The world of Dragon Age is host to a slew of fantastical characters, voiced by a who’s who of huge names on this planet of voice acting–with some sci-fi and fantasy celebrities sprinkled in. From Freddie Prinze Jr. voicing the mighty Iron Bull to Kate Mulgrew because the mysterious Flemeth, one solid member landed the job with a really unconventional audition tape.
Claudia Black, who made her mark in sci-fi as Aeryn Solar in Farscape, auditioned for the a part of Morrigan in Dragon Age: Origins by sending in a recording of her doing a beat poetry model of Sir Combine-A-Lot’s “Child Got Again.” Dragon Age creator David Gaider mentioned that the character went by way of a number of ideas, however could not deny Black the chance and listened.
“I misplaced my goddamn thoughts,” Gaider mentioned on his Bluesky account. “Sure, I nonetheless have the recording. No, you can’t have it.”
Gaider continued with bringing Black on board and adjusting the character to suit her voice. “Naturally, we jumped on that instantly. As I recall, this was met with resistance from increased up–they had this picture of Morrigan as younger, like 18 years previous (no concept the place this got here from), and complained that Claudia sounded ‘too previous.’ [Voice director] Caroline [Livingstone} and I were determined, so we pushed ahead. We had to agree to get Claudia to sound ‘younger,’ which I was dubious about. The first two sessions we asked her to pitch her voice up and it was awful.”
When both Livingstone and Gaider were working with Black to get her to focus on “sounding right,” they told her to use her natural voice. It worked. “We loved her performance so much we had the feeling that the team would love it too and forget their nonsense,” Gaider added. “They did.”
The character of Morrigan was a touchstone for Gaider and opened up the door for Black to continue her video game voice work in big game franchises like Uncharted and Destiny. She reprises the role once again in Dragon Age: The Veilguard.
“[Morrigan] is the center of [Dragon Age: Origin]. Means past her preliminary inspirations. Some mentioned ‘she’s simply an ice queen’ like some I would written (Viconia, Bastila, and so on.) however such classes are very reductive, I discover. She had a voice I might immediately slip into, each time, with out fail.”