Voicing An Iconic Video Game Character, With Doug Cockle

0:00Join us as we sit down with Doug Cockel, the iconic voice behind Geralt of Rivia in the Witcher games to talk about bringing Geralt to life, the newly released Remaster and Loads More. So grab your silver sword, run a bath, and enjoy this week's episode of the PlayStation Access Podcast. Hello and welcome to the PlayStation Access Podcast, the official podcast of PlayStation. UK, I am your host, Rob Pearson. We are joined today by Cheska Richards and also by a very special guest. I can't believe we've never had you on the podcast before. It's the voice of Geralt of Rivia. Doug Cockel is here, everybody. Hello. It's an absolute pleasure to speak to you. Thank you so much for your time. How are you doing? I'm well, thank you. Yeah, I've had a lovely train ride in and it's a beautiful day outside. Perfect. Hadn't a espresso. Amazing. What a great morning for you. What an exciting time for you as well.

1:01Well, there's a lot to talk about. I want to talk about your natural six stuff as well at some point. But the thing on everybody's mind at the moment, everybody's lips is the Witcher 3, A, the return of the Witcher 3 on PS5 with the Remaster, but also the new expansion that's due to come out next year in 2027. How has that been for you stepping back into the shoes of a character who presumably you thought you'd wrapped on 10 years ago. And now, now you're back doing it again. Like, did it feel natural slipping back into the role? Like, how, how, how was that experience for you? Oh, yeah, it's like, it's like, it's like putting on a pair of shoes you've had for ages that are still in perfectly good condition. Amazing. But they fit your feet great, you know? It's like that or, you know, like slipping into a warm bath. Very comfortable. I like that you mentioned bar. There's that iconic shot of Geralt in the bar. Yes. I mean, we might use that as on the thumb.

2:01There we go. That's the thumbnail for this podcast already. Like how, I mean, Geralt is so entwined with you. Like, audiences know you as Geralt. Like, how has your sort of connection with the character developed, I guess? Like, coming back to him now, 10 years after wrapping on the Witcher 3. I'm so sorry. Less you. You gotta keep that in. We've got to definitely go keep that in. Even Witcher's sneeze. How do you feel your relationship with Geralt has grown? Like, like, coming back to him now, like, you mentioned it feels like slipping on an old pair of shoes, but could you sort of elaborate a little bit more on like, you know, when you went back into the V.O. booth was there, was there really sort of like a motion in it for you? Or is it just, ah, we're back here. It's another day in the office. No, it was really exciting. Yeah, it was, um, I had a, I had a bit of, um, often with voiceover work for games, especially, you don't know necessarily what it is you're going into record, you're given a project name and you show up and then either sometime during the session or sometime later

3:05you find out what the game actually was. Um, unless you're playing a main character of course and then usually you have a better idea. Yeah. But I, I knew, um, I think I probably knew five or six months in advance, um, before we started recording that it was coming. So I had a lot of time to, to kind of, um, get over my initial excitement. Yeah. I was thrilled when, uh, when I found out, um, but I didn't know a lot about it. I just knew because someone gave me a heads up at CDPR that this expansion was, was in the works. Um, so I, I didn't know a whole lot about it until they made the official announcement and then it was like, wow. You know, so by the time I got to going into the studio, I was like, great. I know the zone. Um, I'm, I'm happy to be back. Amazing. And I like, how does your, what, what does a day in the life of Doug Cook will look like

4:08when you're, when you're in the booth recording Geralt, like, uh, we, we've, we've had actors come on, on the pod before and I guess it depends on the game or, it depends on who's, you know, producing it. Um, but like, do you do like, you know, do you have story days? Do you have combat noise days? Is like days? How does it work like that? It usually works, uh, that you record as the writers confirm final draft, um, final, final copy. Um, and that can happen in order sometimes and sometimes it's very out of order because they have different writers working on different sections and things and then, you know, they all collaborate, but some of them finish that, you know, what they're doing before others. So, um, it's really kind of a mishmash. Um, what, what we do, uh, in the studio is anything that is extreme on the voice, like battle noises and or dying things or, you know, whatever it is, they usually happen

5:10at the end of a session so that, you know, you don't tear up your voice before you do all the, you know, really important, yeah, potentially emotional stuff. Did you enjoy doing the battle noises and the, yeah, they can be really good fun. Yeah. I've been doing, I, you know, I've done so many games. I've been voicing characters and games since 1999. They're 26 years, 27 years. I've been doing this kind of work. I've done a lot of dying. I've done a lot of getting punched in the stomach or getting, you know, hit by a sword or swinging a sword, all those kinds of things. Um, so yeah, I've probably been around the block a few times that, you know, it's, it's not new to me. Uh, it was really exciting when I was first doing it. The first few years I was working in the, in the industry, I loved doing the battle sounds and the efforts and things like that. It was great fun, really, really good fun. And I guess you must have had experience of, of voicing some characters who unlike

6:10Geralt aren't like, they're not the main protagonist. You may be voicing like an NPC who gets killed or beaten up. And, uh, but with Geralt, there's so much depth to him. There's so much, I mean, there's just, there's just the quantity of the lines like, uh, the Witcher 3 is, is a, an enormous game just like getting, getting through all of that. Um, but also, especially with the Witcher, you're, you're playing a character who, who the player can influence the choices of like, not everybody is going to experience the same story in the Witcher 3, depending on what choices they make. So how do you balance, I guess, trying to create a character who is Geralt, but also a Geralt who may be slightly different in one person's game to versus how he might appear in another person's game? Uh, well, it, the simple answer is you have a director who's helping you make those subtle shifts in tone and energy and everything else. Um, we had great directors on Witcher 3 and the, and the expansions. Um, for, for Witcher 3, we had Kate Saxon, who's a, I mean, she's just awesome.

