Gone Gold with Simon Hill
Welcome to Gone Gold with Simon Hill, a show that features fun, insightful interviews with some of the biggest names in video games. From developers, to actors - this show delves in to what makes your favourite video games tick.
Gone Gold with Simon Hill
Craig Lee Thomas
Helldivers 2 actor Craig Lee Thomas joins us on this hilarious episode. We hear stories about his expansive IMDB of multiple TV Show's, including acting across from Neil Patrick-Harris in 'How I Met Your Mother' alongside his credits in such games as, Starfield, Battlefield, Star Wars: Squadrons, Final Fantasy and many more. We also speak about that viral moment at The Game Awards and meeting Hideo Kojima.
Follow - https://x.com/GoneGoldShow
Hello and welcome to another episode of Gone Gold with me, Simon Hill, esports host, industry presenter and TV personality. Warhorse Studios We've got some great insights and exclusives on that show. I do want to say a special thank you to the studio for the support they showed this episode. If you go on any of their social media channels, you'll see the level of support they gave. Also, a big thank you to the KCD community who all shared their love for the interview with Communications Director Toby and Lead Designer of KCD2 Procop. Another quick highlight is I get to see where in the world people are listening from and this show has now been heard in every continent. 59 countries and 287 cities around the globe. Wow. Thank you. We have hit the charts in Canada, America, UK, India, Hong Kong, New Zealand and Australia. It just gets better. So thank you so much for everyone who has tuned in and supported the show so far. Let's get the usual housekeeping out of the way. of the way. For anyone listening to this episode, please give it a rating on your chosen platform and leave a little comment. This will help us chart in your region and bring these episodes to more people. It will also help me be able to approach more guests in the future. So if you've got someone that you want to hear from, let me know in the comments. Talking of guests, let's get to it with our latest show. I'm joined by the From his New York dream to his LA life, Craig has starred in many TV shows over the years, including How I Met Your Mother and Criminal Minds. He's also voiced on some of the biggest games around, whether that be Battlefield, Star Wars, Dynasty Warriors, Final Fantasy, or most famously, Helldivers 2. This is an episode you won't want to miss. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Gone Gold with Craig Lee Thomas. I'm super excited to welcome my guest to the show. If you're old enough, you'll remember him from How I Met Your Mother or even Kablam. More recently, Craig has been heard in some of the biggest video games in the industry, whether that be Battlefield, Starfield, Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, or more famously, as the Super Earth spokesperson, John Helldiver in Helldivers 2. His IMDb reads like a novel. Actor, writer, and producer, the multifaceted Craig Leto Welcome to the
SPEAKER_02:show.
SPEAKER_00:let's do that let's kick this off by asking how craig lee thomas is doing you've just seen a few of your projects that you've worked on recently go out into the world most notably fatal fury dc dark legion yes you're a busy guy
SPEAKER_02:yeah it's been nice to be busy you know the the one thing an actor always wants to be is busy that's what we always want you know it's it's it's hilarious sometimes you know i'll talk to i'll talk to family members of it how are you oh i'm i'm slammed i'm doing this and do that oh i'm so sorry i hope things slow down for you soon. I go, do you want me to not pay my bills? You really don't have to pay it if I'm not working. There's no passive income here. So it's very nice to be busy. And the last couple of things that have come out have been really exciting. DC Dark Legion. definitely one of those. That was a, that was a big one. That was a big day for sure.
SPEAKER_00:Is there a sense of satisfaction when you get to see a project you've worked on finally get released? I mean, in some cases you can record dialogue two, three years before the game even comes out. So there must be a sense of pride when a game finally releases and your voice is in it.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, for sure. I mean, any, you know, as an actor, anytime you get to see, anytime you, first of all, anytime you make it into the cut, you know, cause I do some TV as well and that's all always the question is like that was really fun or is my coverage gonna make it in is my scene gonna get cut anytime that you make it into the edit it's always exciting but you know even uh a tv show which has lag time sometimes of you know eight months or up to a year is nothing compared to a video game which like you said two three four five years sometimes the first video game i ever booked is still not out
SPEAKER_01:oh
SPEAKER_02:it might be coming out this year Which is hilarious. So yeah, when the project finally does come to fruition and you see all the ridiculous hard work that everybody else is putting into it while you were sitting around doing nothing after your couple of sessions, it's extremely gratifying and also a big relief to be like, okay, I did that thing and it came out and now I could feel good about it. So for sure, lots of pride, lots of satisfaction.
SPEAKER_00:Oh, that's awesome, man. And in the case of DC Dark Legion, you got to play the iconic Superman. The big guy. How was the process of portraying such an iconic big character, and how much have you used the fact that you're Superman now in a day-to-day conversation?
SPEAKER_02:This is a great question. I'm at the grocery store, I'm getting gas, all those things. The initial part of the process is pretty much just like any other. You get an email from your agent, hey, there's this game, it's codenamed, here are all the characters. You open up the file and you're like, oh, Batman, Superman, Aquaman, Red Hood, everybody. This is a DC game, obviously, of some kind. And, you know, the funny thing about that is it's one of those games, like I said, you get a batch of characters and your agents are sort of like, hey, take some swings, whatever you feel is appropriate. So you have that own moment of self-doubt, or at least I did, of just being like, do I have the confidence to say into the universe, Yeah, I could read for Superman. That in and of itself is like the first hurdle of just having to look yourself in the mirror and be like, yeah, I could sound like Superman. And then you have to actually work on the sides and whatnot. But yeah, I took swings on a bunch of characters. Superman was high on my list of like, okay, I've got the right instrument for this. I think I understand the vibe.
