Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy Nikki Gold Interview

November 22, 2021 at 7:15pm
By Jason Stettner

Interview with Romane Denis, Actor for (Nikki Gold) in Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy

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?

Romane: Alright, well my name is Romane Denis. I'm an actress and I’m based in Montreal. I had never done a game before, I’ve done television and movies and stuff like that but never a game so this was really nice. It was an adventure and I play Nikki, cadet Nicolette Gold and she is a part of the Nova Corps.

So she meets the Guardians because they arrive on her mom's ship and she tries to take charge to show that, she's very young she's twelve I think in the story. She wants to show that she's ready to take on more responsibilities and she's had to grow up very fast because she's the only kid on the ship.

Could you tell us a bit about how your performance was conducted for Nikki? Was it largely focused on voice over work, did you have interactions with the rest of the Guardians team?

Romane: Yeah I did have interactions which was great because I think it was important that I act with them. It was great to have interaction especially with Peter Quill because I think the chemistry was really important in this game and I think it shows. But yeah there were, it was really divided, we did motion capture and then we did voice acting separately and sometimes together and sometimes it was really interesting because I’d never done this before and so it was another way to perform.

So it was really great and also of course the motion capture you have so much freedom because you're not on a set or you don't have, nothing's tangible so you can basically do whatever you want. I think in this great sense of freedom and you can do whatever the hell you want. I think it was really important to have something very tangible which is the Guardians and the interactions, and the banter also because sometimes it's very quick and it's very fun.

I think it wouldn't have worked had we done it separately so yeah I was really happy to have interactions. I had interactions with all the Guardians but more with Peter because of course we have more scenes together and then of course my mother, actually I didn't see a lot of her but my first day was with her and I think it was great to have that sense of okay, I get where she's coming from with that kind of mother who's very.

I don't know, I mean it's her daughter and so she wants to be kind and understanding but at the same time Nikki is part of the cadets and so she has to show authority. I know it was it was a fine line and Nikki also is very, she likes to test people and she doesn't really like authority especially when she doesn't really understand why the rules are there or why they apply to her because she's a very determined young girl. Very brave. That’s what I really loved about her character, she's very brave, very intelligent and very eager to prove that she can do it all.

So when you're there, you know kind of physically acting around do you find it hard to figure out where exactly you would be in the game sense? Did they give you any sort of direction to the visual world that you're in?

Romane: They tried to give us, as best as they could a sense of you know sometimes right before doing a scene we would look at the sketches of what the ship looks like and kind of if it's very narrow or if it's very wide and they give you a sense of what it looks like or what it will look like eventually because of course it's a very long process and sometimes you're acting and the images aren't ready.

So sometimes you would come back and do it again because it didn't really work when put in the design of the ship for example, or another location. I think it was done really well and you know the costumes as well it was really important to have a sense of what your character is wearing because of course you have the motion capture helmet and the thing but you have to think I’m wearing a uniform right now and so I don't walk the same as if I’m for example wearing a dress or wearing like a crown or something there's a sort of a weight on your head.

I don't want to give too much away, yeah it was, I think it was done very well and we had one of the authors as well who was there with us not all the time but sometimes for key moments. She was there and she was directing and like don't forget you're coming from there and you're going there and oh yeah that's right we're here in the story.

Because we do the scenes, we don't do them in order at all and so sometimes it's easy to forget, okay I just came from this battle so I can't be like who you know I have to play as if she's tired and she's been through a lot and sometimes you forget and of course they don't want to show you too much. Even if you're part of the project there are things that you can't really see or that they're not ready or whatever but no I think overall it was really well done and you had a really good sense of what we were working towards.

When preparing to voice Nikki, were you given any initial direction in regards to the character? Just in terms of any examples of prep work to get into the mind set of this particular performance?