7:14She, she does so many games and she really knows her stuff. And she was the head Vio director for Witcher 3. And then we had Damien Goodman, uh, Goodwin, Damien Goodwin and Mark Healy, who, you know, um, did a lot of the recording as well, working with Kate to make sure all, all the recordings were, you know, would fit together nicely. So, yeah, you work with the director and they, they usually have seen or have had some kind of, um, advance information that often the actors don't get. Sometimes I get to see the scripts before I go into the studio, but more often than not, I don't see the lines I'm going to be speaking until I'm speaking. Okay. And it's, it's one of the wonderful challenges about this kind of work, but it's also, uh, it also means that it's a different kind of acting. I find it really exciting. Some people are really intimidated by that. And some people just can't do it. Um, just like some people, you know, some actors are, are really good on camera, but they,

8:18they're not so good on stage and vice versa. You know, every actor has their strengths and their weaknesses, their likes, their dislikes. I like it all. So, yeah, so the director is a really big help. Um, but there's also one of the challenges of the, of the job that I really enjoy trying to make those subtle nuanced shifts in energy, uh, if the player chooses this choice, um, there's one energy and if they choose this choice, it's another energy potentially, not always because sometimes the choices are quite similar and you don't find out until later that the choice you made is not necessarily the best. Right. And so that, that, that amazes me that you could, you rock up for a day of work and you might be presented with, okay, today we're shooting or recording a really emotionally intense scene between Geralt and, and Yennefer say, and today we're recording a scene where you're, you know, confronting one of the members of the wild hunt or something like that. You have no idea what it's going to be each day when you, when you turn up.

9:19So you've got to sort of like just immediately switch into a particular emotional lane. Yeah, absolutely. I describe it. Um, I've done a lot of teaching of acting as well. And, uh, whenever I try to describe, um, kind of the, the job of the actor, I, I like to think of it as I go into the studio every day with a toolbox. Yeah. And I have, I have, you know, a whole array of tools in my toolbox. And then you pull out the tools you need for that particular day and that particular job, if it's a new game, then I, I may have to pull out tools I haven't used in a while, which could be an accent or could be a particular emotional state or psychological approach to life or, you know, whatever it might be, whatever it might be. Yeah. Um, so you have to be prepared as a games actor to, to go with whatever you're presented with. And then, you know, make it as real as possible.

10:21I mean, it's interesting that you mentioned that you've had experience teaching acting as well. And you've had this, you alluded to there a long career in video games. And I'd be interested to get your take on how acting in a video game differs from acting on stage or on screen, for instance. Do you find it's, you know, you can just, it's very sort of like the fundamentals are similar or do you find it is a completely different experience? The various mediums. I think I find now, um, I think for younger actors, there, there, there, and I, I'm being not necessarily younger in age, but younger in experience. Yeah. Um, they probably find the differences larger than I do now. I, I feel now like they're also similar in so many ways. What really makes them different is, is the, the technical considerations that you as the actor have to be aware of and have to be monitoring. Um, I think the main difference is that when you're on stage, you have a set, you have costumes,

11:26you literally have the shoes of the character to wear and walk around in. You have other actors to interact with. You have an audience, um, you know, once you're in the actual run of the show, you have an audience who's responding to what the actors are doing on stage. Um, and that's thrilling. It's, it's my favorite form of acting. It's just everything's so immediate, you know, it's happening here and now you can't change once, once you've done something or said something, you can't go back and change, there's no second take. Um, and that, that's thrilling. In film and TV, very similar to stage, you know, you have a location or a set, you're on a sound stage. You've got, uh, other actors to interact with most of the time you're in a costume. You know, it's very, it's, it's, I, I feel it's easier to put yourself in the role of the character when you have all that help around you to do it. And then you go into a game studio and you start recording voice over and you're alone in a room with a microphone and a screen with the script on it.

12:31And, uh, the director and the engineer on, on the other side of a, of a, uh, double walled glass window, um, and you're wearing headphones and you have no other actors to interact with and you're not wearing a costume. In fact, you're wearing something that you know will not rustle on the mic or will not make noise. You can wear whatever you want. Um, this is one of the lovely things about games as well is that it doesn't matter what you look like unless you're doing performance capture in facial capture. It doesn't matter what you look like or what you're wearing, you know, you, uh, you could just be comfortable in your skin. Um, because nobody's looking at you. It's all about the voice. That also makes it more challenging in some ways because like I said, you don't have the assistance of costumes and set or location, other actors. Um, quite often the director is reading the other characters lines for you and, uh, some

13:34directors are excellent actors and they really give you a lot. Some directors don't give you so much either because they're not really actors and they don't trust themselves or, uh, I mean, they trust themselves to direct, but they don't necessarily trust themselves to, to perform. Yeah. And, um, you know, every, every director is different. So it really depends on who the director is. Um, it's just a very, very different experience, but I love it. I absolutely love it. Do you find yourself like without that external stimuli then like using your imagination a lot to imagine what it will be going from in the booth to the player? Yeah. I think that the actor in a voiceover booth has to engage their imagination. I was just having this conversation with someone yesterday about, uh, I think it's Diane Perry, a voiceover artist of, of pretty, you know, great renowned and she's written a book

14:35all about the voiceover industry and how to approach certain genres and things and how the business works. Anyways, she uses a word that I, I never really thought about. I, I, I perhaps described it as instinct, but she uses a word called intention. And I think that's a really good word to use as well. Um, I, and I kind of lump it into imagination. I feel like the actor in, in, uh, the gaming voiceover booth has to engage their imagination in a way that's different from the actor on stage or screen. Um, and I wish I could describe in greater detail exactly what that means. I find myself, I think, I think a lot of people who want to get into voice acting think that it's just about the voice. And it's not because the voice is attached to this body and, you know, the, the whole actor is, is the instrument.

15:37Uh, so it's a very physical job as well. I find myself, you know, for different characters, having a different, my feet are in different positions on the floor. Um, with Geralt, I'm very much, uh, kind of almost on the balls of my feet. I'm always, you know, my weight is a little bit forward. I usually record with my, I can't remember now exactly, but I want to, my left foot forward from my right. I almost never stand with my feet parallel. There's always a feeling of forward motion, um, which is true of pretty much all characters. But, you know, I, I do another character called, uh, his name is Ajax in the first descendant. And his voice is very much my own. And with Ajax, I often stand in kind of a neutral stance. So it, it, you know, your whole body becomes engaged in, in this process. Um, it's not just your voice.

16:37And if, if your body isn't becoming engaged in this process, then you're not, you're not really fully creating the voice. Um, I forgot where that question started. I hope I've kind of answered it. But, uh, it's, you know, it's the mistake, I think I get asked a lot by people. How do you get into voice acting? And my first question to them is almost always, well, what's your experience of acting? As my opinion, uh, but, you know, other, other actors in other podcasts have said similar things probably on this show. Um, you have to be an actor first. It's not just about having a nice voice or being able to do an accent. It's about having an understanding of character and storytelling. And I, again, just yesterday, I was, same person I was talking with. I was talking about musicality. But there is a certain musicality to acting that really comes to the fore and voice acting.

