Happy Birthday @theevilscribbler! Wishing you a wonderful year of creativity and joy, my friend! The bestest wishes from the Marazhais and Wynnrun to you!
I enjoy the way fandom inspires people to draw or write - interviewing Will de Renzy-Martin pt 2
We continue our chat with @willvoiceit from yesterday. Listen to Will talk a bit more about how it feels romancing Marazhai, what he thinks about his engagement with his fans, about his newfound Warframe fame and what his dream-come-true project is.
Part one of the interview
Please credit me if you share this interview outside Tumblr.
Fran: You spoke about the references you received from Owlcat. You've got the visuals. Can you talk a bit more about what type of descriptions they gave you?
Will: I'm trying to think now. I think the first session had a brief chat about the kind of things, and went back to kind of, I think, played back some of the auditions and talked about what bits were more on the money than others. And then, obviously, when we were doing the, I think some of the cut scenes were some of the first things we did as well.
So I got to see the, you know, footage of him moving. There was always a writer on the call with Owlcat, and one of them would be able to, for any particular scene, if it was unclear. And also, Tom, the director, knew a lot by that stage. You know, I was the last companion, I think, to be recorded other than maybe Solomon, and Kibellah, you know, after the game was released.
Fran: Yeah, sure.
Will: So by that stage, Tom knew most of what was going on and could help. And then we had Olga or somebody else there to back us up, whenever there was some missing context or something that wasn't totally obvious or, you know, potentially there was a branch that wasn't clear.
Fran: What was a favourite scene to act out as Marazhai in the game? Do you have one? Do you remember one?
Will: Yeah, sort of going back to what I was saying a few moments ago, my favourite scene was the, I can't remember whether it's the actual breakup or the pretend breakup, but yes, that moment where he realizes that actually maybe he hasn't been playing a game, and you know, he's gone through all of this with this person who actually has changed the way that they feel about the world. Or the Expanse, as it may be.
Fran: Because that's the romance scene, how did you feel about voicing the romance in the game? Was this the first character that had a romance you voiced, or did you have experience?
Will: That's a good question. I think it might be, at least as I think possibly the first significant character I played that was romanceable. Kinda romanceable companion, I suppose. I didn't really think much about it, I have to say. Did I realise it was going to be the case before I auditioned for it? I can't remember. And would it have changed whether I auditioned or not? I don't know. But yeah, it was just sort of a thing, and it's a thing I have come to expect more and more as I've done more characters. That's sort of like, this is a game, and if you are a companion, the chances are that narratively, you know, some interest might come out of that.
Fran: Yeah. So, you play a Rogue Trader Twitch stream.
Will: Yes.
Fran: Do you have any plans of romancing Marazhai, or are you looking for someone else?
Will: At the moment, I think I'm currently in the Marazhai romance and the
Fran: Oh, cool.
Will: And the Jae romance. I think we're in Act four at the moment. And I think I might have accidentally started the romance with Solomorne as well.
Fran: Busy Rogue Trader.
Will: Yes. A busy rogue trader. Exactly. I initially said that I probably wasn't going to, but I realised that actually, it's quite fun to go back and remember some of this, some of the stuff that I did. And when you do a game like that, you know, you do so much disparate recording of bits, and it doesn't always happen in order. And even if you, most of the game is recorded in order, there's always pickups and things that you did later and things that got changed in the scripts. You need to go back, and it's nice to sort of see how it ended up. And that's part of my reason for ending up romancing myself in Rogue Trader. That, and also it just, it's again, it's just very well written, and I'm enjoying seeing the story having only really been part of half of it before.
Fran: Yeah, that's true. I never romanced him [Marazhai], I'm a Heinrix romancer, so.
Will: Oh, that’s fair enough.
Fran: But I have many friends who love Marazhai, and that leads to the next question. Did you expect Marazhai to be this popular to attract a fan base that you now have?
