I’m just gonna spend the next ten minutes talking about this actress.
Ashley- Fucking- Johnson.
I watched an interview once where she said that the only thing she brings to her voice work or acting is herself and she can’t do any of the ‘special’ stuff that other voice actors can do.
But the little face in this gif absolutely fucking floored me when I watched Exandria Unlimited Episode 3.
I’ve been a fan of Ashley’s for a few years now, and originally came to Critical Role after having seen her performances elsewhere (The Last of Us, What Women Want, Recess, etc) and it floors me the level of acting she puts in.
We hear it in just her voice as Ellie in the Last of Us and I don’t think I’m the only one who’d probably give their left arm to see the mocap footage all the way through of Game 2.
But with her Critical Role characters- she allows her face to be seen too- so we can see the amazing level of detail she puts in.
Now I’m still getting through C1 (after having come in quite late game with that- so I decided to start from the beginning after)
With Pike- she’s very motherly. But she has a carefree instinct that gives her such a charm- and you can see it so much in the way Ashley plays her.
She has obligations but she doesn’t let it stop her from protecting the ones she loves or finding her own happiness.
I feel like Pike in that way is very much like Ashley (probably because Pike was one of Ashley’s first dives into DnD, so they’re more similar than the rest.)
In Ashley’s face, for Pike, especially when talking to Grog- for example- her face is patient, almost a concerned hopeful expression on her face. (You can spot it while she’s trying to teach Grog to spell his name). And Ashley tells a lot with her facial features.
But what I see most about Pike is that when Ashley plays her, she elongates her neck- almost as if Pike is trying to act taller than she is, but it also works for Pike as a motherly figure- as it allows Ashley’s posture to be more authoritative- which to me, Pike is, being the motherly friend of the group.
Along with elongating her neck, Ashley also juts her chin forward and up when she’s Pike, which softens her face into more of a rounded shape- that we often associate with more maternal figures.
Next, let’s look at Yasha:
Yasha Nydoorin was an entirely different case to the motherly Pike, while still retaining the sense of care that Ashley let’s permeate through all her characters.
Yasha had a dark past- having lost her wife and Ashley reflected that in Yasha. We saw a deep, inset hurt inside her. (Ashley probably used her own memory of grief to achieve this).
Even down to Yasha’s voice and facial movements. We can still tell it’s Ashley’s voice- but it’s lower, and almost accented in the way she says certain things- which tells us that Yasha is different without her telling us.
We also hear a sort of considered calmness about Yasha’s voice- which almost reminded me of my research into how the Celts would listen to relaxation music before war just so they wouldn’t fire at full cylinders right at the beginning.
But as we got to know her more, and she became comfy and eventually let that go- Ashley allowed the happiness to seep through.
But her face is such a massive point for me for Yasha. With Yasha- her face is always calm, eyebrows down if she’s worried, lips thinned if likewise. But when she’s happy- her face radiates it- as if she can’t control it- which is amazing.
But also- you can tell it’s Yasha from the way that Ashley keeps her jaw set as Yasha. It’s constantly one shape- her face seems almost shorter and more set than that of Pike, and it adds to her characterisation, as she stays within those boundaries of her face to play Yasha.
Which leads me onto Fearne. Had I not known Fearne was a Fawn- I would have guessed from the way that Ashley constructs her character’s faces.
Fearne Calloway is someone from the Feywild, and because of that, she is someone who almost seems like a fairytale creature (think of Mr Tumnus from Narnia.)
And Ashley reflects this. She’s calm in a way that Yasha and Pike were not. Pike had a motherly patience, and Yasha had a controlled calmness that you could feel about to bubble over at times.
But with Fearne- her calmness is almost scary. And it’s strange to see, as Ashley deliberately plays Fearne so that she appears disarming, until you anger her.
Ashley plays Fearne so that with her friends, she is gentle and sweet. And she enjoys being that. And you can see the gentle Fey/Fawn nature on Ashley’s face in this (as pictured in the gif above).
She has more of a narrowed jaw, and face shape, almost as if she’s trying to mimic a fawn-like facial shape. With this- as she takes a breathy laugh as pictured- her nose doesn’t move too much- almost like a fawn, and because of her constricted facial shape, her nose seems thinner and more dainty- like we would imagine a fawn/satyr’s delicate nose to be.
She also widens her eyes in the way that we would imagine a doe’s eyes to be- big and adorable, and she allows that to come through her eyes in moments, where Fearne is confused, or sad, or happy, which is fantastic to see from Ashley- taking that into consideration.
With her lips, also. She deliberately keeps her lips quite small, width wise, as if she hasn’t got a lot of face to work with, so she keeps it small. If you look at her smile or her confusion, you’ll notice the corners of her lips rarely go past being in line with the beginning of her irises, which, if you look at how Ashley normally smiles- is hugely different. It also allows her to use her lips to make her face seem longer and thinner too.
With the way she constructs her face shape for Fearne also, you almost imagine her fawnish ears at the side of her face, even when you know you won’t see them on Ashley as she’s playing.
All of this just to say- Ashley is not the type of actor who is just good with her voice, regardless of how many different sounds she can do. She is simply sublime with her facial acting in all she does.
And I will say again that I would give my right arm to see the way she changed her facial acting from Ellie as a 14 year old to Ellie as a 20 year old in the Last of Us franchise.
In short: Ashley-Fucking-Johnson