17:40Um, if you think about it, you know, using some, uh, musical, you know, words from music, uh, composition and, and performance, you know, syncopation, tone, rhythm, flow, uh, all these, these kinds of words the musicians use. They're directly applicable to how you deliver lines as a voice actor. And there's a, there's a really interesting crossover there, you know, between how a musician or a singer, how they space the pauses, how they, how they create rhythm within a melody, how they, how they tell the story of the, of the composition. I love hearing sort of like, uh, it almost feels like there's a real like, from what you're just describing, like a, a purity to being inside a voice over booth on your own with no, with no set with no costume, with no other actors to perform against. And, you know, you've, you've mentioned there sort of like giving your body like an actual

18:41position to assume the character of Geralt, like a, this forward momentum thing. And I think that's fascinating to hear. Um, like, uh, I want to ask you, I want to get into sort of like your, uh, thoughts on the interaction between fans and actors in a minute, because I think we're, and I'd be really interested to get your take on that, certainly having, you know, created this character or, or been part of the creation of Geralt 10 years ago versus what that culture is like now. But I'm, I'm really sort of fascinated into, uh, to dig a little deeper into how you've brought Geralt to life than in that, in that voice over booth. Cause I think a lot of people will probably wrongly assume that you are just there. Okay, here's my line. I'm doing this line now. And, but you're like, you know, when he's Geralt's quite a stoic character, but there's often times where you, you do get that, that sense of, you know, the sadness or the tragedy underneath him or the anger comes out in certain situations. Does your body position change depending on Geralt's emotional state? Then how do you approach that kind of thing?

19:43Very organically. Um, I try to find the emotion in myself, whatever that emotion is. Um, it's one of the great challenges of acting is, you know, I think for me, a big part of approaching the moment of acting, the creation of, of the actual moment is to find as much ease with yourself as possible, to open yourself up to the possibility that these lines and what the character is doing with them may actually affect you, the actor. And that's how you find the emotion ideally because then it's an organic feeling and audiences can hear that and they can see it on screen when an actor is genuinely feeling some of what the character is feeling. I say some because it doesn't have to be all and it can't be because then, then, then the actors lost themselves in, in the character. I always describe when I teach that, um, you have to think of yourself as 95% character

20:48and 5% actor and the 5% actor is, is the bit that's remembering your lines, uh, reading the words accurately, um, hitting your light, hitting your mark, being aware of camera angles, where the mic is your proximity to it, uh, all these things. And then the rest of you, the vast majority of you is the character living through this moment in time. Um, and if you can find that balance, you're golden. And a big part for me in finding that balance and I would, I would think a lot of other actors would say the same thing is finding, I call it ease. Some people might call it relaxation. I think relaxation is a, uh, slightly misleading term because that implies like, like no energy. Yeah. It's more of an ease. And if you can find that ease and, and, and then within that, find the energy of the moment for the character. Anything else should flow pretty naturally. Um, it's a little bit more difficult in the voiceover booth because, you know, on, on stage

21:51or screen, you have the other actor who is giving you something that you can directly respond to and so much of acting is about listening. It's about, you know, listening and responding. And, uh, and I don't just mean listening with the ears. I mean, listening with the eyes, listening with, with your, with your nose to the, you know, the smell of the other actor in the room with you. Um, what they're doing, their proximity, you know, so it's listening with your whole self. And in the voiceover booth, you don't have that. You have to imagine that that goes back to the, you know, is how much do you have to use your imagination? So I, I, I just find it an amazing form of art, uh, voice over acting because you do have to create so much of it yourself in your, in your own body, in your own mind, uh, from lines on a page. Yeah. I think it's really interesting as well because Geralt is known to be, you know, witches in

22:54general, oh, they have no emotion, you know, they're stuck, they have one job, they do it. And so applying emotion to a character like Geralt, that, I mean, there must have been some kind of difficulty in that because you can't just go nuts, you know, but, but it was portrayed so well, like when you found Siri or when Geralt found Siri, um, it really came through and it's just that must have, there must have been a layer of difficulty projecting emotion onto a character who isn't meant to be emotional, but he is, but that's the whole debate, you know, I mean, but yeah, well, I, um, for me, it isn't a debate at all. I think he is an emotional creature. And I, you know, I've read, I've read all the books. So I have, I have that background in, in Geralt. I've read them multiple times at this point. Um, for me, when I, when I first started recording the Witcher in 2005, I think it was, um, I couldn't read the books because they weren't out in English yet.

23:57I didn't know about the Polish TV series, not that it would have helped me at all because it was all in Polish. Um, I had to go with, um, what the CD project red team were able to share with me. So we had some, some concept art of Geralt himself and also the world around him, Jan and Triss and what a lesson is and what a Brux is and things like that. So I had some visual context for the world. When they described the trial of the grasses and they, and they said, it, it, it makes Witcher's emotion this. I was like, okay, cool. I get that. But I'm an actor and two things about that one is that's a big part of what we're trained to do is to live the emotional life of the character. And if this character has no emotional life, what am I doing? Um, but, but the other part of that is that what we as human beings relate to in a character

25:05in a story of any kind is the humanity in them. And emotion is, it is so much a part of who we are as an individual and how we respond to our world. And for me, the idea that Geralt was emotionless was just anathema to everything I know as an actor and a storyteller. So I fought against it. And the most common note I had right through the entire all three games and the, and the, the previous expansions was Doug Pulletback. No emotion. Flat them out. You're doing too much. Which was hard. It was difficult to find the balance where they were comfortable with the emotional life that I was bringing to Geralt, but they were happy with the emotionless nature of the Witcher. But I was, I was very pleasantly surprised when I, when I finally was able to read the books.

26:09And for me, not for everybody, but for me in the books Geralt is quite an emotional creature. I think how I decided to think about it was that the job that he does is so dangerous and witchers are reviled throughout the continent. You know, only the people who know him like him, everybody else just wants him to do a job for far too few orans. Right. Yeah. And, you know, he lives a challenging, difficult life. And if he allows his emotions to rule him, he's going to die. So he pushes them down. He keeps a tight lid on how he feels about things. And you only see little snippets of it here and there in key moments, I think.

