Cyberpunk 2077 Aurore Interview

December 6, 2023 at 8:26pm
By Jason Stettner

Interview with Leonie Schliesing, Actress for (Aurore) in Cyberpunk 2077

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?

Leonie: I am a voice actor and singer originally from Germany. I moved to the UK ten years ago and have been working in lots of different projects, specifically lots of cool video games and this particular one is the expansion Phantom Liberty of Cyberpunk 2077 and I voice Aurore Cassel, the French Netrunner.

In Cyberpunk 2077, you provide the performance for Aurore. Could you tell us a bit about the character and the situation she finds herself in?

Leonie: As I said Aurore is a Netrunner, she's originally from France and she finds herself in Night City in Dogtown because she's had to get out of France because she's got a bounty on her head.

She got on the wrong side of some very important people. She's there with her brother Aymeric and the two, well the first time you encounter them is at the Black Sapphire. Kurt Hansen's Casino and that's where her and Aymeric start interacting with V.

Your character has a distinct accent and style to her, was there any specific inspiration you used for selecting the voice and would you give us a brief taste of Aurore in action?

Leonie: When I first received the audition for this character I was just told that she's French and that she's very lively and energetic and flirty. Quite hedonistic but actually the scene that I originally received for the audition was in the car when she's very hung over and she's just constantly complaining about her headache and about the fact that she's hung over.

So the energy was a little bit lower at that point obviously but I guess when it comes to inspiration. So the French accent really is something that I've kind of worked with for a long time. I used to live in France I speak fluent French.

French is definitely one of the accents that kind of just sort of comes easily to me so I didn't need to necessarily go and look for inspiration there but when it comes to the character, characteristics I guess and the way that she's just kind of doesn't give a shit about anything and she's just always kind of flirting and taking the piss out of everyone.

One of my main Inspirations was Villanelle from Killing Eve, Jodie Comer who kind of has that same energy where everything is just a big game to her and she just loves flirting with everyone and kind of doesn't really seem to be scared of anything or anyone. So she was a big inspiration definitely.

Past that, do you have any thoughts on player’s being disappointed that there wasn’t any sort of Aurore romance option? It seems like a popular note when discussing your character, due to that flirty style.

Leonie: I mean, who can blame them right? I mean she's very beautiful. Well done CDPR and obviously I guess you know the French accent as we know worldwide, I guess is considered sexy or romantic or whatever. So I do understand that people have a bit of a crush on her and she is a flirt right?

I mean just that screenshot that you've got behind you when she comes up to V and strokes their hand and you know she is very flirty and then to not offer the romance option. I guess it is understandable that players are very disappointed about that but I did hear that apparently the mods have done some work.

To dive into a more spoiler type situation, so viewers are warned. Your role here was really interesting as it was one part Aurore at a casino event, and another part as V being Aurore. What was it like essentially becoming a character playing another character? Was any sort of guidance provided in preparing for that?

Leonie: Yeah that was hands down my favorite part of recording this character. I had no idea that that was going to happen. I remember seeing in the audition it said Aurore as Aurore and then Aurore as V, then as Alex and I was confused. I didn't know what that meant so I just did everything as Aurore but then when I ended up in the sessions with the director who then explained to me what was happening. That you know my identity was being stolen. That was just like a, oh my god this is so cool and so it depends on whether you play with a female or a male V.

Aurore then is either being impersonated by V or by Alex so I effectively had to play three characters. So I had to play Aurore as Aurore, V as Aurore but also Alex as Aurore. The way that we did that was, first of all I recorded all three characters on different microphones. I thought that was a really interesting detail to really make sure that the sound was consistent so they would then use the same microphone that they would record V and Alex on and then they played me some sound bites of Cherami Leigh and the voice actor who voices Alex whose name has currently escaped me and they would play me some bits of them talking.

So I could get a feel of their timbre and their rhythm because there are moments where obviously they are impersonating Aurore while they are around Kurt Hansen. They are trying to sound like Aurore but in the car while they're still just trying out, there are moments where they are being them but with Aurore’s voice and accent. So then there was a moment where I had to kind of be like okay so what would Cherami Leigh then sound like in this case.

