#christopher tester

[cawyden-gaming]

Rogue Trader - Heinrix voiced lines for mobile phone etc.

I have asked Christopher Tester on cameo to read some lines to be used as alerts and ring tone on mobile phones (or other devices). The video (if you like to watch him) is here.

In case this is interesting for you:

He was already so kind to provide the single files as mp3 and I converted them for iPhones to mr4.

Both formats are available here.

Here are the texts:

Ringtone

Lord Captain, we don't have much time - there is an incoming vox call for you. I assure you, this is not a corrupted vox cast. According to preliminary data, it seems to be important and the Inquisition requires your cooperation in accessing this information. Allow me to remind you that you are under orders from the Lord Inquisitor to provide support in deeds great and small that serve to safeguard our interest – well, this is it. Are you really sure you can allow yourself to not accept this call? By the throne, can you please respond to the vox call? What will it take for you to finally act? This ends now, Rogue Trader.

New voicemail

Rogue Trader, I have discovered a vox recording that might be of shared interest for us both.

New SMS

Lord Captain, I happened to be present when the astropaths received a new message. I have already decrypt it for you, no thanks required.

New Email

Lord Captain, I was asked to deliver this letter to you. I would ask you to read it as soon as you find the time.

Calender event/reminder

Lord Captain, something very important is about to happen. Steel yourself and be prepared. Trust me - you do not want to miss it.

[noelle666]

I'm just gonna post it here because sometimes you need good voice acting. And cats. :)

[noelle666]

I was about to go to sleep but saw this post and immediately thought "Sorry, slumber, but fuck off, I need to listen to this man's voice!" =D

@redbatchedcumbermayned huge huge thank you! And huge thanks to Christopher. Can't wait for the other parts of the interview.

It all started under a duvet held up by an oar

Not so long ago I emailed Chris Tester, the voice of Heinrix van Calox in Owlcat’s recently released CRPG Rogue Trader, and asked if he would like to sit for an interview with me. Having some experience in interviewing people I like, most famously Oscar winner and all-around sweetheart Eddie Redmayne, this was not a completely nerve-wracking endeavour. And within a day of sending my email, Chris said yes. And what a pleasure it was interviewing him: Chris was so generous with his time, that the agreed upon 30 minutes turned into 50 minutes as we brushed upon many topics from his start as a theatre actor to his first voice-over role in a video game to his recently discovered hobby of playing D&D. Of course, we also spoke about all things Warhammer 40k, his new found fame brought on by voicing Heinrix and the insights he could share about the character.

I will publish this interview in three parts over the next week in text form and with the accompanying audio file (the audio quality is not spectacular but tumblr limits uploads to 10MB). If you quote or reshare, please quote me as the original source.

Fran: Thank you very much for taking your time.

Chris Tester: That's no problem. No problem at all.

F: So then let's start. You graduated in 2008.

CT: I did. Yes.

F: You started out as a stage actor. Did you always want to become a stage actor or an actor in general? Tell us a bit about your career.

CT: I always wanted to be a stage actor. Yes, as soon as I knew that I wanted to be an actor, which probably wasn't until I was a teenager. But yeah, my first passion was always the stage, and that was kind of borne out in my career. I would have been open to TV and film of course, if it had come along, I'm a huge fan of TV and film as well, but I never got an audition for any TV or film work.

I think I literally did about three short films in my 10, 12 years of actually professionally acting, and it is one of those industries where the more you do of one thing, the more you seem to find yourself doing the same thing to a degree. So yes, watching Shakespeare from an early age was one of my first passions.

And that was what first planted the seed of wanting to do it myself. The whole aspect of live performance is still something that I'm very passionate about. Up until 2020, when the world changed, I was trying to do two or three theatre shows a year, but since 2020, I haven't been near a stage and I doubt right now, especially with the way that the UK theatre scene is going, that I'm going to be back on stage anytime soon. I am resigned to that, but at some point in my career, I know I will be on stage again, because I can't live without it, but only for the right thing, both financially, but more importantly, creatively.

F: Your production company is currently on hiatus?

CT: I was the producer of a theatre company, which was run and was the baby of the director of the company, a guy called Ross Armstrong, who's one of the most talented writers and directors that I've ever worked with. I was helping out with a lot of the administration stuff so that he could still put me in plays. Instead of creating my own work because I'm not a very good writer or the best writer in the world, I support those people who will write me good parts. So yes, it is currently on hiatus, but never say never, we would always be looking to get back. It's difficult right now. It's difficult for all of us, because arts council subsidy, that way of being able to fund stuff, is drying up. We were doing a national tour of the UK when we were doing that [with the support of a subsidy]. There's even less money, there's even more people. I won't bore you with anything more than that, but it's kind of tough. We'd like to come back, but in the right way, and that's tricky to negotiate.