27:13And it was really interesting seeing, I know we haven't asked about this yet, but I'm sure it's coming. Songs of the past, the new expansion. I was very fortunate. I got to go to games calm and work with CD project to disclose what they had ready to share with the public about this new expansion. And watching the demo, he's quite a funny guy. Yeah. Great lines with the witches as well. That whole sequence, Ken Mohern's hilarious. Which one are you thinking about? The one where they dress up in women's clothes? Yes. And the limb Rick. And the limb Rick. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Lambert Lambert. That's the one. Yeah. He's got, he has got a good sense of humor. It's there. It's dry. It's dry. It's there. Yeah. Yeah. There's a moment in the songs of the past demo where he is very clearly. Quite confused.

28:14And confusion is an emotion. So there we go. Is there a scene? And I'm sure you've been asked this question before that sticks in your memory as being particularly challenging or particularly enjoyable or one that you always think man are nailed that. That was great. No. Oh, I think I think artists very rarely of any kind are very rare. Very rarely completely satisfied with what they do. There's always a little tweak. There's always a little something more they could have done. A different splash of color here. A different sustain on a note there. You know, it's it's it's one of the great challenges, but also one of the great joys of any art form is that it's never until it's recorded. It's never really finished. Yes. I mean, there are a lot of a lot of scenes.

29:15I mind you, you know, we spent, I think it was about two and a half years recording Witcher 3 and the expansions. That's a lot of material. Yeah. And that's not recording every day. That's recording, you know, two or three days in a row and then nothing for a week or two and then two or three days in a row. And then, you know, you know, that kind of stop starting kind of thing as the writing is completed and confirmed. There are so many different things. One of the scenes that really sticks out to me and I believe it's when Geralt finds Siri finally. It's not just that moment when he finds her and he thinks the worst, but it's his memories of times with Siri prior to this moment that come to the player as a cutscene. And I don't think he even says anything. I didn't perform a bit of it.

30:16But when I played the game, that was, I mean, I did, I cried because I was so invested in the relationship between these two people. So that's the main one that really sticks out. In hearts of stone chasing the pigs around the farm yard, trying to get the painted ones back into the stalls. I loved that. You know, that's a moment that I really loved. Princess the goat. Oh, what a moment. Yeah. It's right at the start of them. Is it way more should have been there? It's right at the start of the game, isn't it? I think so. It's just after you leave white orchard, I believe. Yes. And you're on your way. I can't remember where now to find Yennefer. Yes. Yeah, that was such a random quest. I love those silly little quests. You must have read the script sometimes. I've been like, this is gold. Yeah. Yeah, really good fun.

31:17Yeah. And then you go right from doing one of those to, you know, the bloody Baron. Oh, I was going to ask about that specific. Because you must have been, again, you must have been asked about that so many times. But I think more so than for me anyway, more so than when Geralt meets Siri or more so when he's having these, you know, emotionally intense scenes with Yennefer or Triss who are whoever it may be, the, the scene where Geralt is, you know, putting the, is saying the prayer over the child at the end of the, the bloody Baron. Yeah. Side quest. That, that really got me. Do you, is that a scene that you remember recording? Did you feel anything in particular? And it was recording that or was that one of just one of those, you know, I hear doing my job kind of thing. Well, there is a bit of that always. Yeah. Because like I said, you know, 5% of you as the actor has to be aware of all kinds of other things. I think I find when I record games that I don't remember specific moments of emotional

32:24intensity in the booth, I don't remember, I'd live through them. I don't remember them. I like to think that that's because I'm living through them in truthful enough way in an organic enough way that just like we often don't remember events in our own lives with perfect clarity. Yeah. I think that that's true of actors as well. And you'll do something and some part of you will go, wow, that was, that was intense or that was fun or that was, you know, whatever it was. And so you kind of acknowledge it and then you move on because now you have to do something else. So it is one of the exciting things. And when you play your own stage for two hours maybe, you know, with a break for interval in the middle and you're living through all of those moments and then you go to your

33:24dressing room and you know, you lived through a storyline that you know that you're expecting that you're trying to live again for the first time and then you get dressed and you go home. And you do that with voice acting as well. And in a given day you could be recording six or eight different intensively emotional bits of script. And you're going through all of those for the first time and trying to find them for the first time and someone described it to me, John Schwab said this, John Schwab plays dandelion. Yeah. We were talking about all this and I said, you get really tired. You know, when you go into record some of this stuff and you know, we're just chatting about doing what we do and he said, yeah, yeah, you know, Doug, if you think about it, you know, when you're in there and you're working and stuff, you know, your prefrontal cortex is just firing away because you're doing all this work. You know, you may not be running a marathon, but you're, you know, your brain is sucking

34:25the energy out of you. He didn't say that. I said that. I like to think that John said that. I hope you say that, John. You can take that one. Yeah. So, you know, you go through, you can in a four hour session go through a lot of stuff, but I think one of the things that good actors learn how to do as well as to let it go, you live through it, you take it through you, you build that energy in yourself and you let it live. And then you find a way to go, and breathe it away because you can't carry that with you. You know, you've got your own emotional life to deal with, you know, whatever you brought into the studio with you that you hopefully left at the door, you have to pick up again once you leave the room. So, you have to be you. But you know, as you can imagine, you know, living through multiple intense moments over

35:30a four hour period and then doing that, sometimes, you know, five days in a row can be, it can be taxing. And I find, some of this is a function of age as well, but I find, by the time we get to the third hour in a recording session, I'm starting to feel it. And then the last 15 minutes always feel like a kind of an interesting little push because you're tired now. And you want to have the energy that you came into the booth with. And so then you're finding the balance between feeling the tiredness and you feel you can feel your focus start to start to, you know, shift or soften or whatever it is. So then you're trying to fire that focus up and then, you know, it is, I used the analogy to a marathon a little while ago and it is a bit like, you know, those last few miles.

36:33Yeah. And you know, you just have to keep doing it. Keep going. You got to get across the finish line. And that's the part of the job that is work. And every actor finds their own way to deal with that. I tend to find it through humor. I think if you talk with any of the directors I've ever worked with, I am not an actor who takes the sessions absolutely seriously. I have to find what's funny in the script, what's dirty in the script. And sometimes I voice that. I said it's quite myself. I just follow both of that in the video. Oh yeah. I do that for myself, but I also, you know, quite often it's, I only share things that I think that the director and the engineer will, will join me in enjoying a little side trip down this avenue, you know.