UNKNOWN:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:And actually, a director that I love working with, one of the guys who directed me in one of my first big games, Phil Bach, who's one of my favorite directors out here, a real actors director. He really loves actors. Two or three sessions into a game, completely unrelated. I was not playing a Superman type character at all. He said to me, he's like, you ever read Kingdom Come? And I was like, I don't know. I think I might've missed that one. That's one of the big DCs I haven't read. He's like, you need to read Kingdom Come and you need to record Superman scenes. As a monologue, because that you could do that, that you could have an angle on it. And this is four years ago. So when this came around, I thought it felt like, you know, somebody else thought that I could take a swing at Superman. And that, I think, empowered me to have kind of my own take on it. And it worked out. So
SPEAKER_00:it did work out. You sounded great, by the way.
SPEAKER_02:Thank you. I appreciate it. I mean, we were set up for success. I mean, the guy directing us on the game is literally named Kal-El. Oh, brilliant. And he is the son of one of the biggest Superman illustrators of the 80s and 90s. So he knows DC. He understands Superman. So that was a joy. And Kal-El directs us in Helldivers as well.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, he gets around. And were you a DC fan growing up? Did you read the comics, watch the TV shows?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I remember my dad had the– and death of superman i remember he had the comic book in the book and i remember like reading it with him as a kid um i died i mean i've got a picture myself i think i was five years old i went as superman for halloween so that was a crazy full circle moment to look at that photo and uh i think honestly for somebody my age as you're so kind to remind me at the top of the hour for somebody of my generation i think in the states especially smallville was huge oh my goodness that was event television in my house my dad my sister and i would watch it every week i have all of the seasons on dvd again old um but i thought tom willing was fantastic i love that show um and uh yeah i Big Superman fan my whole life for sure.
SPEAKER_00:Glory days of TV right there.
SPEAKER_02:Yes, the CW. And that theme song, the Remy Zero theme song.
SPEAKER_00:Somebody save me!
SPEAKER_02:You recorded it clearly, because that was just spot on. My real name is Remy. Zero, obviously. I've just been trying to let your warm hands break right through me ever since.
SPEAKER_00:For anybody else who got that reference,
SPEAKER_02:well done. For anybody else who got the reference, take an Advil, your back hurts.
SPEAKER_00:I probably should have prepped you on this question, but we'll just go with it anyway. If you could play any other DC character, whether that be in film or games, who would you play and why? This
SPEAKER_02:is a great question. I love this question. I mean, the big guy is so close to my heart that that like it's the easy, stupid answer. Obviously, maybe perhaps not quite the core and swelt physique, perhaps, you know, very excited for that. I think the James Gunn movie looks like it's going to be. Unbelievable. I'm so, so, so, so stoked for that. I mean, as boring an answer as it is, because obviously people have asked me this question before. It's like out of that, out of all the parts I swung for, Superman was the one I wanted the most. It was the one I felt I fit the best. And he's the he's the character I he's the character I like the most. You know, like I think he's got he's got the perfect balance of like. Sort of. self-awareness but also true just like nobility and he he really does represent the best of us and that's his whole point and um that was something that i was really excited to play with just like he's got softness but he's got steel you know he's he's got both he's just a kid from a small town like me um who kind of went to a big city and is trying to do something so i think I take a lot of inspiration from him. So it's a dumb answer, but I think I did it. I think I got the one I wanted, which is pretty crazy.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, absolutely. I think as well that Superman has this charm, this elegance, but also, again, like you said, he's a man of steel, right? There's another reference for DC fans out there. He's so intriguing in so many ways. So you were able to play with that, I assume, a little bit more going into the studio.
UNKNOWN:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:I think so. Yeah. I mean, even, you know, even in the just to talk about process more, obviously, like you get the audition sides. It's six lines completely out of context. And you're like, hey, this is how I'm going to this is how I could prove I could play Superman. Here are these six sentences, which is such that it's the Sisyphean task. But as an actor, especially as a voice actor, because there's no. There's no subtleties of facial expression. There's no subtleties of body movement. There's no posture. It's just what you sound like. You're really just trying to show absolutely as much variety and specificity as possible in that audition. One of the big things I was thinking about that I put into one of my lines, which I'm sure helped book it, was just in my head, I was like, you got six scenes. On at least one of these, we need to hear that this guy can do lift up a skyscraper and crack it over your head but on another one of these scenes we need to hear that he's like the funny kind of like charming regular guy from the office because that's who clark is so trying to get that polarity in your 30 second audition is a challenge but that's that's the fun of voice acting as well it's just like how can i how can i paint all the corners here which i which i had a good time with and then in the booth we got to play with the same thing Cal let me ad-lib a lot. We got a lot of jokes. I don't know how many made it into the game, but definitely playing with his strength and his... sort of swagger and his charm a little bit was really fun.
SPEAKER_00:I opened the show dropping a list of games that could all form their own awards category, all ones that you've been a part of. What's the journey been like for you as an actor being able to perform these multiple roles across so many great IP?
SPEAKER_02:It's great hearing it listed or seeing it on your IMDb. Sometimes it is even a little bit like wow, I, I've done all those things. That's kind of crazy. I mean, um, final fantasy was one of the, one of the first games I ever booked. One of my, one of the games like early in my career, um, final fantasy seven remake. Um, that was insanely huge again, as a, as a, as a, as an elder millennial final fantasy seven and really final fantasy eight as well was very important to me as a young gamer. So just, um, Getting to the session and realizing that's what it was, was crazy. Because that's the other thing that we deal with as voice actors is projects are codenamed. Everything's under NDA. A lot of the time, you don't know what the project is even while you're recording it or until you get there. And that was one of those where, you know, it was codenamed, whatever it was codenamed. I had my suspicions, but I didn't really know what the hell was going on. You show up to the session. Hey, welcome to Final Fantasy VII Remake. You're like, oh, my God. Okay, this is happening. I am about to yell at Cloud. I mean, I got Cloud on my shirt
SPEAKER_00:today. Oh, look at that.