F: It's always hard as a stage actor to earn a living.

CT: Well, I've been spoiled by voice-over as well, and whereas when I was in my 20s and 30s then you're all about your art. And of course, I'm still all about my art, but I'm also about my wife and my cat and the mortgage and the bills and wanting to have nicer things to a degree as well. I've come to terms with that and voice-over does facilitate that as well as it opens you up to different roles and working with different people. So, I can't complain.

F: It's quite similar with making a living as a writer, because with a steady income you get used to a certain standard of living and once you have obligations and bills to pay, I think the stress on your mental health being creative and having all the stresses of regular life thrust upon you brings with it a challenge.

CT: It's a cliche we can very easily fall into: if I'm suffering, then it means I'm an artist. And that's not necessarily very true. It very often means that the art that we create only reflects one aspect of our lives, and it's usually a very tortured one. I am also about having wider experiences and broadening myself out. Whereas I think when I was in my twenties, I was thinking a bit more like: Oh, I'll experience the world and life through my art and just purely through my art. Whereas now necessarily I need to have a life outside of it as well, and then I can justify like I have the life so that I can feed my art or not, whatever. You know, I'll be a better artist by having a bit of a life outside of it. Maybe.

F: But that's what your twenties are for.

CT: Yeah, indeed.

F: Doing the crazy stuff, doing the band stuff 

CT: Yeah, yeah, exactly. So, there was certainly an aspect of that in my twenties.

F: So, what brought you to voice acting or voice-over work initially?

CT: Money. Video game stuff is kind of sexy and cool, and I'm a gamer, so that's important. Before I was a video gamer, I was a board gamer and off the back of that, I was a voracious video gamer, partly because I wasn't very good at team sports at school. I was always the person who was picked last in the football team. So that becomes part of your identity for better or worse. But video games, I was pretty good at, not amazing, but I was pretty good at, and I enjoyed it. And it gave me a different form of escapism as well, and off the back of that I always had an interest in them. 

So, the very first voiceover job was a video game: Dark Souls, which is quite a big franchise. At that time, I was your very typically jobbing actor. My acting agent came in and said: I got something for you. And so, I went in with that. But it was only in 2016, 2017 that I realised it was something that you could actually do yourself. People had recording studios at home and they were contacting people directly, not just going through agents. Because I'd basically written to the same 20 voice agents in the UK, mainly in London for like eight years in a row and not received anything. So, you keep knocking on those doors hoping. 

Before I'd even graduated from drama school, I'd burnt a CD and made these cases with my headshot on it and sent them all off at what at the time felt like great personal expense and didn't get anything for eight years in a row.  So, I was a bit like, I'm obviously doing something wrong, but I don't really know what, because I'm doing these workshops and getting good feedback. Then I found out through a couple of online courses, that there were ways and means of doing it myself, and that was a bit of a game changer for me, and within six months of having started, I was earning more through voice work than the bar job and the box office job that I was doing combined. Within six months, I was kind of like: “I gotta quit because I'm actually holding myself back from things.” So that was quite a big shift.

F: Somewhere you said, you started out under a duvet and with an oar.

CT: Yeah. On my website, I do have an image of it. [Dear reader, I could not locate this elusive photo] I literally had to take the duvet off my bed and put it into the living room, which was the quietest space in my then shared flat. I also had to wait until after one flat mate had watched TV and another one had used the table that had their washing on it. One of my flat mates had stolen an oar from some night out and that was perfect in order to be able to erect it over my head and the duvet as a frame. 

I did probably the first four or five months of voice recording like that. Probably about 10, 15 voiceover jobs that I actually got paid for, I was using that because it worked well enough. Since then, I've gone through various different iterations of a setup in the bedroom, to a setup in the hallway, to my current setup. In 2020 we moved to our first house, and this is the spare bedroom which I've had converted into a studio, which means my cat can be here asleep on me or near me getting fur everywhere, but it's fine. I can thrash around and I've got natural light to work in at the same time, which I find quite important. [Pictured below Chris' current setup.]

F: Very pretty. That's good. Guide us through a typical day of yours, if you like.