37:35And I don't do it all the time because that would be, that would be wasting all of our time. But I think that I keep my energy up by finding the humor and things, especially where there isn't. I love that. It sounds like there's in terms of bringing Geralt to life, it is a collaborative process in terms of it not just, you know, the script is there for you, but you're also bringing something extra to it. You mentioned earlier that you sort of fought or have been constantly fighting for maybe a little bit more emotion in Geralt than maybe what CD Projekt Red originally intended and presumably you come to some sort of like happy medium between the two and that's Geralt. Yeah, so I forgot where I started with that question then. Well, I think I know where you're going with it. There's an evolution if you play the Witcher games right through from one to blood and wine. And I think you'll see a further evolution of it in songs of the past.

38:36Geralt becomes a more emotional creature throughout the three games. And I think this is a function of one throughout the recordings. I was always trying to find that balance between no emotions and relatability. And I like to think I don't know if the writers would agree with this, but I like to think that me constantly pushing the sides of that envelope a little bit because I had to. It may have influenced the writers to give Geralt more opportunities to have that emotional life. So they wrote it in. You know, I noticed as we were recording through all three games that the writing allowed more moments for Geralt to have an emotional life as we as we went through all the games.

39:38I love that. And it's a collaboration. We're kind of inspiring each other, but that's how this stuff works. I mean, that's how any work works. You know, you have colleagues who you work with, you know, even a writer, we think of a writer sitting in a room and they just write all on their own and they do. But then a editor has to look at it. And then they have, you know, they have trial readers who, you know, give feedback. And no matter who you are, what you do, somewhere in your life, you have collaborators who are influencing some of the choices that you make and you internal influencing their choices. It's the nature of being human and working in society. So yeah, I do think that I do think that there was an unspoken collaboration between how I was performing Geralt and the willingness, the writers developed to let him have more

40:39feelings. It's like you're all getting to know Geralt a little better. Yeah, that's a nice way to say it as well. Yeah, goes on. Yeah, as we all get to know the characters better, more deeply, and trust our ability to tell stories through these characters, they become fuller. They become more rounded, deeper. They become more human. I've got some questions here from the community that I want to get on to, but I do really want to ask you quickly about natural six before we get onto that because that's again, please for anybody who isn't aware of natural six stuff, could you just explain to our audience what natural six is and your involvement in it. Natural six is a great joy in my life, you know, so is the Witcher, but this is a new joy. Natural six is an actual play, Dungeons and Dragons show on YouTube, and I do it with my lovely colleagues, Holly Bennett, who you both know, who used to be here on PlayStation

41:39Access. Yeah. And Eiffel Wilson, who was with EGX for many years and is now with Larry and studios, Larry McIntyre, who's an actor, you'll know him from the last kingdom and from Zena Blade Chronicles, among many other things, Alex Jordan from Cyberpunk, he's Mr. Hands, and from the altars where he plays all the old and old skis. Yeah. And Dragon Ageing, no, not in position. Yeah, I think it is. Yeah, in position. Yeah, and Ben Star, of course, who is the guy, I'm sorry, I think Dragon Age the Veil God. Yeah. Yeah. Ben Star is Clive in Final Fantasy 16, and I forget his character's name in Clare Obscure, but, you know, he's one of the main characters in Clare Obscure and many other games as well. So the six of us, we have a lot of fun.

42:43Yeah, it looks like it. Yeah, we do long-form D&D shows. They tend to run about three hours, but once you get into it, it doesn't feel like three hours. We have a lot of fun. Sometimes we get a bit naughty. We get a bit silly. We also get quite deep. We didn't start this to be naughty and silly. We started this to tell stories, to tell good stories through interesting characters and interesting writing, which is where Harry is at the helm. He writes fantastic plot lines for us to then stumble through. And yeah, we have a big following and we just love doing it. We absolutely love doing it. We have our own studio now. We've got some cool stuff in the works that will be announced when it's ready to be announced. And yeah, we'll be at MCM this October, end of October, doing another live show and

43:51doing a meet and greet. And you know, come say hi if you're going to MCM. It's amazingly exciting, but I wanted to ask you about it just in terms of the acting challenge of it as well, because presumably Harry doesn't reveal to you exactly what he's written in terms of the scenarios that he's plotted out or maybe he does. But in terms of how you are then bringing them to life, and you talked earlier about being in a in a voice booth and not having anyone to play off against. And here it's the opposite of that. You're set around a table with fellow performers who are bringing their characters to life spontaneously at the same time as you are bringing yours to life. I mean, there must be a challenge, but also a heck of a lot of fun as an actor to play around like that. Yes, very much so. And it's often when the cameras aren't rolling that we have the most fun. We are six very like-minded individuals in terms of our senses of humor and what we want

44:52to achieve with natural six as well. So we get on like a house on fire and we have a lot of fun. But once those cameras start rolling, it is a show. And we're very aware of that. And not that we play to the audience. We're playing with each other, but we're aware that an audience is interacting with us as well. And it is fun. I mean, my character, Kelness, he's a dragonborn druid. He's so much fun to play. And he's just had a big arc in the campaign. And we've just recorded kind of the ending of that arc and we're moving on to something else. It's...he's a bit of a self-insert. I think we all did this to a certain extent. You know, people who know us personally will be able to point to aspects of our natural

45:54six characters that are very, very like ourselves. And so it's been interesting. I like to think that at least to a certain extent, we've all gotten to know each other a little bit deeper through how we've been developing our characters in the show, how we've allowed them to develop what we've brought of ourselves to it. I mean, this is the wonderful thing about Dungeons and Dragons is that you can be really boring and just create a dry character and just go hack and slash and, you know, roll dice and not really care about the story. But I think most people create characters that they're interested in exploring. Yeah. And then they sit around the table with each other at somebody's kitchen table and they care about their characters. They don't want them to die or be in trouble. And that's part of the fun of it is that, you know, you're exploring all this intrigue