Romane: It's a really funny story how I got the role actually because I went to audition for a project called project nine that was, I had no idea it was Guardians of the Galaxy. I didn't know it was a game, I didn't know anything it was just this, I had two scenes. One in which she was this normal twelve year old girl and the other one where she was, you had the feeling that she was a little bit, she wasn't herself and she was kind of not possessed but it was kind of the idea and so I thought it was really interesting.

I walked in having no idea what I was doing and tried something and then a year later they called me back. I had completely forgotten about it a year later they called me back and they were like oh yeah so when are you free to shoot. I was like for what, well for this role that you got in project nine. I had no idea that I had gotten it. I think that the most important part for me was to remember that I was twelve. So because it two years, yeah and so 21-22 years old, so I had to forget. I had to remember and yeah I had to remember that I was twelve.

So I cut ten years out of my voice and so it was just, I don't know it was to keep it light and keep it very, we didn't want her to sound like a kid because she is a kid but she's trying to sound like you know, like the beginning of an adult. She wants to show that she's responsible and that she knows what she's doing. So it was the direction, was really to remind me not to because the Guardians are very apart maybe aside from Peter, but they're very serious and they're very you know.

They have these voices and they're very strong characters and so they have these really strong voices. Even Gamora, she has this great voice with a commanding voice and for Nikki it was commanding but it was like a kid commanding so it was just. Yeah, I think that it wasn't really hard, it was easy but just walking every morning, walking on to set, just okay you're twelve and we're back but it was, I think one of the great strengths of this game is that the dialogues are really great and it was easy to act them out.

Really easy, it was just natural banter and things that you would say or that you know events that could take place except it's in space. You know but the dialogues themselves were really great and it was it was just easy so there wasn't that much direction like acting direction.

“Continued Conversation from a cut”: Yeah, the games very quippy. Yeah, it’s very funny actually, I think it was one of the funnier games I’ve actually played.

Romane: That's what I liked about it, I thought it was really funny because of course I didn't get the scripts until the really very last minute because they don't want it to leak and then I read it. I was just like this isn't, I haven't seen anything like this because usually it's very. Well, I'm not a gamer personally but from what I’ve seen usually it's very, I don't know, very serious and very game on and you know but I thought that it was really nice to have these moments of yeah they're human.

Just like you and me and sometimes they say things that are completely ridiculous and then other people look at them and like, did you really just say that we're in a very serious situation right now. So that's what I really liked about, especially with my character it was a lot of banter with Peter especially and how she talks back to her mom sometimes, you know who's this very powerful woman warrior and she's done all these great things and then the one person she can't control is her daughter and so I thought it was really funny it's very, very humorous that like, I got quite a few laughs out of it

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

Romane: It's weird in a sense, I don't know, the first time I saw the character and what she looked like. Because it is you, you look at the character and it is you and then it is you, like it's my eyes it's, not really my nose but it's my face movements and it's me but at the same time it is not me and it's very troubling.

I would say, but it's a lot of fun because you listen to her and you watch her closely and so that's what it looks like when all, because of course I had the image of us with like the dots on our faces and with the helmets and the whole thing we looked ridiculous and then, but trying to you know sound very serious and very in the moment.

But when you see it all done it's so impressive. I was fascinated because I don't know, it became very real when I saw it and it's fun. Yeah it's weird to see an animation of yourself because usually you see you know what you see is what you get and no I was blue from head to toe. But no it was, yeah it was weird but it was more than that it was really just fascinating the process was great

Do you see yourself being interested in additional game related performances in the future?

Romane: Yes! I loved it, I really did love it, yeah I think, it's from an actor's perspective it's a lot of fun because you're not like a prisoner of a set or of a costume or you can do whatever you want and there's this great freedom of movement and of yeah you're not, what's the word, constrained. You’re free to do whatever you want and that was great.

It felt very liberating to be able to act and just have fun with it and you want to hold a staff or you want to do whatever. You want to grab the air, we'll put it there you can do whatever you want and I don't know it was really fascinating to work in a completely different way. You do the same thing, you act and you become a character but in this completely different way and I really loved it and I would be very interested and curious to see what else I can do.

