Baldur's Gate 3 Lae'zel Interview

December 19, 2023 at 8:13pm
By Jason Stettner

Interview with Devora Wilde, Actress for (Lae'zel) in Baldur's Gate 3

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?

Devora: My name is Devora Wilde. I'm an actor, I have done many things in my time being an actor. TV, film, theater and most recently voiceovers. So this particular role is Lae’zel in Baldur’s Gate 3, a world completely new to me.

Maybe new to some people listening and watching this as well. She is a very tough Githyanki Warrior and she's kind of well how should I put it, difficult at the beginning but very rewarding once you get to know her let's put it let's put it that way.

In Baldur’s Gate III, you provide the performance for Lae’Zel. Could you tell us a bit about the character and the situation she finds herself in?

Devora: The character is the first companion that you meet on board this sort of Nautiloid ship that is crashing essentially and you know in quite a lot of danger. She is also the first, well when the opening of the game starts you see you know the whole premise of the game set up.

They've been infected with these tadpoles and you see her, the first one actually getting infected and getting the tadpole put in her eye by the Mind Flayer so she finds herself in a pretty stressful situation straight out the gate I would say.

When preparing to perform as Lae’zel, 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?

Devora: No, I was given a small character description. Like I said I didn't know much about the world. I didn't know much about the Githyanki at all which actually was quite useful to me because I didn't come in with any preconceived notions of what they were like. I've since been told that Githyanki are not very, you know they're like evil but I don't see it like that personally and it's good that I wasn't.

I kind of went with the language first of all because this part and indeed the whole game is so incredibly well written that to be honest when you have such an incredible script it makes our job very easy and then once I got into the onset I guess you could call it onset.

You know we had a great team of directors; movement directors, audio engineers, performance capture engineers and it was kind of a group effort. From then on you know we'd do the lines then maybe we'd try the line a different way, try the movement a different way and it kind of just proceeded from there and you know when you've been doing it so many years you start to sort of you can slip into the character very easily and very quickly.

From what I’ve read you provided not only the voice work, but also motion capture for the game. Could you go over the process involved in bringing this character to life?

Devora: : This is my first voice and motion capture job so it was completely new to me. Obviously I come from like more of a traditional acting background but actually this isn't so different because you know acting is using your whole instrument. Your voice; your body, your facial expressions, your eyes whatever and this is pretty much the same with the exception that you know people can't see your face but you're still emoting through your face.

Through your eyes, through your gestures and I think the cinematics team that we had actually took our facial reactions and things that we were doing with our faces and used it as reference to how the character would react and that's why a lot of people have been saying how realistic Lae’zel is. How expressive her eyes are and that's thanks in large part to our cinematics team but also the fact that they used us to really capture that full performance.

So yeah I think a lot of people think that performance capture is very technical and it can be. I mean you're kind of rooted to the spot, you're not really allowed a lot of movement but once you get used to that really the sky is the limit. So I don't I didn't really see it as separate to just doing a regular performance you know.

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?

Devora: Any like, classic Lae’zel insults are just brilliant because I just think she has such cutting lines and such like lines delivered with such like dead pan dry humor and because she doesn't come from this world. So she just, some of her stuff like you know Tieflings and just you know interacting with things in this world that other characters see as normal but she doesn't I think is brilliant.

Then there is a scene to towards kind of the end of her romance where, without giving too much away they're up on a roof with a player character watching the sunrise and that was one of my favorite scenes to record because it's just a completely different side to the character so people who have got there will know what I mean but that was really just exquisite writing by Kevin VanOrd who is Lae’zel’s lead writer and it was a real treat for me.

There’s certainly a deeper level of role playing and choice behind Baldur’s Gate III. What are your thoughts on the many layers to what choices players could pick and the response you would be performing in reaction to player driven decisions?

Devora: I mean look, I don't have any experience with this kind of game and I've only well recently as up you know of until a month ago I started playing it. So for me it's like a whole new world and it's amazing because I've never experienced a game like this before. I mean I don't really play games, I played games when I was younger but I played stuff like The Sims so now to have.

I mean the Sims is very choice based I suppose you could say but now to have something where literally it feels like you could do anything. The world is so vast and so open and just that really your imagination is the limit and that's still taking me a while to get out of my own like box and be like okay why don't I just do this now and this now and I think I'll get into it as the more I play the game.

I think that's such an amazing way to approach a game and I think that's why so many people have connected with the characters because they are part of their story. As for me recording the different choices. I mean I loved it, I loved it because in a traditional narrative setup and by that I mean TV or film you have your one linear narrative and your one outcome and the whole story is kind of gearing up towards that and that's the story you're telling.

You're all telling that one story, with this game you're telling lots of different stories. Many different endings; many different choices, many different interactions. So it's very cool to be able to play out all those different things. It's like you know people believe in the concept of sort of parallel universes and all of these outcomes are happening at the same time and it's kind of playing that out which is pretty cool and very incredible as an actor to get to play that whole range of things and emotions yes it certainly gives you a lot of options.

So, Lae’Zel has a romance option with her character. What was it like to bring that connection to the player to life?

Devora: I don't think I had done another video game that had these kinds of, and obviously Baldur’s Gate 3 is quite romance heavy and you can get very involved with the character and you can get very intimate with the character.