46:56and peril and plots and politics and all these wonderful things in a very safe environment. And we, yeah, it's been a really, really fascinating journey. And it's, I think it's only just getting started. Did you always have an interesting? 60 episodes in. D&D was that always something? I've always loved D&D. Yeah. Yeah. I think I got my first basic D&D set. This would have been advanced D&D second edition, I think, when I was about 10 or 11 years old way back in the 70s, early 80s. But I just loved the whole idea, but I grew up on, I had a, I had a grade school teacher who every lunch time when we came back from lunch, he would read us from, I've cared

47:57him if it was a chapter or part of a chapter from the Hobbit by J.R. Oh, wow. And I'd always been in, you know, a child who loved imagination and storytelling and things like that. And when I was introduced to the world of J.R. Tolkien, Lord of the Rings and everything, it just, it hooked me hard. And I went on to things like the Dragon Writers of Perne and, you know, loads of other fantasy novelists and, you know, shows, Conan the Barbarian and, you know, a beast master and anybody, anybody remember beast master? Gosh, that was a great film. Crowell, you know, all these fantastic fantasy worlds and I just adored it. And so Dungeons and Dragons was a natural part of my discovery of that part of myself. I've always loved it. And I played throughout my life at various intervals with different, you know, groups

49:01of people. I used to also play this TTRPG called, where Wolf? Where Wolf the Apocalypse, which is another tiptoe of the whole playing game, but it's all about, it's the world of darkness, you know, where Vampire the Masquerade came from and those things. And this is about the We're Wolf community and you play a We're Wolf and you go on adventures and stuff. Anyways, it's, I could talk for hours about this stuff. I will literally sit here and be that guy who will tell you all about their character and everything else. No, I'm like that too. But before we move on, I just want to say like, it's really cool knowing that you were ball in Baldur's Gameplay as well. I love it. I knew that voice. I knew that voice. And I just thought that seems like you're kind of game as well. Just in the way you're interested. Yes, and D&D. Yeah, I loved it. Yeah, I still haven't finished the game. I keep restarting it because I want to play different characters. Oh, I'm like that.

50:02I get to act free and I'm like, wait, I want to, I want to, yeah, you just got to have anything out of act one. I have an even got out of act one. Stupid. No, I'm terrible. I do this with a lot of games though. I've only ever finished, properly finished three games, I think. One is the Witch 3. Everyone is Assassin's Creed Odyssey, not Odyssey origins. And the other is what remains a Vita Finch. Oh, I'm sorry. I'll go on about what remains a Vita Finch till the cows come out. I know. It's my favorite game aside from the Witcher obviously. I'm, yeah. There's a whole other strand of questions on it asking you now, but we've got some from our audience that I definitely need to ask you. I do want to just quickly touch upon though, because you've been in the industry for the amount of time that you have and your involvement in natural six. I'm really interested to get your take on the relationship between video game actors and

51:04community as well. Because certainly from, from my point of view, it feels like video game actors are involving themselves in their respective communities, maybe a lot more than they used to do so. And there feels like there's a hunger from the community to get to know the people who are behind the voices in their favorite video games more so than I have ever known before. So you being part of natural six and appearing at Comic Con and doing meet and greet. Is that something that you've noticed? And is it something that you've noticed? Say 2015, the Witcher 3 comes out versus when we're getting the new expansion next year. It feels to me like there are people who want to meet you and know you. Well, maybe a lot more than there was 10 years ago. Is that a fair thing to say? Absolutely. You're interested? Yeah, and you'll see it with other actors as well. When Witcher 3 first came out, nobody cared who voiced Geralt. Well, I mean, I'm sure some people did, but nobody came looking for me. Nobody asked me to go to a convention. Nobody, you know, I was still at the university at that time running a BA Honors Acting

52:07degree and teaching and directing shows. And I was a busy, busy person and still doing games work and film and TV and commercials and various things, you know, on the side. So I was a busy person. I wasn't really out there looking for those kinds of opportunities, but they weren't there. Either there were very few games actors who did anything at conventions. I think things like behind the voice, the website behind the voice, I think it's called. I don't think that I've been existed. Game actors were unknown relatively. And I mean, I remember going to Castings for Film and Television and the casting directors would ask me, so what have you been up to lately? And I had just finished three leading roles in video games, you know, some of them triple A titles or, you know, really big titles. And I'd tell them about these. And I could see their eyes gloss over because for them, that's not real acting.

53:07That's smart. That's smart. Or at least that's what it was like. That's changing now. And yeah, I mean, you know, people send me DMs all the time. I don't answer any of them because I can't. You know, people now reach out to me for cameo videos to wish people happy birthday as Geralt and things like this. I get invited to go to conventions all over the world. I'm going to Lithuania next year. I'm going to the States on three or four occasions. You know, the consuming community, the fans now care a lot more about, I mean, they care passionately about who voices their favorite video game characters. And you can see this, you go to conventions, you know, I always have a lovely line. I always meet a lot of people. It's really good fun.

54:08Man, I've been at some conventions with Neil Newborn, who I love. He's an absolutely lovely guy. And we've had some really great conversations in various, you know, different contexts. But man, you go, if he's at a convention, you can expect to wait in his line for a long time. It often goes round the hall, you know, and everybody wants to meet Neil. And that's true of, you know, a number of other actors in video games as well. Actors are becoming proper stars in their own right. And so people are now starting to kind of caught on. Oh, this is, this is an art form. This is a, this is real acting. And I'm really pleased to see that because I did all, you know, I loved doing games. When I first started in 1999, I've been doing, game voiceovers for, or that make it 27 years.

55:1127 years I've been doing this work. And I know along the way I've done film, I've done television, I've done stage work, I've done radio plays, I've done, I've done corporate videos, I've done, I've done pretty much everything you can do as a working actor at various points in my career. But the one constant has always been video games and I did always feel a little bit like, I love this video game work and it pays, it often paid my mortgage. It, I mean, it doesn't pay as well as, you know, like doing a big film with Martin Scorsese or something like that in a leading role. It's not like that kind of pay, but you know, it pays reasonably well. And, and it's fun. I enjoy it. But I always felt a bit like, it was the poor fifth cousin to everything else. And it's not anymore. And I'm really pleased to see that. And talking about community, it's not just the people who love the games,

56:12the fans of the games and the characters in them. It's also the community itself, the community of voice actors and directors and, and the people involved in that side of the industry used to be none of us knew each other because we were always recording alone. And we still do mostly, you know, unless you're doing performance capture and you're doing that with the other actors and the scenes, you know, you, you, you record solo. But a couple years ago and natural six came out of this. Things started to shift. And suddenly there were, there were several different opportunities. One of them was BAFTA created a game's social night. So all the BAFTA members who were, who were specifically part of BAFTA games. They were invited once a month to the, the game's social. And everybody who was available and interested showed up and we all got together at BAFTA in London. And, and we met each other face to face.