What are some other performances that viewers might know you from?

Romane: I did a horror movie called Slaxx which was great, which is about a pair of killer pants so that's great and it was in English. It was for English speakers maybe there or in French I did a lot of stuff. I did, which was great, got to wear a corset, couldn't breathe. That was great and then I did Charlotte a Du Fun which in English was Slut in a Good Way which was great. It's a really good movie, it sounds very but it's a really good movie.

I loved doing that, on television I did my Salinger Year. I had a role in that which was great a lot of fun and then a lot of French TV so if you're not from Quebec you probably don't know it, but it's really good and so if you want to learn French i encourage you to watch these shows because they're great. Yeah but I think the thing that I’m most grateful for is that I got to, I get to do a lot of different things. I was on stage and I was on television.

I did drama or comedy or and now a game and it's great to discover all these different ways of doing a job that's very, you know. It's always the same thing you play a character and you learn your lines but in a very different environment and with very different people who come from all these different places and who bring very different things and baggage and emotions and I don't know it's great, and then you have, you know on stage which is a whole different thing because it's you have one shot of doing it right, but yeah a lot of different things.

To switch to more of a spoiler type situation, fair warning for those viewing. Nikki has a very dynamic sort of focus in the game, really being a core part of what this story is based around. Did you have any challenges going from more of a curious kid to one that was suffering from severe grief?

Romane: I think it's something that everybody can kind of relate to because everybody has at some point in their lives lost someone or even if it's just, you know if you haven't lost anyone maybe you've lost a cherished pet you know like a dog whom you've loved for like 10-15 years. So it's a very, I don't know, I don't think it was difficult it was just very natural and it was yeah, it was natural and it was really cool. It sounds weird, it was really cool to show that kids have as deep, they have really deep emotions just like adults. It's not because they're kids that they don't feel as much, they feel just as much sometimes.

The difference is they don't know how to express it, they don't know how to communicate their emotions as well or they don't know what to do with them. They have no idea and sometimes people tend to you know, oh you're just a kid you have no idea. Oh you're sad. you'll see it she's young she'll recover. No, that's how you create trauma when you leave a child alone with really difficult emotions and so I think it was it was a great opportunity to show a young girl who's working with really difficult emotions and who is strong enough to realize that she's caught in this lie and because when you're a naive child and you're put on this pedestal.

So it's hard sometimes to recognize the lie and to recognize that you are being manipulated and to do something about it because it's one thing to recognize it, but it's another thing to get out of this situation and I think that shows just how strong she is even though she's young and sometimes you know there are people who are like, oh she's a girl. Well yeah she's a girl, she's a strong girl and girls are strong. Yeah, really proud to be able to show that and I think it came out well. I was really happy.

You become quite a powerful being while dealing with the grief, was it enjoyable to have that shift into what was essentially a cult leader and icon?

Romane: That was so much fun, so much fun! Because it's rare that you know, when you're a small lady like me, we don't often get to play these very tough characters who are very, and she wasn't the muscle of the whole thing. She's kind of the voice and so I think that the challenge here was to switch the voice to understand it's her it's Nikki, but when she's speaking it's so not her and that had to be very clear. So she wasn't speaking in the same manner, it wasn't light anymore it wasn't like a kid going, you know I have this idea and I’m doing this it was very much more calm and like an adult in the body of a girl and that's what we wanted it to be.

Weird when she's talking and it's clearly not her and then sometimes you kind of see a glimpse of her and then whoop she's gone and so that was the challenge. To kind of navigate that, but it was great. I really loved it, I loved playing this kind of, because I had the freedom to use another voice, kind of a deeper voice, a very grown-up voice. Yeah it was great and it's always great to play someone who has a lot of power because I don't know you get a sense of, you have people bowing in front of you and it was just, it was fun.