What I loved about the way that the romance was handled by Baldur’s Gate 3 is that it was specifically written towards each character so Lae’zel again without giving too much away but it is written in such a Lae’zel specific way that you feel almost gratified that you've earned Lae’zel’s intimacy. I think that's because you have to earn that through getting to know her and through gaining her approval but it's specific to her.

It would be different for Shadowheart, be different for Astarion, whatever and I think that's what I really loved about the romance. It wasn't just romance for the sake of romance, sex for the sake of sex.

Whatever it was, it's genuinely getting intimate with the with the character and getting to know them and building that relationship and building that trust with them and if you don't build that relationship with that trust then it kind of disappears and the character might not be very happy. Soit was really interesting for me and I enjoyed doing those lines a lot.

As you mentioned, you’ve been playing the game. Have you attempted to romance yourself?

Devora: Well I didn't just attempt, I actually succeeded. Oh yeah, I succeeded and I was shocked because, and a lot of people are like why are you so shocked? Like don't you remember recording these lines?

Yes, I remember recording the lines but I have never seen it in the context of the game; in the context of the cinematics, in the context of like nudity and in the context of interacting with the other characters.

So for me, like my reactions are quite “gasps” because I haven't seen it and so it's very cool for me to see that. So yes I have embarked on a romance with Lae’zel it's going pretty well. Yeah we'll see what happens, we'll see what happens.

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

Devora: Oh very cool. It's yeah, kind of weird I suppose in the first instance because you're so used to seeing yourself. You know your face and your voice and then it's like your voice and your movement, but it's not your face or your body or you know it's a green Githyanki speaking like me so it's kind of weird but it's so cool you know.

It's just cool seeing her placed in the world. It's cool seeing her speak with the music behind. I mean the music of this game is just incredible so seeing all these scenes with the music. Seeing her speak with the other characters and have them speak back and have this full conversation that I know I recorded in isolation and so did the other actors and then seeing it play out as a two-sided conversation and seeing it so smooth and it just flows so well and a few people have commented on the fact that it just sounds like we've recorded it together. But we haven't so that was very, it's just incredibly rewarding you know. It's been four and a bit years so to see it materialize the way it has is really. It's just rewarding and incredible.


Is this a character you’d like to return to down the road if possible?

Devora: I'd love to do a Lae’zel prequel because she talks so much about Creche and about her growing up and the way she was trained, the things that she had to do. The way her culture is and I think it's so different and so alien and so interesting and fascinating. Brutal in many ways that it would be, really interesting to have a prequel. A Githyanki spin-off prequel.

What are your thoughts on D&D and or role playing type games in general?

Devora: I mean again, I'm very brand new to it. We did a D&D campaign back in September with the whole cast. That was really cool. It was my first time playing tabletop Dungeons and Dragons and I loved the role playing aspect.

I mean as an actor it's fantastic. It's basically just improv and having fun with other people who are also really into just you know getting into a character. Doing you know the voice, the physicality and also again that whole thing of like the sky the limit.

You can literally do anything and more often than not you know the DM will be like okay yeah you can do that and then obviously you have the constraints of the character sheet. But it's pretty free and pretty open so I enjoyed that a lot.

I didn't enjoy the combat so much and the combat in Baldur’s Gate 3 I also struggle with just because I think. Yeah I'm brand new to it. I don't really know the mechanics of how it works, I'm still like fumbling my way through it but the role playing part of it I really love.

What are other characters that viewers might know you from? Could you give us a taste of Battlefield 2042’s Ops Comm voice?

Devora: I think that was kind of like, “Done with Russian Accent for Context” Russian you know Russian very hard voice probably shouting instructions like to the left go. I don't know, something like that. I don't really remember to be honest because it was quite a small role but it was something like that.

So yeah you might have heard me in that although you probably I don't know it's very tiny. You can also see me as Nika Yankovich in Cyberpunk 2077, the expansion Phantom Liberty. The English dub of Nearl the radiant Knight in Arknights. What else, a few things. I mean a lot of things coming out next year that I can't really talk about but yeah a few things.


Would you mind giving the audience a brief line or taste of the Lae’Zel in action?

Devora: ”In Character” I don't remember it exactly but it was something like “I lived for the red of blood and the black of death now I see the colors between”.

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

Devora: Oh that gives me a lot of freedom. Not that I can think of, well okay all I will say is give Lae’zel a chance. That's all I'm saying in my interview, give Lae’zel a chance because a lot of people actually have and they're like oh I really hated her at the beginning but then I saw the interview with her actor and she was like give Lae’zel a chance and I did give Lae’zel a chance and she was awesome.

So give Lae’zel a chance, she will be rewarding. Yeah you will be rewarded and also you know what playing the game because everyone's like oh she's so rude she's so abrasive at the beginning. Maybe it's because I recorded her but now I'm playing the game. I'm like she's not that rude she's just kind of straightforward and straight down the line and she's very determined and mission driven. Yeah I would just encourage everyone to try it.

Play out her story see what happens. I think gaining her trust and her loyalty might be tricky but once you do you'll be very rewarded. I can't talk about them other than that you can watch me on Twitch. Devora Wilde stumbling my way through Baldur’s Gate 3. It’s so chaotic and hilarious, you can catch me on Tik Tok; Twitter, Instagram yeah that's about it.

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