Millions of players around the globe might not know Troy Baker’s face however would acknowledge his voice — maybe because the heartbroken father Joel in “The Last of Us” or an intrepid Indiana Jones in “The Great Circle”.
That human connection is why the 50-year-old actor is “not afraid of anything replacing artists” at the same time as artistic industries are beset by fears of synthetic intelligence taking up.
Baker spoke to AFP quickly after of the discharge of a brand new title, “Screamer”, the newest in a string of 430 video games and animations to which he has lent his vocal cords moderately than his bearded face and piercing blue eyes, in response to IMDb.
Although AI can simply ape an actor’s voice,”we’re talking about art,” Baker stated. “We make art. Art is inherently, intrinsically a human expression, and only humans can make it.”
In “Screamer”, a automobile racing title launched final month for PC and consoles, Baker performs the position of Mister A., the organizer of a event whose high-octane clashes are interspersed with animated sequences.
“History has shown us that technology creates more opportunities than it replaces,” Baker stated.
Nevertheless, “anytime, in any art form, people are fearful of their jobs,” he acknowledged. “I understand it.”
Baker himself got here in for on-line criticism in early 2022 for associating with an organization specializing in NFTs (“non-fungible tokens”, or tradeable digital objects) earlier than rapidly backing out.
Baker fell nearly by chance into voice work within the early 2000s as he was making an attempt to get a rock band off the bottom.
But it was in 2013 that he broke via with the position of Joel in “The Last Of Us”, the action-adventure sport that tells the story of a person and a younger woman traversing a post-apocalyptic America.
Baker’s motions have been additionally captured in his efficiency because the gruff and bereaved father.
Popular the world over, the sport’s success spawned a 2020 sequel and an HBO sequence beginning in 2023, during which Baker appeared for a cameo position as a unique character.
“I love Joel. I miss him every day,” Baker stated, whereas including that he “cannot imagine any more of (his) story that’s left to tell” regardless of rumors of a 3rd sport usually circulating on-line.
Unlike the “multimillion-dollar sets” frequent within the film enterprise, in video games “there’s times when I’m given a microphone, a script and a Zoom call,” stated Baker, whose different main roles embrace the brother of the protagonist Nathan Drake in “Uncharted 4” (2016) and the antagonist of two “Death Stranding” video games (2019 and 2025).
Baker struck simply the precise tone in 2024’s “Indiana Jones and the Great Circle,” during which he performed Harrison Ford’s movie hero in his prime.
He recalled how at first, he “prepared in a completely wrong way” by making an attempt to repeat one-for-one the film star’s voice and actions.
“That’s the least Indiana Jones thing I could do,” he later realized, saying he “had to let go” of Ford and do issues his personal means.
The Hollywood star himself congratulated Baker on his efficiency on the Game Awards in Los Angeles in 2024, one of many excessive factors of the online game calendar.
But throughout totally different initiatives, “I can’t have a single process,” Baker stated. “Every studio is different. Every game should be different.”
His strategy as of late is to “ask a lot of questions” — as in “Screamer”, the place “we spent a lot of time really dialing in each individual character”.
This yr Baker is showing within the movie “Iron Lung”, a sci-fi thriller directed by the YouTube star Mark Fischbach, who goes by the moniker Marliplier.
Nevertheless, “I’ve never looked at video games as a stepping stone. This is where I love to be,” he stated.
© 2026 AFP