CT: Oh, sure. I mean, there is no typical day. And yet, and yet, and yet. A typical day for me is, because I am spending the vast majority of the day sitting in this room or somewhere close to this room, because I may need to record at short notice, because the vast majority of jobs are quite short notice. My priority is exercise for mental health more than anything. I've got some weights at the bottom of the garden, and I will get up first thing, and I will go there and I will do that after breakfast. And that's my minimal routine of physical activity done. 

And then I'll come back, and this is so rock and roll. Now what I do is, I spend like an hour on LinkedIn. And that's what you dreamed of as a creative person. Isn't it as an actor? I spend time on LinkedIn regularly every day, because it's a really good networking place for a lot of my types of work, and first thing in the morning, I'm a bit mentally sharper. So that's when I come up with a quick post that may be inspired by a bit of content that I've made elsewhere. That probably takes about 20 minutes and then I spend another 45 minutes to an hour engaging with people and saying hi and introducing myself and asking questions, whether that's with video producers or game developers or documentary makers or pretty much anything and everything. There are a lot of people who are active at that time. And so I do it.

And then after that, if I already have some recording lined up, then I'll prioritise mid-morning, because I've warmed up physically a bit more then, and I'm focused. So, you're going through the scripts, annotating the scripts, recording the scripts, editing the scripts. But then there could be live sessions at any time within that as well. I try to keep hours from nine till six. But occasionally, like with Rogue Trader, that was recorded at various different times of the day because we had people in New York, we had people in mainland Europe, and we had people in the UK. So all different time zones, so that can happen at any time. 

And then I try to do other kinds of bits and pieces of marketing whenever I've got free time to. I do use really exciting productivity hacks, like time blocking. Again, not something that as a creative individual, I was like: Oh God, this gets me so excited, because it doesn't, but it works. It's finding a system that works for you, but still has a certain kind of flexibility and fluidity. I'm trying to make sure that I get outside of the house, and that kind of stuff. 

Recently, over the last year, I’ve started doing audiobooks as well. That long form type of thing is quite nice to be able to dip into because sometimes you don't record for two, three days. You don't get the work. Nothing’s coming in. So, you’re marketing, but it kind of connects you back to the performance side of things to go: I can do a few chapters and you know, that kind of thing. So that's probably it. I try to formalise it, but you know, every voice actor’s day is radically different. There are people, some of the biggest names, going into different studios every week or every day. I very rarely, despite being based in London, I very rarely go into external studios. Like I would say 99 percent of the work I just do from home.

F: So how do you find the right voice for the specific type of voiceover work you do, maybe start with how did you find Heinrix's voice?

CT: Thankfully, Owlcat sent through quite a detailed casting breakdown. So, you get a picture, and that's pretty crucial, as well as a short bio, in terms of the background of the character, but not too much, because you have to sign an NDA, a non-disclosure agreement. But even if you do sign an NDA, I think developers are always slightly hesitant of giving you too much info about the game because things could still be changed. But I think I did get a picture of Heinrix, if not in the first audition, then certainly on the second one. From that you immediately think about the physicality and what might affect the voice, and there was also some direction in terms of what they were looking for. Anybody who has heard the character and me, they do not sound radically dissimilar. There's not a transformative process that I needed to go through, other than his sense of authority and the space that he takes up and the sureness that he has in that he has a kind of divine right from the emperor, so that level of confidence being brought through.

The other part of the audition was about the void ship [the Black Ship] that he'd been raised in and the horrors that he'd seen. And you as the actor have to do the detective work to go like this is showing another side, the more vulnerable side, the side that underpins all of his life choices up to this point. It's essentially playing the opposite to a degree. So it was kind of knowing when to let those elements bleed through a little bit. I think I had probably about a page worth of scripts, quite a lot of script actually to audition with. 

But I don't like to listen back to it a lot, because I think you get into your head. My biggest thing is stage work where it's ephemeral. You say it once and it could be different the next night. The whole point is that there's no one definitive way of doing things. Not quite the same with voice acting, where it's being recorded and you've got to get used to hearing it back. But I try not to overthink it. Just like record it two or three times with different impulses and then review and go like, those two seem pretty contrasting. I'll send those along and hope and then never hear anything back unless I do.

[my-forgotten-notepad]

Some Warhammer40K speeches as performed by Christopher Tester.

