Live Magazine June Edition - Spider-Man!

YOUR INTERVIEW SAY
A SUPA INTER
Paul: With big thanks to Supanova
Melbourne, I’m sitting here with a
man who is described in the book
as “the nearest thing the games
industry has to a bonafide leading
man.” How do you explain that, Nolan
North?
Nolan: Ugh... I didn’t write it. Haha,
that’s the best way to explain it.
Nah, I’ve been privileged to get
some pretty cool roles... I mean,
haha, that’s a bit embarrassing to
be honest with you, but... I’ll take it.
Why not?
Paul: You’ve been Nathan Drake in
Uncharted, the Prince in Prince of
Persia. You’ve been Deadpool!
Nolan: Yes, I am all 3. This one, this
one and this one (Nolan impersonates
each of the 3 characters). So
yeah, all of those. Prince of Persia’s
kinda odd though because, I don’t
get the a lot when people bring it
up, because it was funny.
A friend for mine, Yuri Lowenthal
was the first, then it went to another
friend of mine, Robin Atkin Downes
for the next one, then it went back
to Yuri Lowenthal, then I did it, then
it went back to Yuri, so I don’t know
if they’re toying with Yuri Lowenthal.
Paul: Sounds like it.
Nolan: But it was nice to be able
to do that, although I don’t think he
should have sounded like he was
from Iowa. I wanted to do some exotic
voice but the carpet’s this thick
and that accent’s a little silly.
Paul: Now you started as a journalist.
You changed careers and become
an actor. Did you ever see
yourself becoming predominately a
voice actor?
Nolan: No, you know, I never really...
that wasn’t something that I necessarily
aspired to. I think an actor is
nothing more than any other independent
contractor, and I take the
work that is available and is interesting
to me at this point. You’ll never
meet a plumber who only works
on toilets, you know. It’s like “I’ll fix
do sink, I’ll fix the pipes”, so um.
Yeah, you know, I think it’s funny. I
don’t consider myself a voice actor.
I’m just an actor, and I’ve done live
theatre, so it’s the same if it’s a microphone
or if it’s a camera. My job
is to just to deliver performance and
it’s been great, and the one thing
I’d say about voice acting is when
you’re on camera you’re limited to
what you look like, and this is it. With
voice acting in animation or games
I can be anyone, any colour, anything.
I’ve played a viking beaver.
Not a lot of people can say that!
Paul: True. It also gets you friends in
high places. JJ Abrams had you in
a Star Trek movie because he was
a fan of Uncharted. What was that
like?
Nolan: That was a bit bizarre. I was
doing another job and he realised...
somebody had mentioned Uncharted
and he just went off that
he was a huge fan, and we called
his son and left him a message,
and he said “boy I really owe you.
Thankyou so much”, and I said “Well
yeah, just put me on the Enterprise
on you’re next go ‘round” and he
just flat out goes “hey, you wanna
do it? You wanna be in the movie?”
And I thought... you know, it’s one of
those things where you think “Really?”
I said “well, I’ll audition” and
he goes “nah, nah. I know you can
act. Yeah, you wanna do it?” and it
was just like that, so it was brilliant.
It was a wonderful time. One line
made it through, but I actually had
some fans here at Supanova bring
up Star Trek stuff for me to sign,
right next to Peter Weller’s name,
which is pretty interesting cos he
was my captain in that movie.
Paul: Now, the last question we’ve
got. Motion capture and voice acting
vs stage, TV and movie acting.
How do you approach each of
those?
Nolan: Again, I think an actor’s job
is just to deliver performance, no
matter the medium. You know, motion
capture, performance capture,
whatever you want to call it, it’s as
close to theatre as possible. Some-