Avowed Yatzli Interview

February 26, 2025 at 8:04pm
By Jason Stettner

Interview with Anjali Bhimani, Actor for (Yatzli) in Avowed

For call based interviews we try to present the conversation replies as close to verbatim as possible, for context.

A staple I do in all interviews in order to start things off is to ask that you elaborate a bit about your work, and this particular role for those not familiar with it?

Anjali: My name's Anjali Bhimani and I have worked in many different forms of media. In television people might know me from Ms Marvel or Dead to Me. In video games Overwatch; Apex Legends, Fallout, Starfield and of course Avowed. In the theatre, I've done Broadway. Done a little bit of everything but this particular role is Yatzli in Avowed.

In Avowed, you provide the performance for Yatzli. Could you tell us a bit about the character and the situation she finds herself in?

Anjali: Yatzli is truly one of my favorite characters I've ever gotten to play in a game. She is an Orland wizard. For those of you that are familiar with the Pillars of Eternity series and this you know area and the location where Avowed takes place.

Although she is tiny she packs a punch. She is full of personality; she is very flirtatious and sometimes inappropriate. She's brilliant, she has a desperate and delicious love of magic and all she wants to learn about all things magic.

When preparing to perform as Yatzli, were you given any initial direction in regards to the character? Just in terms of an example of prep work to get into the mind set of this particular performance?

Anjali: You know it wasn't so much a mindset thing as there was one particular descriptor that they gave me for this character was that she's been around for years and years and years and years but she doesn't sound old.

She's not old, this is just a woman who has a gazillion years of experience but still is a very youthful being and so there was this rise that I wanted to give her vocally because she's kind of sarcastic and all of that. I wanted to give her that quality but without making her sound like she was any older than she looks.

Yatzli certainly has a certain level of power to her being a wizard class wise from what I understand. Was it enjoyable to be doing voice lines driven to unleashing magic and I believe a crazed laugh at points? Could you do that wild laugh for us?

Anjali: That's funny because I don't remember doing it but if it says crazed laugh then it probably is me because we did a lot of laughing in the recording sessions. The lines that they wrote for Yatzli are just so much fun. So they were really quite a joy to record but yeah it's always great to play a character who could be underestimated.

I mean she's tiny, she looks almost like a humanoid cat. She's a tiny little gal but then being able to voice those lines that pack such a punch. That go along with these incredible spells and you know her magic that she uses that is very powerful in game. I love playing that dichotomy.

Yatzli is rather witty and at times hilarious, what did you think of some of the more outlandish voice lines? Ondra’s titties!

Anjali: You know I actually really love them because it gives her. You know a lot of people think of the wizard class getting played in RPGs they think of them as very stoic and very serious or very intellectual and I love the fact that the way she speaks shows a kind of character who is brilliant but isn't buttoned up.

So when she does have that statement or whenever sure she does have some of the other lines she has you know one of my favorite is. Hello, I'm right here! I'm sure it's not stupid and like things like that I love the fact that we get to see another side of the wizard class.

I found Yatzli to have a very flirtatious style to her character, you seemed to be having fun delivering those lines? What are your thoughts on Yatzli’s romance in the game and her very flirty attitude?

Anjali: I love it because first of all and I'm assuming this is okay to say. I love that she's a sex positive character. I love that she has come to this world knowing she wants to enjoy herself and I love that aspect. You don't really see that in wizard characters a lot.

Half the time I think she's flirting not just to flirt but to get a rise out of the player character or one of the other characters so that makes it even more fun. You know just a little Chaos Agent here and there and I don't usually get to play the chaos agents so I'm very pleased with it.

If you were trying to convince a player to keep Yatliz in their crew, what would you say are her strengths and core benefits for a team?

Anjali: I mean like any of the AOE spells that she has anything that where she can attack from afar I think is a fantastic thing. Multiple targets, all of that. I don't I don't feel like any of the characters quite have the same capability as far as that is concerned.

