Neil Newbon’s efficiency as Astarion in Baldur’s Gate 3 is amongst the most memorable in the sport, and that is saying lots given what number of wonderful actors are in there cooking. And Newbon’s rightfully proud of the good work he did as Astarion – however, impressed by David Bowie, he isn’t all for rehashing that efficiency time and again.
In an interview with FRVR, Newbon talks about how Bowie was one of his early childhood influences, together with Iggy Pop. “Sure, I believe there’s undoubtedly a Bowie rhythm in me. I’d love to play him in Labyrinth or love to do a biopic of him,” he mentioned, including that he would “undoubtedly play Jareth in Labyrinth if somebody got here at me with that.”
He says one of the classes he is taken from Bowie is that “repetition breeds stagnation”, and that it is good as an actor to maintain making your self barely uncomfortable if you’d like to develop your artwork. “I all the time appreciated that about him as an artist, that he was continuously attempting out new issues,” he continued. “Typically they labored, generally they didn’t.”
He goes on, saying that he has been approached to play roles that have been described to him as “similar to Astarion.” However Newbon is not all for simply enjoying Astarion-like characters time and again.
“I’ve undoubtedly averted a number of roles not too long ago not as a result of they have been dangerous initiatives or something, simply because they, for me, the character—they kinda need the Astarion factor,” he mentioned “And it was similar to, ‘Properly, I don’t actually need to try this once more. It’s too shut to the character I’ve already performed, I don’t suppose I might provide something essentially that’s attention-grabbing to this specific character.'”
Newbon has, nevertheless, since picked up a quantity of roles which might be fairly totally different from Astarion’s character. Most not too long ago, he is been sapiant, dateable drying machine Drysdale in Date The whole lot!, umbrella-wielding Lumacchio in the Lies of P DLC, and essential character Chase Lowry in Useless Take.
Newbon did point out in the interview that he would not thoughts revisiting Astarion himself as a personality, and it is potential he might get the probability. Final month, HBO introduced it was engaged on a Baldur’s Gate 3 TV sequence that may proceed the story from the finish of the IGN 10/10 sport. At its helm is The Final of Us TV present’s Craig Manzin, who additionally mentioned he was reaching out to the forged of the sport to work out the greatest approach to proceed their characters. Whether or not or not meaning we’ll really see Newbon reprise Astarion is up in there, however a vampire lover can definitely dream.
Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. Acquired a narrative tip? Ship it to rvalentine@ign.com.