Julie Nathanson is celebrating her 100th video game credit as Briar in League of Legends and recently told us all about her starring role in the hit franchise.
Having racked up just shy of 60 animated film and TV credits, you'll definitely know the actor's voice, whether it's in Batman: The Long Halloween Suicide Squad: Hell to Pay, American Dad, or even Marmaduke.
Back to gaming, though, and Nathanson has just lent her voice to Bethesda Game Studios' Xbox hit Starfield as the NPC "companion" Marika Boros. One of more than 20 NPC who can be recruited throughout the course of the game, she's killed in a wide range of weaponry and has quickly emerged as a fan-favourite.
Nathanson is also known for playing Samantha Maxis in the Call of Duty franchise, Baal in Bayonetta 3, and for a range of additional voices in Spider-Man and Spider-Man: Miles Morales.
We discuss all those projects and more in the second half of our interview with the prolific voice actor, learning more about how she approached each character and the work Julie has been doing to better the voiceover industry as a whole. And yes, she also chimes in on which video game role is her favourite!
I have to mention Starfield, of course; the game has generated a huge amount of buzz, but what did you enjoy most about working on it? Marika is a badass character who, from what I can tell, fans have really embraced.
I’m so glad you brought up Starfield because that was an honour for me. I know when they say it’s been 25 years in the making, it’s a hard thing for some people to wrap their minds around but I’ve had the good fortune to work with Bethesda in the past and they create really extraordinary experiences. Starfield is so different from anything that’s come before from Bethesda or in general. It’s so expansive and truly so beautiful. To have been part of the recording process was incredibly exciting and a huge secret to keep. This was one that had me watching the calendar wondering, ‘When is it going to come out?’ I was very proud and honoured to be part of it.
Marika is a great character and I had a blast recording her. It was quite a process. A lot of the recording happened during the pandemic so this was one of those experiences that I think was quite heartwarming and healing for many of us who got to continue working during that time. It was a time in my life when it felt like my world was smaller than it had been, so to play in such a gigantic universe was healing. I’ll say that again. It was a very comforting and hopeful experience for me.
With a huge game like this, there’s always a chance it will go the way of something like Cyberpunk 2077 and struggle to live up to expectations. Starfield has been a hit, of course, but is it hard knowing that along with the gameplay and all those different elements, your performance is ultimately going to be a big part of whether players connect with a title like that and League of Legends?
I think after 100 games [Laughs], one of the things I’ve learned is…well, this sort of works for anything, but you can’t make everybody happy all of the time. That’s very difficult because I really like it when people are happy as a general rule. I tend to stay in a place of trusting the people who are guiding me in the room and the director and writers. I look for the sense of connection and authenticity that I might be experiencing as a performer. If I feel connected and I can feel a state of fun, that really helps me connect to the character. It’s all about fun for me because it’s a state of play. If I have that feeling, I know I’m doing everything I can to bring that character to life to the best of my abilities.
I don’t know what every player out there will want to hear, experience or feel when they play a game, but what I can control is making sure I’m as collaborative as possible with the creative people working with me and who I have the good fortune of listening to while recording and working on a project. It’s also about making sure it feels true to me and then hoping it connects with other people. If I get too in my head about wanting to make other people happy, when I don’t know them, it’s impossible to read thousands of minds at once and it takes me out of the authenticity of a performance. My job is to make that experience seamless for myself and then trust the people guiding me to bring the character where they’d like them to go.
There are so many of your video game roles we could discuss but I’m a big Spider-Man fan and know you did some additional voices on both of those games - what do you recall about working with Insomniac on what proved to be two really very special titles? And is there any chance you’re back for Spider-Man 2?
[Laughs] Working on those games and with Insomniac on Rift Apart was a wonderful experience, of course. As a general rule, I don’t ever comment one way or the other about projects that haven’t launched - I’d like to keep my job - so that’s never something I’ll answer [Laughs]. I can confirm for you only that playing in these worlds with such incredible creative minds is always a real treasure of an experience. I always feel so fortunate to work on projects like these.