I just think that you should pick her because she's really fun even in battle she's fun which I remember recording one of the later battles that they're in and she's still making jokes the whole time which I which I appreciate but yeah I would think that again this is you know. If you're playing a tabletop game and you're casting fireball or something like something like that she has the ability to do those things where the other characters don't necessarily have them.

When performing the role, were there any particular lines or moments that really stuck out to you? Whether that’s a behind the scenes moment or from the dialogue?

Anjali: I can't remember the exact words because there are many many many many lines but there are so many times where something happens. She has such a strong sense of right and wrong and of justice and there are some very pivotal decisions that you as the player character need to make that will define how another character lives out or doesn't live out the rest of their lives.

She wears her heart on her sleeve and there were so many times where we would go from you know one of the sarcastic or silly or whatever lines and then it was practically being in tears because she was so hurt by the choice that had to be made or by the choice that was made that maybe didn't have to be made and that aspect of her is really special to me too because if you're going to show the light-hearted side of her.

Getting to give her that grounding and that heart and that sense of justice I think is equally important because there's some very difficult decisions that have to be made in the game and there needs to be weight to them.


What do you think of role playing games in general, at least from the perspective of doing voices where basically a player si going to choose multiple lines and you have to make a whole circle of responses?

Anjali: I mean I love it. If I was doing a play or if I was doing a movie or a television show or whatever. The story line is linear, there's only one way that I get to respond to what the person opposite me does. It's with the next line or the next action or you know obviously there's a little bit of variation here and there but it's set so you only get to see that one journey that a character gets to make as far as learning who this character is.

When we're doing RPGs and we have these all of these options to show different sides of a character and they're all baked into the same game and it's up to you the player to find out which one you are going to learn about because of your choices. I think that is a really wonderful thing and as an actor it's delicious because it just means you get to get more deeper into your character you get to tell more of the story.

You get to tell more of the story of the of The Living Lands in this one which is you the this story is so broad and so full in this game and having all of these opportunities to show different paths you can be on I think it's fantastic certainly never going to get bored.

What’s it like to see your voice attached to a game character?

Anjali: I love it, you know it's really fun voice acting for me and I hate terming it voice acting. I'd rather call it game performance because you know even though in some games people might only be hearing our voice and seeing something else. It's a full performance, we're still doing it in that booth.

There's a breadth to that performance that really matters but I just love the collaborative nature of it when you're coming in before the character has been fully formed and knowing what the designers bring to you and what you bring to the designers is going to come together and create this new thing. This new character.

I think I one of my favorite things about gaming both as a player and as a creator is that collaborative nature because you cannot do it alone. My voice all by itself does not make a character but also when a developer has this beautiful character that they've created there needs to be someone to give it that life right in a way that they might not have seen so I just I feel a sense of kind of like a childish pride every time.

Look what we did, that we made this thing. Guys look what we made because not childish, childlike because that wonderment that that feeds into games is part of the special sauce that makes games so special.

What was the timeline like for being part of it, since you’re dressed to match did you have any input on the color of your character’s magical fur?

Anjali: No, that I did not that. I did not but the first time I saw her picture I fell in love with her immediately. I wish I could tell you offhand. I would have to go into my calendar to look at when we started recording this but it was it was a while back definitely. I want to say end of 2023 but don't quote me on that because I'm not entirely sure. It might have been later than that, it all kind of jumbles together what is time? Time is a weird soup as our friends on Critical Role say.


Is this a character you’d like to return to down the road if possible? Assuming we get some sort of Avowed DLC or Avowed 2 as to say.

Anjali: Absolutely, despite the fact that this game is has so many opportunities for you to learn about her I think there's always more to explore in every character and the more NPCs you bring in that the player gets to react to and the player gets to play with I think the fuller the experience is for them so I would love it I would absolutely love it.

You’ve also previously voiced some shooter like roles such as with Symmetra from Overwatch or Rampart from Apex Legends. What’s the process like performing a role for the voice of a character in a hero shooter versus a more traditional dialogue driven role playing game like with Yatzli in Avowed?