Such as Lorgar's speech to Magnus from The First Heretic by Aaron Dembski-Bowden

[sketchblognko]

a moment of peace

I've been listening a wh audiobook, narrated by Christopher Tester, and now I have a new headcanon

[heauxplesslydevoted]

Recipe For Love

“How does it taste?” Buck doesn’t need to be told twice, instantly digging his fork into the food. The noise Buck makes when he takes the first bite is obscene and Eddie nearly chokes on his own tongue at the sound of it. “Is it safe to say you think it’s good?” Eddie asks. “Good is underselling it by a mile. Holy shit, Eddie, you can cook. You make me and Bobby proud.” Eddie rolls his eyes, but the praise still warms him from the inside out, starting in his chest and radiating to his other extremities. “Really? You think so?” “Yes. Seriously, if you’re ever in the mood to cook something else, please allow me to be your taste tester.” “Okay.” Eddie breathes out evenly. For the first time in a few weeks, he feels…calm. There’s no jitters, no restlessness, no prickle at the base of his neck, signaling an upcoming panic attack. Maybe he can invest a little more time and energy into this cooking thing. “Sounds like a plan.”

-

OR: With Christopher in El Paso, Eddie finds himself with too much idle time and the desire to channel it into something productive.

He cooks. Buck is supportive. They fall in love.

Read on AO3

[groggydog]

THE FAMILIAR - Out now!

Hello everyone! My pixel-art-heavy and beginner-friendly parser entry for Spring Thing 2023 has officially been released into the wild. Learn more about it below, or click to play:

PLAY THE GAME!

You are a witch's crow familiar, headstrong as anything but still young and untested.

What starts as a normal day soon takes a harrowing turn when your pacific caretaker, Valmai, is struck down by a terrible hex of mysterious origin. Now it's up to you, little bird, to cure your caretaker and discover the hex's source.

Are you up for the task?

Beginner-friendly parser commands peppered with choice-based elements

Limited vocabulary: you'll only need LOOK, TAKE/GET, DROP, PECK, and CAW

Free to play; formatted for browser, tablet, and mobile

More than 30 unique, hand-crafted pixel art scenes

Roughly 60-90 minutes of play time

Cute woodland animals

Accessibility features: optional tutorial, dynamic TASKS list, three varied fonts, dark/light mode, and toggle-able text indicator for 'press any key' commands

For both detailed step-by-step and spoiler-free walkthroughs of the game (and information on how to obtain the secret ending), click here.

Written by groggydog

Raven portrait pixel art from craftpix.net

All other pixel art by groggydog

Created in the Adventuron Engine

Many thanks to my alpha/beta testers:

Alpha: jbeebs305, manonamora

Beta: Christopher Merriner, Dee Cooke, Mike Russo, Travis Moy, ZAG On Em Clan

[indigo-scribbles]

Isha von Valancius for @redbatchedcumbermayned

She recently uploaded Cameo of, the one and only, Christopher Tester reading her "Heinrix letter to Isha" that she wrote. Come and check it out, and be at awe of both talents, writer and voice actor

[cawyden-gaming]

Christopher Tester (Heinrix VA) voice acting a part of my fanfiction Immortalium.

It is a scene that isn’t posted yet that follows the game event in act 4 where the Rogue Trader can disappear again on a companion quest (spoiler for the companion below and in the video).

While sadly not in the game, I think we can imagine the emotions Heinrix must be going through at this moment:

He is angry with himself, that he wasn't able to prevent this from happening, angry with whoever is responsible for the Rogue Trader to disappear

He is emotionally hurt and in great pain as he just lost the woman (again), that he fell in love with

The sheer helplessness that he can't do anything to help her come back

There are moments where he clinges on hope and where he tries to keep control over his emotions, to distance himself from the pain like he always does

He is remorseful over things he said and did that hurt her, and the missed opportunities to make it right (this is specific for my fanfic)

The voiced scene is Heinrix trying to write a letter to his beloved Rogue Trader, even if his words might never reach her. While writing, he voices his thoughts about the whole ordeal.

I hope you enjoy Christophers very emotional performance as much as I did:

The whole text (as I mentioned, this is while he is trying to write a letter):

“Dear… no.”

“Lord Captain...”

“I... I lost you.”

“And now we are dragged against our will along the unpredictable currents of the warp, unable to steer a path of our own, to break away into realspace once again, a plaything of volatile forces. But we shouldn't even be here, it wasn't planned and the usual protocols and rituals were not done. What were you and Lady Cassia doing in the sanctum? Why was no one else informed? What were you hiding? Would you have told me if things had been different between us?”

“No. No! Right on this ship, right under my nose ... what am I not seeing?”

“Gone. How many hours have I spent in front of this accursed painting, looking for a sign, a trace, wondering if something would drag me through it like it did with you? Granting me relief by uniting me with you or a slow death of agony in the horrors of the warp.”