SPEAKER_02:Cloud Strife at McDonald's. But, yeah, insane to think, you know, as a kid sitting in front of my PlayStation playing some of these games, you know, because that's the other thing. In the 90s, when I sort of started my gaming journey... Final Fantasy VII is a great example. You know, voice acting wasn't really technologically possible in these games yet to the degree that it was. You know, Metal Gear Solid was the big, like, it will never be the same after this, after they put so much brilliant cinematic acting and so much story into that game. But before that, it was not even a possibility. People ask a lot. It's like, oh, did you always dream about being in video games? And the answer is no, because as a kid, that wasn't even a thing yet. It's still a relatively recent thing. development just because we have the gigabytes to put it onto the disks now or not even the disks anymore. So it's very crazy looking at the list and just getting to Getting to have a little tiny part of like, hey, I got a little DC, I got a little Final Fantasy, I got a little Fatal Fury, whatever it might be.
SPEAKER_00:Then you get moments like what you had at the Game Awards. Your segment went viral, got covered by multiple publications. Was the plan to go out there and create this viral moment or was it just, look, I'm going to go out there, showcase the game and be this character?
SPEAKER_02:My entire plan, Simon, for going out there was don't drop the goddamn helmet. That was 100% in my brain every single iota of my being. was focused on one goal, and that was do not drop the goddamn helmet when you take it off of your giant head because it was very slippery plastic. I had big ceremonial gloves on, and that was pretty much my only goal. I mean, I came off stage literally, and I mean, that experience was insane, obviously. Months, if not most of that year in the making. Again, just like everything else I do, A whole bunch of people worked significantly harder on it than I did, even though I was the face of it. So, I mean, there's a million people to thank that, like I said, worked a lot harder. I walked out on stage, I said some lines, I wore a costume. It was fun. But even when I got off stage, Gary Barth, a decades-long Sony vet who's my boy, who was sort of there facilitating and helping me, literally just helping me move, helping me stand up after I got the boots on, helping me get dressed, helping me arrange my cape. I got off stage and we looked at each other and we're like, I think it went okay. Neither of us are going to be in trouble. Nobody's getting an angry call from their agent or the president of Sony. It went well. And then we saw... you know, Stee and some of the other Sony marketing guys at the Game Awards, even before the ceremony was over. Did it go okay? Did it go okay? And they showed us the numbers, like, you know, 200K, 250K. We have, you know, 200,000 players all stopped watching the Game Awards to hop on and fight the Illumina. And that was just like, oh, my God, we did it. So, yeah, that was a big relief. I didn't drop the helmet. Yeah.
UNKNOWN:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:You also had another very cool moment, and you got to meet a lot of people that evening, but one, Hideo Kojima, must have been a highlight for you. Being a Metal Gear Solid fan, you've already referenced it earlier. I mean, what an incredible moment.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, talk to me for more than five minutes and I'm probably going to reference Metal Gear Solid. If I forget to turn my phone off of Do Not Disturb, you'll hear the Metal Gear Solid ringtone I have for text messages. That was insane. I knew he was there. I knew he would be presenting and I was just like, I gotta, I gotta try. I gotta try. So, you know, hung out in the hall outside of my dressing room. I knew where his green room was and I saw him and I saw his, his very lovely, uh, translator and Gary had worked with him before. Gary, um, had done some death stranding stuff for him before. So they sort of had a little moment and I just, I seized that to be like, Hey, do you think I can't? Yeah, absolutely. And, um, yeah, when, uh, when Kojima-san threw up the salute, when he threw up the hell diver fist, I about, I about died. I mean, people were texting me and I was like, Oh, I shit my armor. Absolutely. Like dry, clean, dry, clean that Cape. Cause I just, I didn't, I mean that,
SPEAKER_00:you know, right. Yeah, exactly. That's what, that's what I
SPEAKER_02:dropped the helmet for sure. Um, I mean, I, I played, I played metal gear solid almost every year since it came out. I, I, blow the dust off my PlayStation. I put my original disc from when I was a kid in and I play it and it's crazy because every year it holds up. Controls hold up, story holds up. It's great. It's insane. Yeah. It's, it's timeless. And then obviously the millions of amazing things he's done since, but that was a huge moment that, that I never could have conceived back in Pennsylvania, sitting on the floor in front of my CRT, you know, playing games. fighting Psycho Mantis for the first time. Hey, one day you'll be in a superhero costume and you'll get to throw up a Helldiver sign with Kojima and be like, what are you talking about? So that was nuts.
SPEAKER_00:One day you might even get in a game with a Hideo Kojima game. Listen,
SPEAKER_02:give me a call. Give me a call. Whatever you need. I will grunt. I will scream. I will whatever. Whatever you need. I'll make coffee. I don't care.
SPEAKER_00:There we go. If Hideo Kojima is watching, we have someone for you. Give him a call.
SPEAKER_02:Exactly.