57:14And it was wonderful. And it was like a whole new world opened up for me. I felt like, you know, I've heard your name for years and I, we've never met. Hi, nice to meet you. Well, you know, how you do? Oh, you have a dog. What's it? Didn't even know you had a dog. So that's been wonderful. And actually, natural six came directly out of that. I was having a conversation at one of these events with Alex Jordan. And we were just talking. He was saying, oh, I'd like to play some D&D. I haven't, I've played a little bit, but I haven't really played much at all. And I'd really like to play some proper D&D. And I was like, oh, I wouldn't mind playing some D&D as well. You know, that's, you know, shall we get together around somebody's kitchen table and play some D&D? And, and then, you know, the evening ended and, you know, we went our separate ways and everything. But a couple, a couple weeks later, maybe a month later, Alex messaged me and he said,

58:15Hey, Doug, you know, we were talking about playing D&D. Well, I've been talking with Ben Star and he wants to play. And he was talking to Holly Bennett and she wants to play. And I can't remember who approached EFI. I think it might have been Holly. And an EFIL wants to play. Oh, and we know this guy named Harry, who's a DM. And he wants DM for us. Are you in? And I was like, yeah, great. So we all arranged to meet at this pub in London. Harry built this world that he was going to take us through. And this was not natural six. This was just us six wanting to get together and playing one play some friendly D&D. And I couldn't go in the end. I was actually at a, a, a, a, a, a Witcher Netflix premiere event. So they met the five of them and drank a lot of Rose wine. Harry introduced the world to them. And at some point that evening, they decided we're going to do a show.

59:16And then Alex called me and said, Hey, I don't know how you feel about this. You can say no, but we've decided we're going to turn into a YouTube channel. And I was like, really always got to be some. Yeah. So that's kind of how it came about. But it feels like even though it is a show, it does still feel like your bunch of plan friends playing D&D. Well, we are a bunch of friends playing D&D. You know, I've known EFI for years. You know, and I've known all of them in various capacities for a long time. The first time I met Ben was at a BAFTA event. Prior to all this happening, EFI, I met years ago at EGX, Holly, I knew of because she was involved in the marketing and promotion of cyberpunk. And so I knew her in relation to CD projects. But I'd never met her face to face until until natural six.

1:00:20And I, I adore them all. I adore them all. Like I said, we have such one together. But anyways, yeah, community. This, there is now a voiceover, performers and directors, I would say, and to a certain extent, engineers as well, community who know each other in a way that we never did before. And it's a beautiful thing. And natural six is a, is a very niche extension of that. I have five incredibly good friends who may have never been, I may never have been as close to as I am now. Had everything just come together. This whole community fans, performers, everybody, finally kind of going, I want to know who you are. I want to, I want to, I want to put a face to the name.

1:01:23I want to know if you have a dog. Do you have a dog? I do have a dog. His name is Digby. He's a 14 year old border Terrier. That's not, I love it. Wow. Here I am. Digging, digging. Ask me about my dog, please. My dog and my D&D character. I love it. I love it. I'm really pleased that I know you have a dog called Digby now. That's great. I do, we do have some access, community questions that I want to ask you, Doug. And apologies if you may have already touched upon some of these subjects before. But some of them, we may not have a Peter Connolly asks. My question for Doug is how hard was it to get back into the character Geryl after all of these years since the Witcher 3's first development? And also cheeky follow up question. Did you play the character any differently? And if so, why I think you may have touched upon that a little, but I'd be good if you could, if a, for Peter, if you could. Yeah, I didn't play him differently. I played him. I mean, this is true for every Witcher game.

1:02:25And within every Witcher game as well, the, the longer I play him, the more adventures I go on with him and through him. The more I read Sapkowski's novels, I, I learn more about him. My, my understanding of him grows deeper. As I mentioned, you know, the writers have explored different avenues, different aspects of Geralt's personality. In songs of the past, we're going to explore his relationship with Dandelion more closely. So yeah, you know, things do change, but there was no, there was no like big shift or anything like that. Yeah, he is who he was when I first started voicing him. He's just, for me, anyways, and I hope for the player as well, he's become more complicated. Yeah, I definitely find that way.

1:03:27I had a quick question actually. I wanted to ask you about the novels. When you read them now, do you subconsciously read Geralt's lines in your Geralt voice? I think I probably do. I read the books. I always use your voice now because it's just I've played the games way more than I've consumed the television show. Yeah. And yeah, I'm just wondering if you do that. I don't think I do it consciously. No, but like you said subconsciously, perhaps I do. But if you, this is a, this is a shower thought question, right? When you're reading a novel, do you, are you reading it in your own voice? Surely everyone has Geralt's voice when you're reading the witch novels. Well, I don't know. You know, there are hardcore Henry Cavill fans out there as well, who might, might read the books, having not played the games and only seeing the TV show. And they might hear Henry's voice in their head. There's a fantastic actor named Peter Kenny, who does the audio books for the witcher. And his take on Geralt is completely different. He gives him a northern accent.

1:04:27Oh, I'm so intrigued. Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, maybe somebody, maybe that was their first introduction to the Witcher world. And maybe, maybe when they read the books, they hear Peter Kenny's Geralt. So have you had the chance to, and of course, there are lots of all the localization actors. Some people will hear, yeah, check Rose Nick. I hope I said that right. The Polish Geralt's voice in their head, you know, some people will hear the German Geralt's voice in their head. You know, if that's their native language and they're reading in their native language, maybe they hear that actor's performance and not mine. Yeah. Have you had the chance to meet Henry Cavill? Yes. Did you talk about Geralt together? Always sure did. Yeah, he was very kind. I got this DM on Instagram out of the blue. And I didn't believe it at first. It was a DM from Henry Cavill with a blue tick. Wow. And I was like, yeah, but anybody can get a blue tick, you know, and so I read this message,

1:05:27hey, Doug is something I'm paraphrasing, but hey, hey, Doug, Henry Cavill here. I just want to say I really admire your work. You know, I love the games. I'm really into it. You know, as you know, we've been doing this TV series. Well, the premier is on this date in London. Do you want to come? And I was like, I think I wrote back something like if indeed it is you, Henry, then maybe yes, I would like to go. But, you know, I don't, I don't think I said this, but I am applied. Can you prove to me it's you? Yeah. And he sent me a picture. He was on a plane. Send me a picture. Great. I love this. And yeah, so I went to the premiere and I met him and I met his family and, I mean, he was obviously very busy, you know, during the main event. But we, he had me meet him at his hotel in the, in the bar and we had a nice moment of just, hey, hello, hi, it's really nice to meet you. Both of us kind of, you know, fanboying a bit.

