Many of you will likely know prolific voiceover actress Julie Nathanson best for her work in the likes of Marvel's Avengers, Batman: The Long Halloween, and Suicide Squad: Hell to Pay, but she's now celebrating her 100th video game credit.
Nathanson has lent her voice to a huge number of iconic franchises over the years, including Call of Duty, World of Warcraft, Final Fantasy, Bayonetta, and Spider-Man. However, her 100th video game role is in Riot Games' League of Legends as Briar, the latest champion...and an absolute living weapon.
The deadly, yet endearing Briar is a unique Noxian in that her initial frenzied, blood-thirsty tendencies went far beyond the killing machine she was created to be - but after years under lock and key, she’s found a way to control her hunger and think beyond the next fight. Now she’s free and excited to figure out who's friend...and who's food.
We recently had the opportunity to discuss this standout role with Julie, learning more about her approach to voicing Briar, how it feels to have seen League of Legends fans embrace the character, and what it means to have racked up 100 video game credits.
We'll be sharing the second half of our conversation - which includes comments on Starfield, Spider-Man, Call of Duty, and Julie's favourite role - soon, but for now, you can hear more from the actor about her League of Legends work below.
Like a lot of people, I’ve been playing video games for as long as I remember, but to have 100 acting credits in this genre…how does that even feel?
It is one of those things where I had not been calculating on my own but once I realised it, I was pretty stunned. It’s kind of remarkable, not even necessarily to have reached the number 100 but just to have been so fortunate to have been part of so many exciting adventures and stories. I never really ever expected video games to become what they are but I’m so deeply invested and entrenched in this world now and it makes me so happy. I love being part of these interactive adventures.
Games take years longer than even animated projects to be released, so is it sometimes a little strange when you start getting feedback online for a role that, for you, is potentially dozens of projects ago?
[Laughs] Yeah, that is a really funny experience, especially when most of our projects are so secretive. Sometimes, I’m not even positive about what I’m working on until pretty far down the line. There was one very specific experience where something came out and I was credited and I thought, ‘What in the world was this?’ I had to check in with another member of the cast and we figured it out based on the codename together. It is a long journey but so much longer for the developers themselves. The developers are living with the story for years sometimes before we even come on board as voices. Then, it can be many, many months or sometimes years after that before the story comes to light. It is very exciting and, sometimes, I’m just sitting on my hands waiting for something to come out because I’m so excited and I get giddy when one of my projects becomes available for people.
Briar in League of Legends is, of course, the big 100th role for you and while she looks so cool in the character art and trailer, what can you tell us about who she is?
Briar is my 100th game role and she’s a fantastic character to me because I feel she embodies so many of the things that I love to be able to portray but so rarely get to do so in one character. She’s a new champion in League of Legends and she was created as a product of, hemomancy, also known as blood magic, and there’s a great line that she has which is, ‘I don’t lose control; I free myself from control.’ It’s such a great and perfect emblem of how she operates. She has this incredible hunger and if she breaks free from her pillory, she can perform a hunger spree. Otherwise, she’s restrained and really loves to make friends.
She’s incredibly curious about the world and my experience voicing her was, for me, extra exciting because not only did they write her with so many fun nuances, but they were more than happy to have me continue to find more humour in her. They’d written her with so much humour and that’s always a blast for me. It was in the recordings that I started laughing hysterically myself.
She has this uncontrollable blood lust and needs this pillory to help focus her mind but can unleash herself when necessary and when she chooses which I also think is pretty cool. She’s a wonderful combination of all the things I love to voice; she’s fun, frenetic, energetic, curious and friendly but also completely bloodthirsty and can do a lot of damage! Those are all things I rarely have the opportunity to play in one character but it’s a really good example of why I fell in love with voiceover in the first place. I certainly would not have been a person in my in-camera career who would have been seen as such a vibrant entity [Laughs] or to play a character with so many different facets to her personality.
This is a character who, when she’s unleashed, is just a force of nature, so are those days in the recording both with the efforts and action more fun or more challenging for you as a performer?
Oh, it’s really fun. I’m really physical when I do any of my voice acting to begin with, sometimes to a fault. I have flailed my arms into my own equipment in my home studio because I find that the equipment is part of the performance [Laughs] and with Briar, that was absolutely true. I was mimicking what I felt would be her movements as I needed to have that physicality dictate where her voice would go. To me, that physicality is sometimes the last thing that clicks into place because, for me, the character has to be present first.
The character was so perfectly written, I vibed with this energetic, frenetic, friendly, wild state and then, of course, unleashed her full power. I had fun embodying her with my own body first. So, yes, I found those sessions to be incredibly exciting and I rarely feel like, ‘Boy, this is a tough thing to have to do’ in terms of the emotional and psychological state of my work. I love what I do. So, any time I get to go into the booth and play, I love it, but when I get to play with this kind of character and have this sort of experience, it’s…incredible.
League of Legends has a massive, very passionate fanbase, so is it exciting to now think about the cosplay, fan art, and all the kinds of things that are now bound to follow?
100%. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a character that I’ve had the good fortune to portray inspire so much fan art so quickly upon release of her character art. I started seeing hundreds of incredible pieces of art inspired by Briar and I can’t keep up with it! I do try. I do search for the art because I’m fascinated by it. I can’t draw a stick figure. My stick figures look like dancing chickens [Laughs]. I have zero visual art skills. I am amazed by the artwork that’s been generated. I love to follow the #ArtOfLegends hashtag to see what people are creating, but it’s also been really fun to see people’s response to her in general.
She is a fun character. To be totally honest, I have wanted to be part of the League of Legends world for quite a while. I think the Champions are really amazing characters, but I’ve also been fascinated by the art and community. To be able to play a character who draws this kind of response is a beautiful thing and to then give her a voice and have as much as fun as I’ve had is an added bonus.