SPEAKER_00:Talk to us about Helldivers 2 because there's actually a really fun story on how this role came about for you, if not a little bit chaotic.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. The audition process for the, again, you know, talking about audition processes again, it started relatively normal in that it was just, hey, an email from my agent. Hey, there's this game. Here's the code name. This is obviously not what it's called. Oh, this is for performance capture, motion capture and likeness. And that's the big three. Cause a lot of times the project is just one of those things. If you do the performance capture, it doesn't necessarily mean you do the motion capture. Maybe it's just your face. If you do the motion capture, maybe it's somebody else's voice and head. If you do the role, they might put somebody else's head on you, but this is all three. So I knew going in, it was like, Hey, this is going to look like you. It's going to be you. And it's going to sound like you, but, um, You know, one of the weirder things about it was a lot of the time you have a pretty good lead time with those kind of auditions. You know, hey, you have five. They try to give you like five to six days, maybe a week, because they understand putting yourself on tape is a little more strenuous than just recording a voiceover audition. But this was like, this is due like today. This is due as soon as possible. Okay, fine. Here in my office. wrangled my wife as I often do, grabbed my phone, learned the lines really quick and threw it on and sent it off and kind of didn't really think anything of it. And that afternoon I got a text, hey, you're in the top three. I was like, Jesus, that's fast. Because a lot of times, even if it's due that day, that just means they're going to look at it first thing tomorrow morning. But this was like, wow, like people are waiting for these tapes. This must be a pretty tight turnaround. And the next day was crazy. You have a passport, right? I went, passport? What are you talking about? Yeah, this is going to shoot in Sweden. Okay, amazing. When? And they were like, you'd need to go to the airport pretty much like tomorrow, maybe Saturday, because we got to get you here by Sunday. So yeah, Tuesday to Sunday was, I don't even know what this project is to, I am in a hotel in Stockholm waiting to go to work the next week. And that was how fast it was. And Russ, one of the writers talks about sort of the process from his end. Russ was the narrative lead, the head writer of the game. He's an American guy, but he was living over there at Arrowhead working on the game for a couple of years. And I think they had planned to go another direction, shoot it in another way. But Russ was like, oh, this intro is funny, but it's funny in a specific way. And Super Earth is really... kind of specific. I'd love to like get some auditions on this. And they were basically like, well, yeah, that's fine. You can get reads if you can find them. It was like, okay, great. Like how much extra time do I have? And they're like, oh, we're still shooting on Monday. And this is on Monday for him. So you're like, so yeah, if you could find somebody to get them here, we'll put them in front of the camera, but we're not breaking the production schedule to the best of my understanding. So it was a tight turnaround on their end. It was a tight turnaround on my end. And oh boy, did it ever work out for me? That's for sure. So. extremely grateful to have had the opportunity.
SPEAKER_00:For anyone who hasn't played this yet, as soon as you turn the game on, you are just there, Craig.
SPEAKER_02:You can't escape me. You can't escape me. It's just my giant head. There's no escaping
SPEAKER_00:it. You are very much the voice and face of this game. Were you aware of how big this was going to get as your performance, John Held, either? No. Of
SPEAKER_02:course not. I had absolutely no idea. It's funny. He wasn't even... Maybe still isn't. I don't know. Arrowhead has kind of canonized him on their official channels after the Game Awards. They call me John Heldiver now, so I don't mind calling myself John Heldiver. But, you know, he wasn't even John Heldiver at the time. You know, this was this was a cinematic that was going to play at the beginning of the game. And that was supposed to be it. Just that 90 seconds. And then I got home after shooting it thinking, hey, that was great. I hope this game comes out. Who knows if it will? I hope they use it. If it does come out, who knows if they will. You have no idea. You just sort of need to do the job and forget about it. But a month later, I got an email. Hey, they want to bring you back in to do some more stuff. So I got to here in the States. Russ gets on the session. He said, hey, we had so much fun shooting the cinematic and kind of dicking around with the extra time we had. I just wrote you a bunch of jokes. You were only supposed to be in the cinematic, but now we're going to have you on the TV and the Super Destroyer as well. We're just going to have you do a bunch of PSAs from the government. That was a new idea that wasn't supposed to happen, but we had a good time. So he added me back in. We did that. And he said, hey, I got a little bonus. That's nice. A couple months later, Sony calls. Hey, you know, you're kind of narrator-y and announcer-y in this game. Why don't you do a couple of these YouTube videos? Why don't you narrate some trailers? And that became doing more marketing for the game. So it really was like this snowball thing. None of which had to happen, all of which I'm super grateful for, because a lot of times it's one and done. You do the session and that's kind of it. But, you know, between Arrowhead being the loveliest, most amazing people, Russ being great and Sony being great, they just keep bringing me back to do more stuff, which is really, really rare. and really, really gratifying.
SPEAKER_00:Incredible. See, it's not all about how old you were when you filmed How I Met Your Mother, right?
SPEAKER_02:Exactly. You know, even though I'm not that spring chicken in the mullet that I was in How I Met Your Mother, which if you haven't seen it, I had a glorious mullet
SPEAKER_01:in my
SPEAKER_02:one scene in the show. It was pretty fantastic. But yeah, I still got some tricks up the sleeve even 12, 13 years later. Don't
SPEAKER_00:worry. Well, even Neil Patrick Harris was impressed with the mullet. You could tell that's where the lines were coming out. That
SPEAKER_02:was really what it was. I was not gobsmacked and completely catatonic with seeing Neil Patrick Harris in the flesh. He was really excited about my mullet. That's really what
SPEAKER_00:it was. Absolutely.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, for sure.
SPEAKER_00:You got to do the whole shebang for this. You've already mentioned you put on the mocap suit. And it's really weird to say this, but... With everything you've done, this was the first time you'd actually performed full mocap and VO. How did that feel?