Will: I think maybe yes and no. It was my first, like, like you say, the first game I played where I was playing a romanceable character, and I suppose I just had an inkling, I was recording around the time that Baldur's Gate 3 was really kind of kicking off, and while Rogue Trader didn't have nearly as like big a success, I would say that there was a much more concentrated fandom around Rogue Trader that hasn't dissipated. And if anything just seems to keep on growing. Yeah, I didn't really know what to expect. If you told me that this is what it would look like now before I started, I don't know, I might have believed you, but I would've thought it was a bit strange.
Fran: Would you like to continue working with Owlcat on future projects?
Will: Oh, absolutely. If they'll have me.
Fran: Since we talked about fan bases, you are probably the most engaged Rogue Trader voiceover with the fan base. How do you manage to still keep a sort of professional distance between your fans and yourself?
Will: Not very successfully, I think. I don't really. Well, professionalism is something that I'm not really sure what it means to me anymore because I used to think it was sort of putting on a brave face and doing things and going in and doing the job and going out and not causing any trouble. Nowadays, it feels more like being more myself online and making the kind of jokes that I would like to make. To a certain extent, revealing more of myself to people, that's strangely more professional in terms of it helps other people. It's branding effectively. It's, you know, people know who I am before they get in the room with me, if I have made a certain kind of joke or, you know, retweeted a certain thing or done a silly recording of somebody's meme.
So, yeah, I think I, maybe I'm not very good at maintaining what some people would think is sort of a professional distance from the thing. But ultimately, I treat it as it's my time that I'm spending on the internet. And it just so happens that some of that is, some of the kind of fandom that I'm involved with, revolves around stuff that I have been a part of making. I suppose there's an element of maybe smelling your own farts going on there, but like, I just enjoy, I enjoy seeing all of the stuff that people make, the way it inspires people to draw or write. It makes me very happy to see.
Fran: You were also recently, I think it was the third time, you voiced Marazhai for the Rogue Trader gift exchange again. Can you talk a bit about how that came about? How did you get engaged with that project?
Will: I think I don't remember how it first started. I think it was either through, it must have either been through Jaal or Evil Scribbler, on some platform at some stage, reaching out and asking. I think possibly after there was a Christmas Rogue Trader stream thing that we did in the first year.
And I think they just reached out and asked, and it's the kind of thing that I'm very happy to contribute. Like I say, the community is so lovely and so supportive, that I feel like I, you know, if I can contribute and do something fun, then yeah.
Fran: We always love hearing you.
Will: Oh, good.
Fran: That's definitely, yeah. I've been involved from the beginning only as a participant.
Will: Yeah.
Fran: But to see that it has grown from, like, I think we were 20 people at the beginning, to over a hundred now, that's really great community building.
Will: Yeah.
Fran: And it's just fun. Coming to the Warhammer universe in general because you have voiced additional Warhammer 40K characters. Do you have any plans of branching out further into the 40K universe? And was Warhammer 40K something you were interested in before voicing Marazhai? Like, did you have any armies? Did you like read books about it?
Will: No. Not at all. Really. I mean, I think when I was about 10 years old, I convinced my mother to buy me a Chaos Space Marine tank, which I assembled and then realised I would have to paint it, and sort of panicked after putting a few dabs on. I think I realised I would have to maybe buy some black spray paint and thought, oh God, that's going to be a mess. I don't trust myself with that. So that was really the extent of my Warhammer knowledge. And yeah, then getting Marazhai and learning more about that side of things.
And then it has deepened gradually over time. I am trying to remember. I think I did maybe do one Warhammer thing before this, but now I'm thinking about it, it might've been just afterwards. It was one of their Hammer and Bolter episodes [Will voiced Sylsa and the series was released in 2023]. I've really enjoyed everything that I've done in the 40K world. A couple of my fans sent me a copy of this book, [Valdor: Birth of the Imperium], because I voiced Constantin Valdor in one of their promo trailers for the Horus Heresy new, I think new set. And so they got me that, and it was the first Warhammer book I've read, and it helped tie together something in my brain that, like, it's just a lot of Warhammer is very much like an eighties view of British imperialism.
Fran: Yes.
