I can’t help but hear the In🌄quisitor from Dragon Age whenever Alix Wilton Regan speaks. “I get told that a lot,” she laughs.
“It's hilarious because I go through these things where I'm like, it's me but it's not me, but it's me, but it's not me, and I'm like, it's kind of just you, babe. I would say voices that are closest 🐬to mine would probably be the Inquisitor, Sam Traynor - because she's a Londoner, so I just leaned a bit heavier into the London estuary twang. Joanna Dark, she's very close to my voice, there are a few.
“I think Inquꦐisitor was a little bit posher. Because she was supposed to have this kind of noble quality to her, you know? It was her personality; she's mature enough to🔴 lead and command authority.”
Astro Bot's Nicolas Doucet On Japan Studio, Final Fantasy, And The Future Of PlayStation
"We wouldn’t be here today ⭕if it wasn’t for the 30 years of history behind us, so Astro Bot was a way to pay tribute."
The Ups And Downs Of BioWare Development
Wilton Regan was “absolutely thrilled” when she received the call from BioWare that the Inquisitor woܫuld be returning for Dragon Age: The Veilguard.🌱 “I will follow that Inquisitor into battle any time that BioWare calls on me to do so. It was very emotional to go back into the booth.”
“We did a lot of sessions,” she tells me. “There were a lot of changes. I can't even remember what some of those earlier sessions were rec🍬ording, but there was a big gap between one block of recording and then what ended up [being in the game]. There was another chunk of recording where clearly a lot of stuff had changed, and that was the stuff that went in the ཧgame.
“When I went in for that final session, I just remember crying my eyes out in the booth bಌecause, one, it was so beautifully written. Two, it felt like such a perfect ending for the Inquisitor and Solas togeಞther. Three, speaking Dalish is quite emotional, just in itself. I don't know that I'm particularly good at it, but I'll certainly try.”
That hard-hitting finale and the many changes that game had already undergone made her reach out to BioWare and tell them that, despite knowing she had no power over what happens to the Inquisitor, “I promise you this is right, and I know it's right because I'm the one crying right now. So if it's moved me that much, it's right.” Fortunaꦰtely for everyone, that ending is what BioWare included in the final version.
Dragon Age: The Veilguard’s development went through so much turmoil, changing its direction, its name, and much of the team. As fans, we watched from the💝 outside with trepidation as news broke and development changed course, and Wilton Regan says she also watched on with a similar fear and tells me how sad she is to see what’s happened to the BioWare team.
“I love BioWare. How could I not? They gave me my start. I owe so much to BioWare, so I do feel sad about what's happened. You work on Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon Age: Awakening, Dragon Age 2, and𒁏 you are freaking invested. Mass Effect 3, in between, with Sam Traynor. You know those people. You know those directors that you're talking down the line to for months and months and months at a time.
“It's always wonderful to work as an actor. It's always lovely to know that your work's appreciated and the company wants you to come back. Of course, that's a beautiful thing. But you're really invested in these people who had a baby on your first job, and now that baby is eight, and is growing up, and you knoꦦw that they have mortgages to pay just like you do. You want to see them work. You want to see them thrive. When people have given you so much and been so generous and offered you these brilliant roles, I want to see them thrive. I feel really sad about this consolidation [...] I just feel sad that people have moved on.”
Returning As The Inquisitor
Though Wilton Regan entered the booth as a support character this time instead of the leඣad, she said it didn’t feel weird at all. “The Inquisitor is such an established character in the Dragon Age canon. She is so distinct. She is so much her own person, and she is the absolute bedrock of Dragon Age: Inquisition, which I would argue is one of the most important video games, maybe in the canon of video games♎, that's ever come out for high fantasy RPG worlds.
🔥Even if you haven't played Dragon Age, you've heard of it. To me, she's so established with her dist🦩inct personality and ways of being. I knew exactly who she was moving forward.”
However, she tells me about one thing that did feel strange: listening to her old match file. Every time you enter the booth, you start the day with a match file so you can ♛listen to what you were previously doing with your voice, regardless of whether it was only the day before that you were last in the booth, to help you find the same tone and energy.
“Even if the Inq𝓀uisitor is very similar to me, she's still different. She's not me. What was fascinating is that the director goes, ‘Okay, can you play Alix a match file?’ and that's my voice from ten years ago. I was like, oh my God, I was a child when it came out. Ten years have passed, lots has happened in that time. But what was interesting is I felt that was how they wrote the Inquisitor as well. They brought her back older, wiser. It works, and I love that they did it. It would have been nonsense if it were three months later. And also, I don't have the voice that I had.”
Wilton Regan pauses, before quickly adding with a wink, “I mean, I can still do the voice that I had. Just so employers are very clear, I can still do that voice, but my voice has chang🍨ed. That's what was interesting, coming back as the Inquisitor and being like, oh, she's not a baby Inquisitor anymore, 🐠finding her way in the world and rallying the party.”
.jpg?q=49&fit=crop&w=825&dpr=2)
When Inquisition and its DLC wrapped, Wilton Regan had no idea that she’d ever be back as the Inquisitor, though s🍸he always hoped.
“I have to say that although it is brief, 🦂her part within Veilguard is also beautiful. She has quality time in Veilguard as opposed to quantity, and I respect that from BioWare. The Inquisitor-Solas storyline is so famous, powerful, and emotional. But I did feel bereft on that last day of recording. was like, ‘Oof, this is it. I've got to say goodbye to my girl.’ Within the canon and the way that BioWare works, I'm probably not going to play the Inquisitor again.”