SPEAKER_02:It was so much fun. It was something that obviously I'd been wanting to do for so long. And this was, I mean, I've said it before, but just baptism by fire, for sure, because this was the whole kit and caboodle. It's like, hey, you are out there, you're doing this thing. The whole shebang. Absolutely all credit in the world goes to Goodbye Kansas, who's the company that shot the cinematic for Arrowhead. They are across the street from Arrowhead in Stockholm, and they do some of the biggest cinematics on TV shows and movies and video games in the world. I don't know if you saw the Game of Thrones video game, the Night King versus Jon Snow battle that's been going viral on the internet. That's them. They've done a million, million, million cinematics, and that's where we shot it. So all credit to them for walking me through the process. Freddie Lofberg, our director, and really Nila and Nicholas Hansen were the two stunt performers that kind of are everybody else in the cinematic. All of the other Helldivers are them and some of the other stunt people that they have sort of on the roster at GBK. But on the day, it was me and Nila and Nicholas, and they are in every game and every movie and every TV show. They're They have their own personal suits there. They're just like the people. And I'm just like this very tall American who has no idea what's going on. They were so great about like, hey, like, this is what this is. This is what this is. They were giving me pointers the whole day. They were so supportive and really, really helped me actually give a good performance because I was pretty nervous. But they took really great care of me. But the other nice thing about mocap is, you know, there's no, there's no costume. There's no, there's not many props, only some hand props just for shape. So you're really just kind of free to do your thing. You're kind of unobstructed and you just kind of go for it. And we, we played a lot and we had a lot of time, which was nice. So the shoot day couldn't have been more fun. I don't think it could have gone better.
SPEAKER_00:So you'd definitely be open to doing more mocap work in the future?
SPEAKER_02:Always. And trust me, I've been trying. You know, even if I had, obviously the way this industry works, even if I had some big mocap job that came out tomorrow, I would have to be vague and weird about it. So who knows? All I could say is like, the experience was extremely fun and I would love to do as much more of it as possible. It was great fun.
SPEAKER_00:The game is great, and it was an immediate hit. Trust me, go and play it after you've listened to this interview with Craig, and then you can go and listen to more Craig in Helldivers 2.
SPEAKER_02:As if you haven't had enough.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, exactly. What are your fondest memories of working and shooting in Stockholm? New country, new environment, culture, and also getting to do something really cool.
SPEAKER_02:Stockholm was amazing. I'd never been to Sweden. I'd never been to that part of the world before. It was a whirlwind trip, but it was the best work trip ever because of the nature of the facial scanning and the body scanning and stuff. Like I said, we started on Monday, but that Monday was pretty much just scanning. You can look up the GVK behind the scenes stuff and see a little bit of this, but you sit in the little ball of cameras with the dots on your face to scan your face. You stand in the big ball of cameras to scan your whole body. That was Monday. And they were like, great, we're shooting on Thursday, so blah, blah, blah. And I was like, oh, this is a short cinematic. Are we going to rehearse for two days? And they looked at me like, what? And they're like, no, we're going to shoot on Thursday because it takes about that long to process all this data. We need to take all the data we scan today, get it through the computers, and it takes like two days to get ready. I was like, well, what do I do? And they were like, I don't know, whatever the hell you want. So literally... I just walked around Stockholm for two days. I went to the Vasa Museum, which is the big ship that sunk in the harbor like 200 years ago. And they like pulled it up and built it all back together. Went to the Fotografiska, the photography museum. I went to Gamla Stan, the old town. I just literally like was doing like 20,000 steps a day, just walking around, drinking coffee, eating reindeer, doing other Swedish things, you know. Sounds
SPEAKER_00:wonderful.
SPEAKER_02:It was amazing. And then we shot and then we kind of had a couple of safety days because they're like, ah, just in case we need to reshoot or something doesn't process, like we need to keep you for another day or two. And I went again, what do you need me to do? And they went again, we don't need you to do anything. So once again, I just sort of had a couple of days to walk around. So, uh, I got to know Stockholm really well and really fell in love with it. I got to go back earlier this year, um, ERA had invited me back for the one-year anniversary, which was really nice. So I went and I surprised some of the devs and hid in somebody's office during their party and then came out during Johan's speech, which was really fun. So it was really nice to go back to and be like, hey, I have favorite spots here. I remember this. I know where everything is. So Stockholm is a top-tier city. If you haven't been, it's a fantastic place to visit. The museums are unbelievable and the food is great.
SPEAKER_00:We have a theme of having BAFTA nominees on this show, and you were long listed for performer in a supporting role. I was. After your performance in Helldivers 2, that's quite an honor you probably never expected. I,
SPEAKER_02:again, I mean, not to sound like a broken record, but just another, like, absolutely couldn't believe it. And I mean, the way the universe works is, when I found out about being on the long list, I was literally half in and half out of the hell divers armor at rehearsal for the game awards. So we were doing the fits of the amazing team that was working with me, you know, making sure, Hey, can you see, can you get up the stairs? Does this armor fit? What do we need to cut off to make it fit a little bit better? So we're literally like in crunch time rehearsing for the awards. And I, Had a minute to sit down in the dressing room and drank some water and turned my phone back on. And I have a text from my friend Molly Zhang, who's an amazing voice actor who's in Honkai Star Road with me. And she goes, oh, my God, you're on the BAFTA long list. I just what this is crazy. I went, OK, there's no way that this is true. You must have read some headline wrong or gotten something wrong. Or, you know, there's some other person with some variation of my name. But, yeah, you look and you're like, holy shit. that that is definitely my name and that is the game that i'm in so yeah finding out about it during that week of the game awards was it was just like oh my god this is like hell divers 2 this is the hell divers 2 week for me it was uh an extremely insane honor that i never expected and i'm very grateful to uh the british academy of film and television uh for for long listing me that meant the world
SPEAKER_00:you get to say that now
SPEAKER_02:that's the nice thing is hey no matter what long-listed, BAFTA long-list, BAFTA long-list. This is what I'm talking about when I'm at the coffee shop, when I'm at the dry cleaner. You know, hi, I'm for Craig Lee Thomas, BAFTA long-list member, 2025. They're like, who the hell are you? What are you talking about?