“Nothing. Despite everything I tried, everything I did, all the investigations, interrogations...can you believe that I even asked Idira for help, to listen to the voices in the warp against my better knowledge and judgement, still leaving me with nothing that brings me closer to you, to help you return.”

“What good is the authority of my position, years of experience that refined my skills and abilities, all my collected knowledge, even my sorcery, if it can't help me protect or save the one who matters most to me?”

“Trap after trap after trap we went through - with open eyes. Even the one I knew was coming. Whatever happened now, took me by complete surprise. It shouldn't have.”

“I can't sleep and I am too tired to think clearly anymore. I am at a loss.”

“No. Focus, van Calox. I won't give up - there must be an explanation, a solution, a better way than just waiting for another miracle to happen. I have to do something, anything to bring you back. It can't end like this.”

“Every day can be the last … I learned this lesson far too well – why didn't I act like it? Letting valuable time run through my fingers as if we had eternity to spend. As if there was for sure a tomorrow to tell you what I need you to know, to make things right, to get another chance to hold you, to be with you.”

“I only ever wanted to protect you. I failed. Again. Trying to keep you safe but all I accomplished was to push you away and to hurt your feelings in the process. I was blinded by revenge against the Xenos, for all the pain and suffering they had inflicted upon us. By my concern and fear it could happen again. If I had done things differently maybe... but now it's too late.”

“Hope. How often is it used as a tool, perverted in a cruel attempt to increase the pain of suffering? I have seen it countless times. Did it myself. And yet, it is all I have left. I hope for your safe return. For another chance for both of us, one I would dare not waste again.”

“Commoragh. We returned, against all odds. Maybe we were just pawns in a game of gods. I like to believe the Emperor watched over us in this forsaken place. I hope he still watches over you and helps you return once more, wherever you are. Because I, apparently, can't.”

“Please come back to me.”

[mistresssheo]

The one from @cawyden-gaming inspired me to write this. It's not perfect and my English isn't good (probably terrible, but I think few people understand it in German, I don't know) 🙈

have fun!

It takes place after the event, when the RT returns after 20 days, after the thing with Cassia.

Heinrix storms into Livia's room. Cassia and Livia were finally back. Twenty days in which no one knew whether they would return and what had happened. He goes into the bedroom and sees Livia lying on her back in bed. "I want to know what happened!" demands Heinrix, sounding angry. "Cassia and I took a twenty-days vacation, what else," Livia jokes tiredly.

"Now is not the time for jokes, Livia!" Livia straightened up. "What do you want to hear, huh? I was trying to help Cassia, went in there and that picture swallowed me up," she replied, annoyed. "Why didn't you tell anyone that you wanted to help her? Why didn't you tell me?" asks Heinrix, walking over to the bed. Livia lets herself fall backwards. "Do you always tell me everything you do?" Heinrix is silent and stares at her. "No, and you know I can't do that either..." Livia interrupts him. "Yes, yes, because you're with the Inquisition... I wanted to help a friend and I did. I couldn't have known that something like this would happen, no one could have known. I'm sorry! But I would have helped anyone in my inner circle, including Idira or Yrliet," she says. She straightens up again. Heinrix is still staring at her. "Or are you not angry with me at all? Can that be? You're angry with yourself, aren't you?" Heinrix looks away. Silence falls. "I ... I thought I'd never see you again. Never have the chance to hold you in my arms or just be near you again," he says quietly and sits down on the bed. This surprises Livia more than she had expected. She sits down next to him and hugs him. "Don't think about it. I'm back." She hugs him tightly. After a moment, Livia laughs sheepishly. "Could it be that you've neglected yourself a little in the meantime?" she asks him carefully, taking a good look at him. He has dark circles under his eyes, stubble and looks exhausted. "I ..." before he could answer properly, Livia stood in front of him and held out her hand. "Come on, let's go for a swim, that's what I have this pool for, isn't it? You can relax there after all the grief I've caused you." Heinrix smiled a little. "Yes, that would be nice." He took her hand and stood up. Livia giggled mischievously. "And if you want, we can also make out and maybe do other naughty things." Before they left, he kissed Livia. "Please don't ever do that again." Livia returned his embrace. "I can't promise you that and you can't promise me that either. But what I do promise you is that I will never touch a picture of Cassia again, I promise! Once is enough, it was really scary there." They stood there like that for a while. He didn't want to let her go. Livia giggled. "Come on, let's go, we can continue over there."

[comradewisdom]

"But in his eyes, I can tell he knows that I am only really doing it for him. The greatest, most universal acts are always born from the personal."