When it comes to games like Inquisition,൩ we all have our own ways of playing, and Wilton Regan is no different. She tells me, “I would never play as anyone else's voice” when I ask if she chooses her own Inquisitor performance. As far as romance goes, she opts for Iron Bull, explaining, “Listen, he's still Freddie Prinze Jr, guys. I'm of the era where he was a hear🌳tthrob.”
Fear not, Solavellan fans, she also romanced the big bad Dread Wolf, too. “I've also done a bit of Solas. Those are my three - Iron Bull, Sera, and Solas. I had to do Solas because he's always been so important in the recordings, so irrespective of who I perhaps wanted to romance, it felt responsible as a video game actress to need to understand the Solas🐟 stuff.”
Mass Effect & Dragon Age
Having been in both the Dragon Age and Mass Effect series, I couldn’t help but ask which series Wilton Regan prefers. “You can't choose. 🌌They're very different.”
On Mass Effect 3, she tells me, “You'd be a freaking idiot if you weren't aware that acting opposite people💃 like Mark Meer and Jennifer Hale is like one of the best experiences of your life as an actor. That you've got to give super kudos to. I also loved in Mass Effect that Sam was an openly gay character. I loved that she couldn't be swayed if you were a male Shep. I thought it was reall🔴y ballsy. It cemented who BioWare were as a company for me. So I loved all of that.”
While Wilton Regan has featured in every mainline Dragon Age game, it was Inquisition where she took on the role of lead protagonist. “Acting opposite all of these incredible characters, and you're having all these wild experiences, and you're like, wait, which lover is this? Which storyline are we on now? Because it gets so much more sprawling and complicated, so your mind has to do more mentওal gymnastics to keep up.”
She tells me that one thing she loves about both series is the narratives. “I'm just a kind of bog standard classically trained drama school kid, I respond to good writing. I respond to emotional writing. I think that's why I work so heavily as an actor in the RPG world. My thing is classical theatre along with film and TV training, and I happen to have ended up in video games, and so t💫he thing that I responded to so well in both Mass Effect and Dragon Age is that they are really emotional storylines. That's where I excel.”
W🐭hen asked which series she would return to if she could, in any capacity and not just reprising her old roles, she chooses Mass Effect, explaining, “not because I think it's better, but just I have explored that world a lot less.”
As she was only in Mass Effect 3, she tells me that’s the entirety of her knowledge on the series, “I know there's a whole other world with brilliant characters. I would have loved to have met Jack from ME2, who was Courtenay Taylor's character. I know there were some heavyweights in 1 and 2 that I would have liked to meet, so I think exploring the Mass Effect worlds either as Sam Traynor again, so she getsౠ to explore, or as a different charac🐭ter would be cool.”
If she had to pick another Dragon Age character to be, Wilton Regan chooses Morrigan. “She's kin🗹d of hot. She's this hot, strong, grounded woman.” When considering the same question for Mass Effect, she tells me that, interestingly enough, she almost was another Mass Effect character. “I did audition before I became Traynor. I was auditioning for EDI. That was quite funny. That could have all been very different, guys.”
However, what Sam Traynor did offer Wilton Regan was a slice of local pride. “I lꦚove Sam because also Sam's a Londoner. When they were like, ‘We loved your audition. We just don't think it's quite the right place for you in the game.’ I was like, ‘So what's gonna happen?’ They're like, ‘You're gonna be a Londoner.’ Straight up. And I was like, ‘Cool, I'm down because I am a ꦉLondoner born and bred. I'm down. Take me to your master.’”
“You Have To Love Your Characters”
In much the same way that she can’t choose a favourite between Mass Eff🅷ect and Dragon Age, she also can’t choose a favourite video game project, as she says they are all her favourites for different reasons.
“There's an acting theory, which is you have to love your characters, no matter who they aജre. Not only do you have to love your characters, but it is your job as the actor to defend your character's integrity at all costs in all circumstances. I really feel that quite strongly. My job as the actor is not to judge my character for making bad decisions. [...] My job is to invest in the character and find the things that I love about them, so I can pull that personality out of myself and deliver it to the audience.”
Looking back at all the characters she’s portrayed, there’s one in particular she’d like to see return. “Aya is one of the most important characters in the canon of Assassin's Creed becau🍸se she is the mother of the Creed. She's the founder of the Creed. And as such, it would be so beautiful to see her return and have a fully fleshed out storyline of her own where people really invest in Aya as this quintessential character. I would love to see Ubisoft do [that].
If anyone deserves it, it's definitely Aya. And it's not because I played Aya, it's because she is so important and people deserve to find out more about her, how she felt about the death of her son, eve﷽rything. It would have been wonderful to have more time and attention spent with Aya, and most fans have said that online.”
Wilton Regan will also be starring as Joanna Dark in the upcoming reboot of Perfect Dark, and while she can’t say much about theꦍ project right now, she tells me she is “very proud to be playing Joanna.”
Perhaps next time I meet with Wilton Regan, we’ll be sitting in another café after the launch of Perfect Dark, and it’ll be Joanna I’ll be hearing♊ as she speaks. However, after spending hundreds of hours in DA: Inquisition, I think she will forever and always be the Inquisitor to me.
Ashly Burch Talks Aloy's Queerness, Life is Strange's Controversial Break-Up, And Striking Against AI
We caught up with renowned ac💙tor Ashly Bu🏅rch on the BAFTA Game Awards red carpet.