SPEAKER_00:I'm also Superman.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. Also
SPEAKER_00:I'm Superman. Anything
SPEAKER_02:else? What do I need to do to get free guacamole at Chipotle? The answer is they won't give it to me, unfortunately.
SPEAKER_00:Well, look, at least you tried. Another great project you were a part of, Octopath Traveler 2. This project came clearly meant a lot to you once again another fantastic sequel that you were a part of tell us about the experience of being a part of this
SPEAKER_02:um one of my favorites to date for sure um like like like i'd referenced before you know jrpgs and rpgs were a big part of my gaming diet but i never really done i don't know i guess the the The Chrono Triggers, the early Fire Emblems, the Triangle Strategies. I'm trying to think of the kind of games that are kind of like Octopath. I'd never really dipped my toe too much into that style of game. Didn't necessarily know that was the kind of game it was when you're recording, because again, they don't tell you anything. But one of my favorite villains I've ever portrayed, for sure. Harvey is just like... He's like a soap opera villain. He's just absolutely all bad. all the time nothing redeeming about him no turn no moment of understanding he just sucks he's like an opera villain like he no spoilers for the game obviously but like pretty early on you're like wow this guy is just pure evil and he hates the protagonist of his path for absolutely no reason so that's very fun to play like this lyric operatic just like there's no choice you could make that would be too much Jamie Bortolaro was our director on that game, a brilliant voice actor and really amazing director. I've had the pleasure of working with him on a bunch of other projects as well. He took really good care of us during the session and, you know, Getting to play it was so fun, too, just because, you know, I only kind of knew about my quote unquote path. You know, I'm the villain in Oswald's path. So that was sort of the only story I really gleaned anything about. And I hadn't played the first Doctor Path Traveler, so I didn't realize, oh, yeah, there's this huge cinematic could be its own movie story. And then there are seven more that are just as good. So I put 90, 95 hours into that game on my first playthrough. I think a year later, I was like, I'm going to play Octopath again. Had another 80, 90 hour run through it. The cast is amazing. The writing is amazing. The combat rules. It's so deep. There's so much in that game. So getting to be a small part of it was very fun.
SPEAKER_00:I mean, a pretty good part of it as well. But what... I find really fascinating about this is the process. So from an actor's point of view, you look at John Helldiver and then Harvey from Octopath Traveler, completely two different dynamics. That must be super cool to play with.
SPEAKER_02:It's the best thing about voice acting, because I sort of still am and was a TV and film actor for many years, and I'm still doing that. Just voiceover is mostly what I do now. You're limited. in a big way. You're limited by what you look like. You're limited by the cut of your silhouette. You're limited by your height and your build and your features in a huge way in TV and film, in a way that you are not in voiceover. I have gotten to play little squirrely, petulant little dweebs, even though I'm a six foot, three inch giant-headed dude in voiceover because that's a thing that you can do. I've gotten to play monsters and strong people and weak people and every other thing because it's just about the elasticity of your instrument and sort of the specificity of the character. That's 100% the best thing about VO. And a lot of the times with video games too, it's not just that you get to do something different for work every day. You go in and you don't even know what you're going to do. Because 90% of the time, you're sight reading all of your scripts. And a lot of the time, you didn't even necessarily audition for the job that you're doing. Companies will bring you back in for utility stuff. And you sort of walk in. It's like, OK, what characters am I playing today? This guy is a cloud of nebulous gas. And he has a mustache. OK, I'll figure out what that sounds like in the next 10 or 15 seconds. And I'll give you a read. We'll go from there. So as an actor, it's all play. And I think that's what you have to have to succeed at. It is really just like you got to be a good cold reader. You got to not mind thinking on your feet. You got to be good at improv. And you need to just have a sense of play. You can't be too afraid about doing it correctly. It's got to just be, okay, what do I feel like this is? Fuck it. Here's what it is. Let's see if this works.
SPEAKER_00:If none of you are aware by now, Craig also teaches this stuff. You can give yourself a quick plug here, Craig, with your website. But you've been teaching voiceover for quite some time now and the various nuances surrounding
SPEAKER_02:it. Yeah. it's like a lot of the great things in my life it came about through no uh no credit of my own it was other people working hard and me benefiting um which is a pattern um but a buddy of mine mike delay who i used to work at a restaurant with here in la over a decade ago um We both left the restaurant and he is a brilliant musician and an audio engineer. And I started to become a voice actor. And years later we reconnected because he goes, Hey, guess what? After I haven't talked to you in a while, I opened a voiceover studio. I was like, dude, that rules. Congrats. That's so amazing. Good for you. He's like, yeah, we're going to do like recording sessions. We're also going to do classes. Would you ever want to teach? And I went, ah, I don't know, man. I'm kind of, I'm only a couple of years in. I'm just starting out. I don't really know if that's my bag. And he's like, great. Um, I have you on my schedule to teach a class on Wednesday. So I'd really love for you to teach a class on Wednesday. I went, okay, well fuck you. I guess, I guess I'm teaching for you thinking that I was just doing it as a favor. And now that's a huge part of my life, you know, seven, eight years later. Um, it's been a real, it was a real surprise to me how, uh, gratifying I found it and how, um, interesting i found it it just forces you to think about it in a different way to have to convey it to somebody else um and i started just teaching commercial because that's really what i did as a voice actor mostly i just mostly worked in commercial at the beginning of my journey um it was kind of before the pandemic that video games sort of started to swing in my direction um but since i've started to teach about video games as well and i do demos for people and teach group classes and one-on-one classes and boot camps and stuff and uh Getting to speak about it from that angle, it's amazing because it makes you a better actor too. Because you really have to understand what you're doing in order to explain it. So it sort of takes that like, oh, I'm just going to kind of feel this out. When you have a three-week class where it's like, well, no, you have to tell people what to do. You need to have a curriculum. It forces you to kind of specify things. and intentionalize your process a little bit, which has helped me a lot as an actor as well.