With her voice, of V but my voice and accent so that was like a really interesting way of working and we really took our time with that as well in the sessions to get that right and to really get that difference. Between these three characters and then also when V is Aurore then is it's actually a little bit over the top like compared Aurore at the casino as herself compared to Aurore at Kurt Hansen's abode. If you compare the two performances the one at Kurt Hansen's is actually a little bit over the top because V kind of overcompensates a little bit for not actually being Aurore. I had a great director.

What did you think of how your character ended up, was it surprising?

Leonie: Yeah actually you know what, I don't think I knew that that was going to happen. Maybe I did; I obviously, I knew that they were taking my identity. I don't know if I was told in the recording sessions that was only possible through killing me and I think that was a bit of a shock moment for players as well.

From what I've seen, you know I have read a few kind of Reddit threads and comments on Twitter and whatever, never going to call it the new name and it seems to me that there's been a few people who've said that was quite a pivotal moment actually for them to decide whether to side with Songbird or Reed and that a lot of people actually decided to side with Songbird at that point because they wanted to avenge me and my brother which I think is quite sweet.

While I imagine it might be somewhat difficult for Aurore to return to Cyberpunk 2077. Is this a world you’d be interested in returning to as another character or Aurore if they somehow fit that in?

Leonie: Yeah I mean, I guess there's a lot of people that were angry about the fact that I was killed. There's been a lot of calls for her to be revived which I mean, nothing seems impossible in the Cyberpunk universe but I do think that's probably the end of her story.

I would absolutely love to come back as a different character but I think considering that this is you know CDPR have very clearly said that that this is it for Cyberpunk then I think I'm just going to take this and end on a high note and just enjoy the ride that I've been on with it.

Well there is actually a sequel coming. Is there? Yeah project Orion. Oh I thought that this was the only expansion they were doing for this. This is the only expansion, they're doing a full sequel. oh okay, well in that case sure I'll throw my hat in the ring!

You’ve done some other gaming roles, if we didn’t cover those briefly mention some and then past that how did this one compare to the previous roles and is voicing more characters in games of interest to you?

Leonie: I've not actually done like a huge amount of games. I think I tried to count recently. I think I've been in like fifteen or sixteen so far. A lot of them kind of I guess indie projects and or smaller projects or whatever you want to call it. The other the only other AAA title that I've been in was Assassin's Creed Valhalla. The DLC, The Siege of Paris where I voiced Toka Sinricsdottir and that was actually my first kind of big game title.

That was back in 2020 that I worked on that and that was that was really fun and really like the first kind of big thing I did. So it was quite like, I was a little bit deer in headlights. I didn't really know what I was doing and I would probably, if I went back now to do it again there would probably be things I would do differently but it was an incredible experience and so early on in my journey into the world of gaming. To book such a big character was really exciting and I've done other things since.

I've just voiced the player character in an indie game that's coming out sometime next year called Glam Pursuit which is a really cute kind of visual novel type game and I voiced the female player character in that and yeah lots of other things in the pipeline as well and gaming is definitely one of the areas that I sort of see as one of the pillars of my voice acting business career I guess. I do quite a bit of commercial work and then kind of corporate stuff and gaming is definitely sort of the third.

Gaming is one of the biggest areas that I work in and that I definitely want to work in more. I joined the BAFTA Connect programme this year. I'm not sure if you're aware of that, it's like a program that you know you get accepted into for having a promising career in gaming so that's hopefully going to help elevate that the area of my career a little bit more as well.


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

Leonie: It's so weird, it's really weird at first. I remember the first time seeing a game character that I had voiced and it just feels off in a way. Sometimes because especially you know if we're looking at games where maybe there wasn't motion capture, performance capture, facial capture and obviously the animators would have animated the face according to my voice recording.

Then sometimes it seems to not quite match how I felt delivering that line and then what the character is doing with their face or with their body. I have to like detach my memory of how I delivered that line to how it now looks and feels, just like you know things like a character raising an eyebrow weird at some point.