Call of Duty's Samantha is another big role, of course, and the journey you’ve taken that character on is pretty epic. It must have been quite a unique experience getting to flesh her out from game to game?
That has really been an adventure I never expected. To have the arc and the longevity that it’s had…I began playing Samantha Maxis many years ago as a little girl and she’s certainly gone through quite a few difficulties in her life [Laughs] and had some adventures of her own! And powers at times. My experience, though, of being able to grow her up was one I never could have guessed I’d have. It’s just not something I ever thought I’d be able to do. When I walked in the door for that first session where they were making Samantha a grown-up, I didn’t know until I got there! I was completely floored and thrilled. And also really touched. They’d chosen to keep me on as her voice and allowed me to be part of seeing her, like I said, become an adult and grow up. It was really wild and having lived with this character for so long, it was moving actually.
The fact players have appreciated her for so long is also really meaningful to me because it’s another character I’ve poured into. No matter how wild things might get with her, my experience is always to make it authentic for myself. I will certainly tell you that, in Call of Duty: Cold War, there were many recording sessions which left me crying and needing to take a break because it was so intense. The writing was so beautiful and very true. The writers of video games are really tremendous artists and there’s really nothing for me to do or so until they put pen to paper. I’m just so grateful to have been able to speak those words and help bring to life such a rich character.
I’ve heard you do some teaching and mentoring work outside your acting roles, so could you tell us about that as well?
Over the years, I have done some teaching and coaching and I’m not someone who necessarily feels she’s best suited for real didactic teaching and how to do something by giving people a list of things to do to get to the next step. However, during the pandemic, I decided it would be a good time to at least offer or agree to do some coaching in some groups. Coaching is a verb I can get on board with because, for some reason, teaching doesn’t feel right to me [Laughs]. For me, it’s more about coaching a mood or connection with a character as opposed to saying, ‘Follow these steps and you’ll find success.’ That doesn’t really work for me, personally.
I’ve been able to do some really wonderful and fun workshops with groups at different voiceover schools and classes, and some individual stuff along the way. To be totally honest, I don’t have a tonne of time to do it because I’m very fortunate that the rest of my world keeps me busy, but it’s really been exciting to see some relative newcomers to voiceover really take off and that’s why I decided I wanted to say yes to those invitations, especially during the pandemic.
It was painfully obvious to me that voice actors needed to have broadcast home studios immediately and, knowing a lot of producers needed us to record from home, might have only wanted to trust the performers they already knew, I was really concerned for people who were just starting out who wanted to break in or keep studying and become part of this industry and community. If there was a way I could be helpful in coaching those newer performers to cultivate that space, then I’d like to. It was a wonderful experience and I’m excited to see those people soar.
I feel like this one will be tough to answer, but having worked on everything from Final Fantasy to World of Warcraft…do you have a favourite game or role from your acting career?
[Laughs] It’s really, really tough! I know this sounds like a cop-out answer to your question, but it is completely from my heart. The reason I ended up dropping on-camera was a combination of having discovered voiceover and some things that were happening in the writing space for me. As a performer, it was very easy for me to choose to leave behind on-camera because the world was so open to me in voiceover. Not only can I close my eyes and imagine myself in this space of Starfield, pardon the pun, or the World of Warcraft (boy, I’m really gonna keep punning out on this) but as I imagine the environment and put myself in that space, it’s the same for those on the other side of the glass. They can close their eyes and don’t need to see visually whether I can play a demon toad in Bayonetta 3. Am I visually going to make that happen? Are you going to look at me and say, ‘That’s the dang toad I always thought she’d be?’ Not necessarily.
It’s opened up a space for me to be able to play with so many different kinds of characters I’d never dreamed I’d be able to play when my world was a combination of what I’d bring to a character and how someone sees me visually. For me, the answer really is - and I’m outstretching my arms right now - is this whole mess of 100 characters. That’s what I love. Now, if you want me to point out one moment, it’s that I trained as a singer and all of that was classical, so it was a dream for me to sing with my operatic training as Baal Zebul in Bayonetta 3 and to be part of the soundtrack. That was something I’d hoped to be able to do and never thought I would!