SPEAKER_00:Where can people go to find this out? Websites, et cetera?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, just look up Real Voice LA. That's the name of the company that Mike runs, that I teach at. So you can find us on realvoicela.com, on all the social medias and stuff. And the nice thing is too, because of the nature of voiceover, most of the classes, most of the training, not just at Real Voice, but all over the place are remote.
SPEAKER_01:So
SPEAKER_02:it doesn't matter where you are in the world. You can take classes over Zoom, just like we're doing right now. We teach in person as well if you're in LA. But yeah, I have clients all over the world that hop on They just have to stay up late depending on the time zone and are able to take classes, which is nice.
SPEAKER_00:That's awesome. That's awesome. So go and check it out. And with all the games you've been a part of so far, which ones are you most proud of? I'm sure Helldivers is right up there, Final Fantasy, which we can get onto in a little while. Are there any in particular that stand out to you?
SPEAKER_02:Helldivers is the number one with a bullet. I mean, you know, like upon this rock, I will build my career because it just, it was such a rocket ship of success, which I'm so happy for the team. And I was unhappy for me. So Helldivers is always going to be number one of the bullet. Star Wars Squadrons was huge. That was another property that I didn't know it was what it was until I got to the session. And just, you know, it will never get old hearing your own voice come out of the cockpit of an X-Wing. That is just like, it's definitely one of those things in your career that you're like, no matter what else happens, even if I never work again, nobody can ever take that away from me, which is huge.
SPEAKER_00:You're now a part of the Star Wars universe. I mean, incredible. Technically, yes.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, the games are canon. So technically somewhere in the lore of the universe, hotshot pilot male voice option B is in there. And that's me, baby. So yeah, Star Wars is a big one. for sure. In addition to just the other, like we talked about before, the other properties. I can't believe that I get to say, oh yeah, I'm in Warcraft. Yeah, I'm in there somewhere. It's a hugely humbling thing to be a part of these franchises that were important to me as a kid and that are decades long. I
SPEAKER_00:had a question down for Star Wars and mentioned it there. When did you find out that you were going to be working on a Star Wars game?
SPEAKER_02:15 seconds before we started recording, just like Final Fantasy. It was exactly the same thing. The game was codenamed. I knew it was a fighter pilot game of some kind. I had suspicions that it was Star Wars, but you never know. Star Wars is a totemic property, so other stuff reminds you of Star Wars. It could have just as easily been any number of other things. But yeah, I got to site LA where we recorded. And hopped on and said hi to the engineer and was just waiting with my headphones on. And I think the engineer, hey, you're on with EA up in San Francisco. Say hi. And I had just enough time to think, EA up in San Francisco. I know what games they have the license for. Like, is this? And just like Final Fantasy, exactly the same thing. Hey, Craig, welcome to Star Wars. This is this game called Star Wars Squadrons. Let's go. You have 500 lines to record in the next two hours. So that's as much notice as you get, and that's as much time as you sort of have to, like, reckon with this idea. It's like, wow, I was already nervous, and now I really, really do not want to mess this up. But that session was an absolute blast. You know, a game like that is all what we call as voice actors, like, call-outs, right? you know, my character wasn't in a lot of story scenes. It was just a player voice option. So pretty much all just game specific, you know, you got one on your tail, watch out, missile incoming, all those kinds of just like short snappy lines. So the session was just, Hey, give us a couple of each play around, have fun. So that really is where you just feel like you feel like a ping pong ball. Cause you're just like, okay, how can I just have as many colors come through as possible? Um, And I had a lot of my more unhinged line readings actually make it into the game. And that's another thing that as voice actors is always very gratifying when you kind of make a crazy choice or you make a funny choice or you take kind of like a risky read. And, you know, it makes everybody on the call laugh. 90% of the time, the director says, oh, that was hilarious. There's absolutely no way we can use that. That was crazy. And I go, I know. I'm sorry. I just need to try. But credit to EA. A lot of my reads for that. I'd give him a straight one. I'd give them one that was a little different, and then my C take, I'd kind of go a little off the rails a little bit. And to their credit, most of those are like, ah, that was really great. Okay, I'm going to take the A. Let's alt the C. Let's send them that weird take just in case. And then the game comes out, and every once in a while when I was playing that first week, I would hear one of my players' line reads. It'd be like, ah, they took the take where I was laughing like a maniac. Ah, they took the take where I kind of, my voice was cracking a little bit. So that was very... Very fun to hear your weird takes get in
SPEAKER_00:there. Let's expand on that briefly before I do let you go. Voice acting, like you said, can be so much fun and doing these takes, you know, that aren't pre-planned, that aren't scripted. Do you have any in particular with all the projects you've worked on, which I know is a lot, so this might be hard to remember, that particularly your favorites that weren't necessarily on the script?
