STACK #151 May 2017

GAMES FEATURE

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If you’ve ever played a video game, chances are you’ve come across Nolan North. A prolific voice and television actor, we had the chance to chat with him ahead of his appearance at Supanova this year. Words Alesha Kolbe N olan North is arguably best known for his award-winning performance as had different recording sessions booked for each of Deadpool’s ‘personalities’, but the actor didn’t see the point – he wanted it to be as realistic as possible. “The way we did it is that I would talk to myself in the The Man Of A Thousand Voices

Nathan Drake ( Uncharted )

booth. It was literally like professional schizophrenia. We just ran with it, laughed our heads off, and had a blast. Rather than have different scripts, the team just highlighted the bits that were in the different ‘mature' Deadpool, and yellow was the other guy. I wanted that frantic pace and that craziness – I didn’t want them to have to edit that in. I think it made a big difference and I’m pretty proud of that.” North is also known for replacing Game of Thrones’ Peter Dinklage as the voice of the Ghost in Destiny – a role he has reprised for the upcoming sequel, Destiny 2 . But of course, he can’t tell us anything about it. “I told the producers I don’t want to know any more than what is absolutely necessary for my part. Not because of the press, but because of a 13-year- old boy that lives down the hall from me," he explains. "My son is a huge Destiny fan and I didn’t want him pestering me. We’ll sometimes sit down on the couch and he’ll be playing, and I’ll sit down and go ‘eyes voices; if it was red it was regular Deadpool, blue was

Deadpool ( Deadpool )

protagonist Nathan Drake in developer Naughty Dog’s Uncharted series. Not surprisingly, that’s also his favourite character to portray. “It’s very flattering that so many people have loved [Uncharted],” offers North. “Because of the performance capture, every time Nathan runs, jumps, moves, swings, whatever, it’s me. We shot it very much like the Avatar film. Drake has been my favourite role, it’s been the most rewarding, and I’ve learned so much. "But my favourite character to actually voice, however, is a different story. There are probably two. I always really did like doing The Penguin, because The Penguin was something very, very far away from my own voice. The most fun would have to be Deadpool. He could say anything, and use profanity, but he also had this more mature voice that would talk to him like ‘you can’t say things like that.’” If Deadpool’s three in-game personas sound manic, it’s because that’s how they were recorded. North recalls that the team originally

Ghost ( Destiny )

every time Nathan runs, jumps, moves, swings, whatever, it’s me

The Penguin ( Batman Arkham )

be like ‘go away Dad’, and I’ll have to say ‘I’m not Dad, I’m your Ghost, and I love you.’ It’s fantastic what Bungie are doing with the sequel – they’ve been very good to me. People always ask ‘are you going to keep doing the Ghost?’ and I always say the same thing – they’ll have to drag me kicking and screaming from that franchise.”

up Guardian! We should go down to the left’, and he’ll

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MAY 2017

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