Voice acting in video games wasn’t something that came about in its early generations outside of some smaller voice acting in things like fighting games, and even then, it wasn’t that robust. However, as time and technology moved along, it soon became one of the most important elements of certain titles. Just as important, it became something that numerous voice actors wanted to do with key games and roles, and one such person was Ben Starr, who you might know as the voice of Clive Rosfield in Final Fantasy XVI. Starr got plenty of praise for his voicing of Clive, and yet, you might be surprised at his journey to get the role.
Square Enix released a special one-hour “Party Chat” video featuring Starr and fellow voice actor Matthew Mercer, and they discussed many things about their voice acting careers and getting some of their biggest roles. For Starr, he recounted how he got the role of Clive, and he made it very clear that it wasn’t the role he was aiming for at first. Instead, as the clip below shows, he was auditioning for Tiamat at first and wasn’t even told what game he was trying to get into.
Then, the casting team asked him to voice “someone else,” and that turned out to be Clive. Except, he still didn’t know it was Clive or that it was that particular game. So, when they brought him in for another section of line voicing, he saw certain “declassified” names, including Cid and references to crystals, and he had to ask, “Is Final Fantasy XVI?” To which a producer said “yes,” and the rest is history.
When you see that kind of joy and passion from someone like Ben Starr about a role like this, you can see why voice acting means so much to so many people. It’s not just “a job” for many of them; it’s the ability to create cool stories and characters and lend their voices to a part of history.
Another example of this came from Matthew Mercer, who at one point in the chat admitted that when the “Remake Saga” was first starting, he was sad that he only got to voice minor characters. However, when he found out it was being broken up into parts and that characters like Vincent Valentine hadn’t been cast yet, he “put it out into the universe” that he wanted the chance to at least audition for them, and we all know how that worked out.
You can see the full chat below.
