A popular voice from Baldur’s Gate 3 can also be heard in Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 in a leading role. For the devs, she was the right choice within seconds.
Which voice actress is it? Jennifer English is far from a stranger in the circles of voice actors and is known for her roles in Elden Ring as Latenna and as Leya in Divinity: Original Sin II.
She is especially famous for her role as Shadowheart in Baldur’s Gate 3 and has since been deeply rooted in the hearts of many fans. There, she not only learned to love her competition, but also gave her voice a larger platform.
All the more entertaining is the fact that English came to her role in the celebrated role-playing game Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, as the developers apparently did not recognize her during auditions, as the voice actress explains in a livestream via YouTube.
“They didn’t know our names”
Whom does Jennifer English voice in Clair Obscur? So English got the role of Maelle, a 16-year-old who accompanies the Expedition 33 on her arduous journey against the painter and is thus one of the main characters of the game.
How did she get the role in Clair Obscur? To find suitable voice actors for their characters, Sandfall Interactive used so-called “blind auditions”. Accordingly, the studio received numerous voice samples and decided solely based on the sound of the voice. They had neither names nor pictures or resumes of the applicants.
Jennifer English is sure that the devs played Baldur’s Gate 3, but still did not recognize her. They were all the more surprised when they found out whom they had cast. Jennifer Svedberg-Yen, the narrative director of Clair Obscur, merely told her that she would have known within seconds that she was the right one.
It was similar with another well-known colleague you might also know from other games.
But even though they had cast two real talents in Jennifer English and her colleague, both had some trouble with certain words. This was mainly because it was particularly difficult for them to pronounce them: 2 words that you constantly hear in online games are too difficult for the voice actors from Clair Obscur