Anjali: I mean there are things that are similar and then things that are different. The sessions themselves are structured almost exactly the same more often than not. When it's something like this where lines are triggered by other lines and we don't have necessarily any cutcenes that are fully performed scenes with other actors right.

So you'll go into the booth and you will have pages and pages and pages of lines and you'll be there with the engineer and you'll be there with the director and you'll be there with some of the writers and they will give you context for what's happening and how this is happening and what maybe the state the her mind might be in. Or the character’s state of mind might be.

The same thing goes for shooters. It just doesn't always have the level of it, doesn't always have the level of depth to every line because you're reacting to okay this person's shooting at you okay this person's on the payload. Okay this you know you're reacting to plot points, you're reacting to things that are happening and while there are some of the lines in Overwatch for example that are a little bit more fun and triggered by other characters lines. In my experience at least the shooter games just have a little bit.

You have a shorter time to convey the depth of the line and the depth of the story behind the line whereas in these scenes it ultimately is a dialogue. It's just that you have to record all of the lines of dialogue as if okay now this line is going to come this line triggered this line okay this line triggered this line now it triggered this okay let's go to the next part of the conversation and so I think that's really the main difference in my experience.

From a background context how does it really work in comparison of doing something like a shooter long term role versus a one off RPG?

Anjali: You keep coming in for shooter kind of roles like that or yeah usually when there are either new characters brought into a game or maybe a new event they'll bring us in to do new lines for that.

Same thing with Apex Legends you know, they're constantly reinventing and constantly creating new events for the players to play so yeah you just keep coming in for separate, you just keep ongoing coming in for sessions whereas for something like this you're coming in for many many many sessions but once the game is out, the game is out.

More of a behind the scenes type question for you, what are your thoughts on doing voice acting versus motion versus stage or well traditional?

Anjali: I describe it all as branches of the same tree because the tree is storytelling and the difference with each branch is just the medium and the physical resources that you are using to create those stories. I think Motion Performance capture is probably the closest thing we have to a medium that combines all the others because you are being essentially filmed and recorded from all over your body but you are enacting the scenes as if you were on stage or on a film set and so your physicality is very important and obviously your voice is vital to conveying the communications of the character and how they communicate how they walk through the world.

So I think they all feed each other. I know I wouldn't have been as successful in game performance had I not had vocal training when I was in college and had I not studied theatre and the same thing with physicality on film you know they all they all feed into to each other it's why I can't pick one because I don't want to.

You’ve had a history working with Bethesda, would you like to talk about your history with their games? For example, you were Nisha in Fallout 4’s Nuka World or Yasmin in Fallout 76 and Commander Natara in Starfield.

Anjali: My first game with them was Fallout 4 Nuka World when I was playing Nisha. She is the most psychopathic bloodthirsty crazy character. I tell people all the time if you're playing the game and you see her and you want to kill her right away that's okay.

Don't feel bad because it's me, just do it but I love that about her too because if you know for those people who have played the games for years or who have watched this the spin-off show. There is a sort of like ease with how difficult the world is and a sense of like the world is this post-apocalyptic place but everybody's kind of used to it and it was the first time that I was ever playing something in that kind of a world so I really enjoyed playing on the dark side.

Lastly I would like to leave a spot for you to say something or go over anything I might have missed during the interview?

Anjali: We have a wonderful game coming out this spring called Sunderfolk and it is a really cool combination of tabletop role playing games and video games. So they're trying to reinvent game night in the coolest way. I've got I've had a chance to play through with some friends it's really fun and hopefully it will enable people to.

You know a lot of people are scared of playing TTRPGs because they are, there's a you know it's a heavy lift. You got to read a lot of books, you got to learn all these rules and all of this stuff. Well this takes that out of it completely.

You still get the experience of a tabletop roleplaying game but the ease of getting into it is very like there's no particular learning curve. There's like much of a learning curve then you can jump into play and since I am so bad at video games I for one very much appreciate it and one of the cool things for me in Sunderfolk is that I play the dungeon master which means that I get to voice all of the characters in the game!

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