Christopher Tester, Voice Actor

[noelle666]

Oh, the last part, I feel a little bit sad because I would listen to you guys talking and talking more. =)

Yay, Christopher likes Garrus! The best alien bro (and boyfriend).

Yeah, we had a little discussion about Heinrix's name pronounciation some time ago here, on Tumblr, and me, as a person who had some period of learning German, also agree that H[ai]nrix is the first thought which came to my mind. Only some after I was remembered that the dev team is russian-speaking, so we need to use original Russian pronounciation which is H[ei]nrix.

And yet again, huge huge thank you @redbatchedcumbermayned for your large work on this interview and huge huge thanks, love and respect to Christopher for agreeing to participate in this interview and for being such a sweet person in general!

I have recorded different versions of my name, and the last time I was told it was Haynrix and I was like, really? Haynrix? - Interviewing Chris Tester part 3

We contiune talking about the transformative power of fanworks, a bit more about romancing Heinrix, how Heinrix is pronounced actually, what a dream come through project would be for Chris and why a stage production of Crime and Punishment was his most memorable work to date and his newly discovered interest in playing D&D.

Part 1 of the interview

Part 2 of the interview

This is the final part of the interview. Thank you so much for reading and listening! (the audio quality is not spectacular but tumblr limits uploads to 10MB). If you quote or reshare, please quote me as the original source.

F: It's very transformative. You take a game and you get your own stories after the game or with the people you interact with. It's very creative. Because Heinrix is very much an archetype, as you said, he has this duality about this very authoritative man with so much trauma underneath. There is a lot to explore, and that speaks for Olga's writing as well, because only a very well written character would draw you in like that into a story.

CT: I mean, it's a crazy balancing act, definitely. And at any time, it could close off, you shut him down, or he shuts you down. And you're like, Oh, okay.

F: And it was incredibly funny that the first romance lines straddled the line between workplace harassment and flirting. And he is so unnerved and then it doesn't like to cordon you off and say, well, you were too aggressive. Game over. 

CT: Yeah.

You can switch to this closeness path like in a real relationship, you are maybe very flirty, very teasy at the beginning, and then things get real and you get real and it changes. And that was very dynamic. I never experienced that before. BioWare writes great romances, but they are often very one note in their games.

CT: And there's still the kind of like, okay, so are we sleeping together? Yeah. Or we do not. All right. No, okay, great, fine. God, I had to go through all the different fucking options just to go like, Is this, is that, no, no, okay, fine, right, yeah. So in terms of nuance and dynamic, it's you've got your issues over there, but regardless, can I just say the right thing? Uh, or not, you know, or be pure, or whatever. Garrus was always a favourite for me.

F: Oh yeah, Garrus, Garrus is great.

CT: Yeah, yeah. I'll be honest I didn't really appreciate quite how subtly all of the pieces are put together until I played through bits of the game and watched bits of the game afterwards [this relates to Rogue Trader]. Because there are so many different moving parts, but also so much is recorded out of order, it's very difficult to get a full appreciation of the whole, and it's the credit of the directors to just be able to give you enough for you to get it in two or three takes, because we gotta move on because time is money is time. 

And so that's kind of crazy, where you've got to just act in faith in the moment and trust that the people who are listening on the other end feel as if they're getting what they need. Obviously the more you record, the more you get a sense of what the character is about and the palette and the playfulness and all of those kinds of things. But because there are such a multitude of choices anyway, no one can explain to you exactly the context of what it is because that's all such a movable feast as it is anyway.

F: That's a huge credit to voice actors to still get it right in three or four takes.

CT: Well, the aim is to give them options so that they can trial it out and be able to have a playfulness about things. It's always nice when you go like, I'm just going to try this different take on how this might traditionally be read as or something, and then you maybe hear that in the game and go like: Oh, okay, that's a little bit of whatever. 

Because quite often you'll probably be told to read a line no more than three times, and the first time that you read a line, that you read it out loud is the first time that you read the line at all. So, you don't read it in advance, and sometimes that goes in. It's normally the second or third take, I would say, but that depends very much on the voice actor. Because quite often, the whole point is to be quite good at sight reading, and sometimes there's a spontaneity in the reading of something for the very first time, which might give something a little bit unexpected, or a little bit fresher. 

And then you realise halfway through, there's a word I have no idea how to pronounce. Is it von Valancius? Von Valancius as it's written or von Valen and you're just like, the hell? Okay. And then you need to go back.

F: Or his name actually, because as a German, we have Heinrich as a first name. So is it Haynrix? Is this Hainrix? But we can say it's Low Gothic, so it doesn't matter.

