side where you have these people who were doing voice-over forever; the people who are really good at character voiceover, and they begin to get that kind of recognition.
Or it could go the other way, and I think there are forces pushing in this direction, too, where the people who are producing it want to get name recognition, so instead of pushing people who are doing voiceover work, they're pulling in celebrities who have name recognition to do voiceover work. And there are some obviously who do good work, but for the most part, a lot of camera work and voiceover work are completely different disciplines.
Hopefully the way it'll go is that people who have really devoted their lives to working on it will get the recognition rather than finding a celebrity who can do the job, and then they've got the name that makes it easier to sell. So, I can see it going either way. We'll see which one wins out.
Would you ever agree to have your image in a game in addition to your voice? It's a weird question, and I'm asking this because Adaptation is one of my favorite movies, and I love how Charlie Kaufman wrote himself into the script, and it was then made into a movie. I can just imagine something totally fourth-wall-breaking where you yourself are in the actual game along with your voice. I mean, imagine that.
[Laughs] That would be a lot of fun. I mean, I'm not shy about it. I know there are people who say what they like about voiceover is the anonymity. They could be the most famous voice and still take their kids to Disney World and not worry about getting mobbed. They can do the work without the celebrity. So, I'm sure there are some people who would be a little weirded-out by that. For me, I think, yeah, sure, that sounds like fun.
You would agree to it?
Absolutely.
Alright. I'll start a script.