Will: Through a kind of lens. And I think I drew a comparison saying it's like it reminds me a little bit of Discworld in that way, in that kind of one's going pure humour, and the other one is going pure fascism. The more I do, the more I like learning about this world, particularly. It's sort of everything is so mysterious, you know, you can be in one corner of the universe and totally oblivious to something else going on. So yeah, I've, I think it's maybe onto about nine or 10 different Warhammer 40K things. And then I've done one Age of Sigmar animation as well. I don't have plans, but you know, anything that comes my way, I'm always keen to get involved with.
Fran: Are you interested in branching out, let's say, to recording audiobooks? Or are you more firmly into voicing animation and video games right now?
Will: I am a terrible audiobook narrator.
Fran: Okay.
Will: It's not, well, I say that I don't have much experience of doing audiobooks that weren't basically directed and edited by me, and that experience was something I went through a few times and realised I really didn't enjoy it. If something came up to do, you know, something with the Black Library, I would probably bite their hand off because you know, there it's a much more civilised affair. You go to Nottingham, you record, everybody else deals with all the other stuff, and it's all very well written as well. I mean, some of the audiobooks I've recorded have been, not fantastic. Some of them, the writing wasn't a problem. Some of them, the problem was me. But some of them, you know, it's harder to read aloud when there are no full stops.
Fran: That surely sounds challenging.
Will: Mm-hmm.
Fran: At the beginning, you told me that you always liked playing video games. What's your favourite genre of video games, and what's your all-time favourite video game?
Will: My favourite genre of video games is probably role-playing games. And my all-time favourite game is, almost certainly, Majora’s Mask [The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask]. Yeah, it's a game that I played, it's probably the only game I've completed more than once, and it's a game I keep coming back to and playing and remembering. And maybe part of that is just nostalgia of having played it when I was a kid. But I, yeah, I just really enjoy it. I love the way that it all clicks together. I love the intricacies of it.
Fran: What are you currently playing apart from Rogue Trader? And I think you also play Warframe a bit?
Will: Yes. To be honest, I'm probably playing Warframe too much at the moment. It's a game that has everything you could possibly want and more. I'm not playing much else at the moment. Warframe, I will admit, has slightly taken over all of the other stuff I would want to do, but I've had my eye on a few titles that I'm looking forward to starting once the kind of initial ride of Warframe has worn off. So I really started playing because the character that I play [Father Lyon Allard] came out…
Fran: Yeah.
Will: Before Christmas. And I kind of initially started in an effort to try and get to a place where I would be able to engage with the content that was relevant. But again, it's another universe that is very interesting. Like it's a, you know, MMO third-person shooter. I never really got into playing any of the other MMOs before in my life, but the community is lovely. You know, there are some people in my Discord server who played it a lot before I was involved and who helped me, you know, get through certain stages and taught me about all the different mechanisms of things that go on.
Fran: Oh, that's lovely.
Will: And there's a strong tradition of kind of Warframe sherpas of people who've reached a certain level who are just helping new people into the game. I think, and that comes from, I think, not so true anymore, but about 10 years ago, it was very difficult. It was very obtuse as to how anything happened and how you got anywhere with the game. And so it kind of had to come out of that. But it's nice that even though the game has progressed a lot and is a lot more friendly to newcomers, there's still that tradition of helping people out. And I mean, the other thing about it that I still can't wrap my head around is the fact that it's free to play. And it's not like actively trying to rinse you for money. It's the best example I've found of a game that you can play for free, and if you really want to spend money on it, they will let you, but otherwise, it's self-sustaining.
Fran: You certainly made an excellent pitch for it.
Will: I didn't mean to, I'm just very excited about it.
Fran: No, it's really. It came through, seeing you reblogging stuff, and I'm a Star Wars: The Old Republic player. That's another Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. And that has excellent writing. So it's not so much an MMO in the sense that you do, you can do guilds and raids and whatever.
Will: Yeah.
Fran: But it's very focused on the single-player content. If Warframe has good single-player content or content you can do in a way that you can enjoy solo.
Will: Yeah.
Fran: Oh God, there goes my time.
Will: Yes. Sorry.
Fran: There goes my free writing time.