It was for me, it was fun, but sorry it was a lot of fun and also the interactions with The Grand Unifier, it was really great because they speak in this very, I don't know kind of royal voices, are very regal and that was a lot of fun to do because usually in today we don't do a lot of, you're supposed to sound very natural and very we want it to be believable. We had the freedom to be extra and over the top and very intense in what we were doing so that was really great.

The ending of the game leaves you with the Guardians, assuming there’s a follow-up would you be interested in joining it and do you see Nikki becoming a regular member of the team?

Romane: I would love to do it, I don't know if they're gonna do it, I have no idea but I think she could be a great addition because she's young and she has this way of seeing things that is fresh and new and I think she has this great relationship with Peter. I think that would be great to explore, actually because and it would be another woman and the Guardians, that would be great.

I think it would be. I would love to have more interactions with the other Guardians because I think it would be really funny because of course we explored with Peter but with Gamora or with the Drax or with Groot, even Rocket. I think there's so much that could be done with Nikki, I think it would be great.

It would be really fun and funny as well because I think you know with Rocket she would do all these kind of crazy inventions and then with Groot it would be more, you know this kind of soft side and with Gamora that's very badass, and very intense and then with Drax it's just awkward and so yeah I think I think it would be great it would be. Yeah it would be interesting to see how these different characters would interact with Nikki, with this young girl who's very badass as well, you know her age doesn't define her and that's what i love about her.


To build on that, would you personally like to see it continue right after those events or feature a time skip, in regards to how that may impact your character?

Romane: I don't know, I think both would be very interesting. I think directly after to kind of have this new dynamic and how it works because of course they've been this group and then another way it would be really interesting to see how she would fit in and how the group would adapt to her. But a time skip could be great as well because you could see, oh my god they've become this great group that works really well together and it's just, yeah it's easy and it's clear that it was meant to be. So I think both would be really interesting.

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.

Romane: Yes, I love the elevator scene. I thought it was great because she finally has like an ally on the ship and so I thought that was a great scene. I think a really great scene as well was the smashing of the cake and the whole, we do this on Earth and it's called grieving and you know but yeah, the whole I want to see my mom again, I want things to go back to normal and it's my fault and then when she realizes that to get better, she has to move on, she can't be stuck here. That was a really intense scene. I can remember it very well with John who played Peter.

It was a very emotional scene and I remember when they said cut we were kind of still in it because we were so yeah, I think we'd forgotten everything around us and it was so intense and when they said cut I remember there was this silence for a couple of seconds and then people were like okay that was great. That was okay, let's move on you know but everybody was kind of shaken because it's always very, it's emotional and it's sad to see this young girl who just wants to be happy. But she doesn't know how to move on from, how do you recover from losing your parent.

It seems impossible until it doesn't anymore and then you keep going and then day after day you realize you're better and that you know life is not going to wait for you and there are other things that need to be done. Like saving the universe and in order to do them and to be, to become better and healthier you have to move on and you have to leave certain things behind you and as hard as it is and as impossible as it may seem you have to do it and you won't regret it because it's the only way to be happy again. So yeah that was, that was a really strong moment which I loved doing. Very well done that particular moment really just ties, because it's near the end of the game, it just really ties things beautifully together.

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

Romane: You were very thorough, I just hope, well you're kind of reassuring me there but I just really am hoping that it would be as real and as heartfelt as it was while doing it and I was really hoping that all the relationships would be believable and real. That the emotion would be raw even though it is a game so it's not the real people that you see, it's images and it's made with a computer, but I was really hoping that we would get the rawness of real people and real emotions and real human despair and grief and happiness and whatever the emotion is.

I was really hoping that it would come across as very real and I’m really happy to say that I think it was done really well. So I’m really proud. Well a Canadian author, I don't know if you know Gabriela, she was born in Manitoba and her family was from Quebec but they had moved to Manitoba and there's a French community in Manitoba and so she was from there and she became this great Canadian author and I’ll be playing her in a new series which is coming in I think December. Like this December, so very quick and yeah it's really exciting. It's this great woman who we get to see her childhood and how she became this great woman so I think that'll be really great.

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