CT: I have recorded different versions of my name, and the last time I was told it was Haynrix and I was like, really? Haynrix? Okay. Sure? But I've not had a definitive conversation about that, so I don’t know whether or not they change it or, or whatever.

F: I settled on, it's Low Gothic and not the German version and it's fine because that's a fantasy language. It doesn't matter. And I know from other voice actors that sometimes you don't get any directions on how something is pronounced.

CT: Quite often we're just taking an educated guess. I mean, they're very good in terms of some pronunciations, but if no other character is saying this word except you, then there's probably not a guide for it in which case you just make sure that you record it somewhere. So, it's consistent. So, if you're saying it more than once, at least you're saying it wrong consistently. So that becomes the new, right?

F: What was your most memorable work to date? Stage or voice acting?

CT: Stage or voice acting or whatever? God, I would say one was a production of Crime and Punishment. There you go. It was a three-person adaptation of the massive book really condensed into about 90 minutes, essentially. Quite a radical adaptation, but it was a beautifully written adaptation, and I think I did it probably about 2017, 2018. That was wonderful storytelling because it had so much of the original flavour in it and also this ambiguity of character. A much more ambiguous character than someone like Heinrix. Someone who is so eminently fallible and flawed, and yet trying to find a through line through it and a making of sense and the justification for the reasons why people do bad things. That is pretty iconic for me as an experience. 

I do feel lucky that a lot of the things that I'm able to explore in the video game or in the voiceover world generally are completely new and unexpected things. Whereas on stage, unless you're doing a lot of new writing, the vast majority of the time, it's a role that you're familiar with or have seen or have heard about. It's pre-existing. Whereas with some of these video games, you get to create that whole original world or character and that kind of stuff. Which is why if anybody asks me, what role do you want to play? I'm like, the role that I don't know exists yet, and Heinrix is very much one of those. Like, I had no idea and neither did I have any idea that it would develop in the way that it did. 

But the whole process itself is a lot of fun and you work with very cool people to tell a completely new and original story. But having that ambiguity, having that tension within the character, every actor has to find that for themselves anyway, just to keep creatively engaged and alive, but have that so vividly running as an undercurrent and for it to be able to go in different ways, that's such a cool kind of thing. I'm just so up for more of those kinds of opportunities. Maybe hopefully in the future, we'll see.

F: Has voicing Heinrix opened any doors? Did you notice an uptake in offers?

CT: I think it means that a few more people probably know who I am, and that's cool. A few more people. Yeah, it's definitely been referred to. Other than that, I don't know. But it certainly doesn't hurt being involved in such a high profile and well respected, well-loved game. I mean, for me as well, because I've done various different aspects of stuff in that world. That doesn't hurt. 

I love the whole Warhammer 40k universe, at the same time I don't want to just be like, I'm a 40k actor and that's all I do because that world also probably doesn't need just another white middle-class man in it, even if that is like 70 percent of the world. Like you say, they're trying to broaden it out and diversify it and necessarily if it wants to get to a bigger audience and have a healthier ecology on so many different kinds of levels. So, I don't want to go all in on just that, even if it's a very rich world. So, it was a real pleasure. 

F: Would you want to broaden your repertoire into radio plays, because I know on your LinkedIn, you write, you're the voice when Cumberbatch is busy and listening to you, there are undertones of Benedict Cumberbatch in your voice, and Benedict before he became really popular, he did something like Cabin Pressure, which is so fun.

CT: Yeah.

F: Would you be open to doing radio plays like that?

CT: Definitely. I've just recently come from a voiceover conference in the UK and did a couple of workshops and that reminded me of what the work is that I want to actively seek out. And there's a lot of audio drama stuff floating about, a lot of that is available via social media or is operated in the U.S. as opposed to in the UK., though there are some great ones in the UK. as well, and it's tricky to know why and how to validate some of those things. So, it's something that I would love to explore doing more of as well as, you know, you can do these audio drama things, which are kind of like shorter versions of audio books, almost essentially with not so many voices. And I think those medium and short form ways of storytelling would be lovely. It would be great because I'm not right for a lot of video games. 

I don't think I'll ever be actually a very prolific video game actor if that makes sense because I'm okay at shouting and I can play some monsters and I've got a couple of accents in the bag and that kind of thing in terms of doing voices. People will say it's about the acting Chris, it's not about voices, but doing some voices and being able to nail certain things there are people that are brilliant at that. But there are people who have probably a wider palette of voices than I will ever have. 