Will: Yes. The story is again, one of the writers is also in the Discord server, and the character that they wrote, that I play, is incredible. But the whole, again, the whole universe they built is just a bit mad and fantastic. And I mean, you won't have seen this, but they brought Werner Herzog in to play one of the characters in the game, or at least be one of the faces of one of the characters in the game. And, if you told me three years ago that I'd be in a game with Werner Herzog, I think I might, I think I might have just laughed. Yeah. Recommend if it wasn't clear.
Fran: Yes, that was very clear. So there goes my time. What's a future project you look forward to? Anything you have in the books, you look forward to recording?
Will: That I look forward to recording… I'm just having a quick think about things that I am looking forward to recording that I would be allowed to talk about. Uh, uh, uh, uh
Fran: Or make it as vague as you can, if you can’t talk about it.
Will: There are two or three projects that I have coming up that I've been booked onto, there are two quite big ones that I've been booked onto that I'm looking forward to recording. And there are a few others that are also in the works, where I'm playing some slightly more minor characters. But yes, there's some fun stuff coming up that will be an interesting challenge.
Fran: Now you have us hooked again. And what would a dream-come-true project be for you? That doesn't have to be voice acting; it can be anything.
Will: I mean, in many ways, it's sort of already happened, in terms of, if you'd asked. I've spoken about it before, but I did Hundred Heroes [Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes; Will voices Seign Kesling], which is a spiritual successor to the Suikoden series. That's the kind of game I played the hell out of when I was a kid. You know, I was playing the Breath of Fire games on my Game Boy Advance. And those kinds of JRPGS were really what hooked me. You know, if you'd asked even the, like, possibility of playing a main character in one of those games to a younger version of myself, it would be mind-boggling.
So that in a way I feel like I've done it already, and every time I do another project, it becomes, you know, more and more like, again, Dawnwalker is my own dream come true in terms of being so just massive on a scale that I haven't even, I still can't quite get my head around. I think they said the other day that they've had a million wishlists already, which the game is not; they don't even know when the game is coming out, and there are a million people who want to play it. And that is, mind-boggling again. I think I don't know what would have to be better than the things that have already happened. I'm just very happy to be able to do what I do.
Fran: That truly sounds like a dream come true project. Truly. And coming to our last question, what's a piece of advice you would like to give people who want to get into voice acting?
Will: The piece of advice I tend to give is sort of twofold. One is to know what kind of voice acting you want to get into, because it's a very wide field. Things are more complicated than they used to be for various reasons, but if you know the kind of field that you want to get into, so, you know, let's say you do want to get into video games. If you don't play video games, you're not going to have much chance. People who don't play video games can be good video game voice actors, but I think if you play games, if you know how they work, if you understand how game narrative has to function, you can make the kinds of educated guesses that put you head and shoulders above other people who don't play those games, who can't read a line and think, oh, this must be from a fetch quest, and this is a way of reminding the player. And so the director doesn't have to spend five minutes explaining, oh, this character has just met that person. And that if you have an understanding of the narrative structures of the medium, you want to get into. That is the best way of, well, that is half of preparing to be a voice actor, is understanding the mediums, whether that's games, whether it's audiobooks or commercials, anything.
You've got to know the medium very well. And the other half is to work on your voice. And I think the best way to do that is to take singing lessons, because you get to know your voice very well. You train it, you exercise it in ways that I've spoken about earlier. And I find that it doesn't have to be singing lessons, and I also know that they're expensive. If you just sing, you know, in your spare time or make funny noises. Just like do things with your voice that stretch it and move it around and play with it. So it's really kind of get to know your voice and your instrument and get to know the medium that you would like to get into, and from there, you are a much more attractive proposition to anyone you come across who might want to employ you.
Fran: That's excellent advice. Thank you so much for sharing it with us, and thank you again, Will, for taking the time to chat with me today.
Will: It was lovely to talk.
Fran: Yeah, it was very lovely. I enjoyed it very much. You shared so many insights with us. Thank you.
Will: I'm glad. I'm glad I could be insightful at least.
Fran: And the sales pitch at the end,
Will (laughs): Yes.
Fran: They should give you more royalties for Warframe.
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