1:06:28And, and then he went off and did his thing and I went and watched the premiere and then at the after party, I was talking with some of the actors from the show and stuff like that. And I got this tap on my shoulder and one of the production assistants said, come with me. And he took me into this side room and Henry was in there with his family and some of his, his closest friends. And he's, ah, come here, come here. And I really wanted to have a proper conversation with you. So we had a, we, we shared a beer. I think he took two sips out of a beer, the whole, I don't know, hour, hour and a half. I was in the room. I don't think he's a big drinker. And I was, I was, I was nervous, but I was also quite comfortable because he's a really, really genuinely kind man or at least, you know, that's my experience of him. And we had a lovely conversation about acting, about Geralt, about the Witcher world. You know, I can't remember what else, you know, lots of other things about the business of acting, you know,

1:07:30just all kinds of stuff. Yeah. Am I right in saying he's quite a big fan of the series and the books and the game when you got the part. Yeah. Yeah. He's a huge Witcher fan. I mean, his, his, hit the love of his life as I understand his war hammer. For 40,000, I think this is the one that he really likes. But you know, the Witcher is not far behind. It's amazing. I think that both, both yourself and Henry Cavill have, you know, you don't often get actors playing characters with that kind of amount of lore and I guess that kind of fans scrutiny as well. And who probably I would say you know, as much if not more than than any Witcher fan, you've read the novels, you've voiced the character. You have this background of really enjoying fantasy literature. I write from when you were a kid, Dungeons and Dragons, like, you know, both you and Henry feel like you're fully experts on in this kind of world, this genre and this character in particular as well. Yeah. I mean, I think it's why I became an actor because I so enjoyed reading stories when I was a child and

1:08:36watching films that took me to some fantastical world. You know, science fiction as well, but I wasn't, I was really a fantasy geek. And I, yeah, I think, I think Henry and a haircut from the same cloth. And there are many, many, many other people out there who are very, very similar, who maybe became actors because they just loved the stories and wanted to be part of them. I so wanted to put on a loincloth and swing a big sword over my head. You know, that was like that. That was if I can never, if I ever get to do this, I will have arrived as an actor. You know, that and, you know, King Lear. Amazing. And I'm going to ask one more question from the community. And we've got, so Josh Ward, Jack, Scott and James Cameron, not the James Cameron, but a different one. I've all asked questions that I think we have definitely covered. So hopefully you guys are all happy with the answers that you've got. Sam Roberts has some questions though, particularly about Gwent.

1:09:37Now that Gwent has an official board game release, do you own a copy of the Gwent board game? I do. Amazing. Have you ever been to Gwent in Wales for a cheeky picture of yourself next to the road sign? No, but I, I'm not for a photograph. I may, I don't, I've been to Wales many times. I don't remember. I don't offhand. I can't even remember where Gwent is. Is that Northeast? I might, my knowledge of Wales geography isn't good enough. Yeah, I know my neither. Yeah, I can, I can, I can roughly tell you where Aberyst with is. That's why I went to university. What's it? A cardiff. Yeah, there are certain points on the map. I can, I can visualize where they are in relation to the rest of the landmass. But, you know, and Holly Bennett from Abergiveni as well, famously, further questions from Soundrobots. Have you ever been to the Witcher bar in, in Crack-Half? I don't know if I'm passing it down. No, I have never even been to Crack-Half. Oh, it's a cool place.

1:10:37Yeah. Really, really, really cool. I've seen pictures and I've talked with people who've been. Have you been yourself? Oh, right. Okay. You went to the Witcher bar. No, I didn't go to the Witcher bar. My personal's traveling with wasn't into that. So. Wow. I don't want to be annoying if you're like, no, we've got to be. Oh, you should have been annoying. You should have been so annoying. I know. I'd love to go in the future though. There's hangards and stuff like we should do. Which are themed cocktails and playable gwent according to Soundrobots. So that we, maybe we should all go. I'd be so down. You fight you along as well, Doug. I'd like to go to the Witcher bar. If I ever have a need to go to Crack-Half, I will definitely make a side trip to go to the Witcher bar. Is the Witcher bar Witcher tavern? I think probably tavern. I'd call it tavern. Yeah. That's the correct terminology, I think, for a place like that. And Doug, it's been an absolute pleasure having you on the podcast. I have really, really enjoyed hearing your insights into acting, into Geralt and to your love of fantasy and general

1:11:40and also learning about your about digby. Your highlight. Yeah. That's the best thing that's happened on the podcast, I think, maybe ever. And some, just some extra bits, the plus side game for September, Kingdom Come Deliverance 2. We have all by the time this podcast comes out, we'll have already streamed it on the channel. So I hope you enjoyed that. Our plus side game for October is going to be killer frequency. We'll have more on that on the next podcast. We've also got a bonus episode of the podcast coming out very soon with Jade Scott from the Traders as a special guest. So stay tuned for that. What the plat will return in our next episode. And also, I think probably if you haven't seen it yet, by the time this episode comes out, we'll also have a live stream with Doug where we'll be enjoying some Witcher 3 together. So if you've not seen that, the VOD will be up on the channel. Make sure you check it out right now. Make sure you stick around as well for the dog takes a bath part of the. Oh, yes. Yeah. Yeah, definitely look forward to that. But again, thank you, Doug. It's been an absolute pleasure having you on the podcast. Well, likewise, Jessica and Rob, thank you so much.

1:12:41You've been great hosts and it's been a lovely channel. Thank you so much, everybody. Thank you so much for your questions. Thank you so much for watching. We'll be back very soon with the next episode of the PlayStation Access podcast. We'll see you then. Thank you. See you.