I never started out as a voice actor. I'm very much an actor who uses the voice, and I'm trying to broaden that out a little bit more as I keep on going. But I want to open myself up to more different types of stuff to be creatively fulfilled. The prospect of going into a recording session and screaming ��grenade” and “bang” is not very fulfilling. I did that for a few games, and then I'm done with that. Like the money's not good enough for me to do that. I mean, never say never. If the money does become good enough, then we can talk. But you push your voice and it's a different kind of acting, I'll put it that way.

F: So, last question. What would be a dream come true project for you?

CT: A dream come true project? Probably something entirely original that I can't imagine. I would love to be able to work on an audio project where I'm working with other actors in real time. I would love to be able to work with most of the cast in Rogue Trader, for example, but I’d love it for us to be able to have dialogues where you're actually responding to each other as opposed to insert A, B or C here, that kind of thing. Because that's the one thing I kind of miss so much from the audio side of work is you getting something unexpected from the other person and then riffing off it. You have to self-generate as a voice actor that a director will go do you want to try it like this? Or maybe like this, it's supposed to be funny. Try it dead pan, that kind of thing.

But quite often that kind of spontaneous element of discovery only comes from when someone gives you a line in a way that you really didn't expect, and maybe it makes you laugh, when it's supposed to be tragic or whatever, those kinds of things. The biggest thing I miss about stage work is when you're working with an actor at the top of your game and they raise you up to their level. It's terrifying, but in the best way. Some actors can do that effortlessly because they're so in the moment, because they don't know what they're going to do next, even though they can find their light and make sure that the audience is still seeing their brilliant acting at the same time. Clever, clever bunnies. That feeling because they don't know exactly where they're going, you're kind alive to the moment in a way that quite often you're not, and if there was a way to be able to replicate that in an audio way and a long form storytelling way, then that would be cool. 

I've just started playing a little bit of D&D and I don't know if I'll ever get good at that, especially in terms of like, so I've got to come up with words. Oh my God. Whereas I will never watch a D&D playthrough for four hours on YouTube myself, personally, life choice, I can start to understand the appeal of that because there's an element of that spontaneity and playfulness, but in a group. So, if there was a way to do that with actually scripted drama, I'd be all in on that. That would be amazing. Or some kind of hybrid. So I don't know exactly what that is, but that kind of thing would be quite cool. 

F: That's what the BBC did with Cabin Pressure. I attended one live recording and it was just amazing. You have all the other actors [apart from Benedict Cumberbatch] that are household names. And to see them act and how little takes they actually need for the lines and everything is amazing.

CT: Yeah, there's an appreciation of the craft, but it's also the fact that it's not into a void. It's not like, okay, we've done three. Is that okay? We're onto the next. I think in many ways it can make the work much easier, because you're using your imagination, but in a different way, because you're operating with a stimulus. And that's always exciting.

F: And good D&D is just like improv theatre.

CT: Yeah, exactly.

F: Really good players are spontaneous. Just very creative.

CT: That should be celebrated and I think harnessing more of those kinds of things would be fun, because in all honesty, still probably about 60, 70 percent of the work that I do is in the corporate and business sphere. That's just because of how I sound. I didn't go out to court that work particularly, but in terms of the stuff that pays the bills regularly, that's the kind of stuff that I do. Even then, you're trying to find levels of playfulness or colour so that you're not just coming over with: “in a world where you can trust a big corporation to take your money.” So, there's any kind of nuance or subtlety to that, that will be a good thing. So that's the kind of stuff that I crave as a result.

F: Thank you for your time.

CT: Oh, my pleasure.

F: It went by so fast. We went over time; I still have a lot more questions.

CT: Oh, sorry.

F: No, no, no, no, no, no. That, that's, that's absolutely fine. Thank you.

[noelle666]

Pathfinder WOTR A Dance of Masks

I finished A Dance of Masks yesterday. I liked it, even though I had a feeling that the end part of DLC feels a bit rushed. I was very attentive towards voice acting since some of Rogue Trader actors participated in this DLC. It was a joy to hear NPCs speaking with voices of Ian Russell (Abelard), Christopher Tester (Heinrix), Will De Renzy-Martin (Marazhai), Samara Naeymi (Jae) and Oliver Smith (Ulfar).

And here's my romance scene with Lann. =)

[my-forgotten-notepad]

Another WH40K speech by Christopher Tester (I hate how tumblr won't let me post more than one video per post).

Roboute Guilloman speaking to Angron in Betrayer by Aaron Dembski-Bowden (I think)