I was like; oh, okay that's not how I saw this but okay interesting. So I've gotten used to it and I do enjoy watching stuff now that I voice but in the beginning I remember kind of feeling a bit weird about it and not enjoying it very much because it yeah it felt it felt weird but I like it now.

What are your thoughts on motion capture versus voice acting?

Leonie: I feel like voice acting and performance capture, motion capture are kind of almost two different things because when you go back. When you go to performance capture you're almost back in theater acting which is where I originally come from but it just kind of brings your body back into the equation and the usually obviously the way that performance capture is captured also means that you'll be acting out a scene with other actors whereas with voice acting.

Obviously you're usually in the booth by yourself with the director reading in lines or having played the lines to you that were previously recorded and you're in front of a microphone in front of a screen. You haven't learned the lines whereas in performance capture you'll have to be off book, you have to know your lines so there are two very different ways of capturing content I'd say and there's no one that I prefer. I like the flexibility of voice acting and having the possibility to play around on one single line and just play around with it and do it until it works whereas you don't really have that in performance capture.

You will have had rehearsed it and then that's how you have to do it because you know everybody is on the clock and so yeah I don't know if there's one that I prefer. There's definitely a big difference between them but I love either of them and then I forgot the second part of your question. Oh, were you given any sort of like look at your character? I actually was, yeah which is actually quite unusual .

They had already animated the moment where Aymeric and Aurore arrive at Hansen's and they're in the elevator and walking down towards Hansen. Well the lounge area where they end up sitting with Hansen. So I got to see all of that bit with like placeholder audio which was really useful because I well first of all I got to see what she looks like. How she carries herself and also often times you're not told if your character is currently sitting or walking or running and that informs the way that you deliver a line right.

Like if you're walking down a corridor and there's someone in front of you and you're talking to them then you're going to project a little bit more and you're going to have a little bit of movement in your body while you're talking whereas if you're sitting on a sofa leaning back you're going to sound very different to that. So it was really useful to see the movement in that scene so I actually knew where to pitch and how to where the energy in that in that moment had to had to happen that's actually really interesting.


Initial reaction to seeing Aurore?

Leonie: I was like oh my god she looks so cool and I was really excited that she's got short hair cause represent!

A common question I like to ask about this game in particular, is what are your thoughts on the genre of Cyberpunk in general?

Leonie: I think it's really cool. I'm a bit of a geek and I'm a big kind of science fiction fan. I've always really enjoyed that type of story and I mean especially you know kind of the big shift that we are currently finding ourselves in with this massive rise of AI. Is kind of you know, we're starting to ask ourselves some questions of where we're going as a society and humans and technology and you know looking at something like Cyberpunk.

It's like oh okay, well it not might not be that far away and I love kind of the dystopian and dark nature of it. I think it's a really cool universe and a really cool world and I'm not a gamer per say so I haven't actually played the game.

I've watched playthroughs and I've you know, I've seen lots of footage of it but I haven't actually actively played it myself although I am very tempted to get a PS5 and actually get on it but just from what I've heard as well is that the visuals are just so beautiful and so well created and the world building of it is just. Yeah, second to none so that's a really exciting world to be part of.

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

Leonie: This little indie game that's coming out this year. I'm really excited about because it's a game that's made by one woman her name is Roman Alkan and she is a one woman show. Her studio is called Larky Labs and she's doing everything herself. She's written the game; she's designing it, she's programming it.

So that I think is an incredible achievement and she's managed to get some funding from The Games Fund London and so she was able to hire a voice director and a casting director and you know professional voice actor. So the level of voice acting in the game is really high and yeah it's it’s called Glen Pursuit. It's going to be on Steam so I'm really excited about that one.

The demo, a playable demo is actually out already which is really fun. It's about ten or fifteen minutes long so I'd implore everybody to go and check that out because it's really cute and actually I remembered that you asked me to give you a little taste of Aurore and I forgot to do that earlier. So I'm happy to do a little bit of that now if you'd like me to so I guess the classic phrase would be “Aurore Cassel, who the fuck is asking?” Which is one of the sentences that I see a lot on the socials and that people enjoyed but yeah this is what sounds like and she's quite fun.

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