SPEAKER_02:That's a great question. I always say in my classes, you know, if you want to do video games, you should get good at comedy because every game is funny in some way, shape or form. Like, even the most deadly serious game. There are jokes in Last of Us Part II, I always say. Like, there's funny scenes. There's funny moments, even in the most dark, gritty, realistic things. And the spectrum swings all the way the other way. You know, like I say, you're doing Hearthstone. You're doing some of these mobile games. You're doing some of these other more cartoony video games. They're just straight up comedic. Helldivers is a great example. Helldivers is a comedy game, 100%. So you have to know how to tell a joke. You have to know how to make a comedic turn. Like I said, getting to infuse a little bit of personality in Star Wars Squadrons was huge. Helldivers, they were very open to... It was kind of open season, especially when I was doing my PSA sessions for the game. Just like, okay, how far can we push this character? How ridiculous, how just... absolutely democratic and patriotic. And we get this guy. Honestly, I have to, I have to pull the NDA card a little bit because there's a couple of projects that I could think of that are in the works, not out yet where I've really been given license to kind of go off the leash a little bit, which I'm very, very excited about continuing to do in hearing, but they are unfortunately in process. So they are wrapped up.
SPEAKER_00:Keep
SPEAKER_02:an ear out. There's one game in particular where I kind of got the dream direction from the team, which happens every once in a while, which is, hey, we want two takes of this line. But if you could think of a third, even if it changes the line, we're not super precious about the writing. As long as you give us the two on the script, third take is whatever the hell you want. That's the dream. Because then you're honoring the writing, which the writing in this game is fantastic. You're honoring the writing. You're honoring the intention. You're giving them what they need. But just in case that lightning in a bottle comes up in the session, they're open to having it. And we've had really, really good. We've had a good time with a couple of these games that I can think of in particular. in terms of that.
SPEAKER_00:Awesome. Well, looking forward to hearing that. And as we all know, the video games industry is shrouded in more mystery than the MI5. But are there any upcoming projects that you can talk about? And what can we expect to see more of from Craig Lee Thomas?
SPEAKER_02:Unfortunately, the crazy thing is no. I'm trying to think of anything. I don't think I'm credited in anything that isn't already out. But, you know... The summer is not over for old CLT. I'll just say that. Maybe the summer is not over. Maybe I'm excited about some things coming down the pike. Speaking to that, it's one of the weirdest, hardest things about working in video games is completely different from TV. There's secrecy and there's NDAs with television shows. Obviously, they don't want the plot spoiled, but you do the show and... The show a lot of the time is crediting you or you look on your IMDb and you're like, oh, somebody put all the credits for the upcoming season of the show. I guess I can talk about it now. They're a little bit more open. But because of the lead time of video games, because of how proprietary they are, it is wrapped up insanely tight. We'll receive emails a lot of the time that even say, hey, I know the game that you're in is coming out tomorrow. Don't talk about it. We will let you know when the company, this is my agent, We will let you know when the company emails us about when you could talk about this. And sometimes that is not even for weeks or months after the game comes out. And that's that's their business. You know, it's it's their property to handle how they want. So, yeah, as lame as it sounds. Yeah, everything I can talk about is out, unfortunately. But lots of fun stuff coming up.
SPEAKER_00:Looking forward to seeing what's coming down the line. Craig, this has been incredible. Firstly, thank you so much for giving up your time to be here.
SPEAKER_02:Thank you, Simon. I really appreciate it. It was great to chat with you.
SPEAKER_00:What I like to do is I like to end each episode on the guest having the final words, whether that be to thank the fans, thank the industry. I mean, you're doing some incredible stuff now. Again, we mentioned right at the top here, not about your age, but how amazing your IMDb is. so stacked and clearly adding to that. We're looking forward to seeing what that can be, but I just want to say once again, I'll leave you with the floor, but thank you very much for joining us on this episode.
SPEAKER_02:Thank you, Simon. Thank you, GG Nation out there. Yeah, I think just the only thing I'd want to leave anybody listening to this with is thank you. Games are nothing without the players. These projects are nothing without the community. And I think the community of video gaming has never been stronger and more supportive. Just keep being good to each other, keep being good to the devs, and keep demanding human voices in video games as well. We all hate AI voices, myself very much at the top of that list. So yeah, just keep demanding that artists work. go into games because we all know that that's when the games are the most enjoyable for us. I say that not only as a voice actor, but also as a gamer. So yeah, just keep being good to each other and keep enjoying this great You know what makes
SPEAKER_00:my job so much fun is being able to connect and talk to people like Craig, who is so passionate, so open, so insightful, and so funny. They don't take themselves too seriously, but they clearly do take their work very seriously. An absolute talent. Can't wait to get him back on in the future to talk about about the projects he is currently working on and is waiting to come out and to be revealed. So very exciting stuff. Looking forward to seeing what Craig does next. What an incredible episode. Again, episode seven, ladies and gentlemen. We're on a roll. Next week, we have a very special episode. So we've actually got a two-parter with a studio talking about two separate IPs. One of the most... influential studios in video games and it's coming right here to Gone Gold starting next week I can't wait to share it with you for those who are listening and have stayed with us throughout this episode thank you very much don't forget to give this episode a rating leave a comment and also be sure to check out our social media Gone Gold Show that's across Twitter or X whatever you're calling it these days Instagram and TikTok so make sure you go and follow like Like, subscribe, share, all that wonderful stuff. And I'll be back next week with a brand new episode. But until then, you know what to do. Keep it gone gold.
