Kinda Funny Gamescast: Video Game Podcast - Persona 4 Golden Changed My Life - Kinda Funny Gamescast Special

Episode Date: April 13, 2015

Chie herself -- Erin Fitzgerald -- stops by for a special podcast that covers everything from Persona 5 to meditation to the portrayal of women in Japanese games. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What's up everybody? Welcome to the Kind of Funny Gamescast Presents persona 4, Change My Life! I'm one of your host, Greg Miller, alongside Aaron Fitzgerald. Good morning. I'm clapping too.

Chia, you're clapping for yourself. Oh, yeah. Well, I'm clapping for the show. Kind of funny, because I think this is brilliant, and I'm so proud of you. Congratulations. Thank you. Yeah, this is the first time

you've been around the new biz. We, of course, hung out of IG in a bunch of times. Now you're here. For the uninitiated, Aaron Fitzgerald, Chi, Chiae and Persona for Golden. You've got to eat more meat. Don't think. Feel.

Now say that you love. me. I love you, Greg. Oh my God. It's so good. Whatever. Geez. Don't be so creepy about it. See, that's why I picked her, everybody. That's why she was my girl in the game. Y'all. That's because the meat, the kicks, tomboyness. What's-a-huh.

That's what you mean. You missed a lot of kicks in my game, though. That was upsetting. I'm so sorry. So I just played it off in my head that I didn't put you in the party because they cared about you so much. But in reality, you just missed your kicks all the time. I couldn't deal with them. It's not my fault if you suck playing me. You know, there's nothing for me to do, and it's turn-based. You just go and I say, Anyways, we're getting on track. This is something new for the best friends there watching. The idea here is that I missed interviewing people.

So when cool, fascinating people come to town, I want to try interviewing them in a long-form podcast where we just talk about everything and who they are. No topics, no agenda, nothing like that, is just talking to somebody who's awesome like Aaron Fitzgerald. And I am always happy to talk to someone who's awesome like you. Oh, come on now. No, no, really.

I really enjoy talking with you. Thank you. Yeah, I really do. I like you too. Oh, good. I'm glad. Yeah. I like your lady friend too.

your boyfriend, out they? Yeah. Then they're having a chat. They are too. They're having their own interview. It's one of those things where it's rare that like I like people. It's rare that then I like people and Christine likes them. Damn, human.

It's where that they like Christine and me. But it's, this is the first time ever a guest who we enjoy has brought their significant other, who we enjoy, who have also brought their dogs. So Bartillo has somebody to hang out with. Yes. Yeah. So we've got matching people for everybody. But you're over here, aren't your puppy?

Yeah. Well, Portie's used to. Portie's got to be on camera. If we don't, if he's not on camera. or on the audio even, people freak out. We'll get Chessie later. So to kick all this off, what I want to know is,

did persona change your life? Because I put that title on this without talking to you. No, I like that. Okay. Because it changed mine. I thought that could be my out, but it's got to have done something to you. Well, I feel like what it's done for me,

this may be crazy, is more spiritual than anything else. Like, I feel what Chia did for me as an actress was she's the first character that I got to do long term. You know, like, I've done characters for cartoon series long term, but there was never any character development, really. You know what I mean? Like, it's a cartoon cartoon. So, like, Naz never really changed except for turning into a cheerleader from Ed and Eddie. And that pissed me off because I thought for sure he'd make her into a skateboarder. But then he just, Danny was like,

let's make her a cheerleader because I need to get through these stories from when I was in school. I'm like, damn it. That's not character development. This isn't canon. Right. But she, I feel actually had a lot over the games, over the anime, everything. She has character development and like the stuff that she was working out, you know, personal development-wise. Sure. The stuff that I've been working out, personal development-wise, it was a really good match. So now you say that and what do you mean? You mean like the tomboy trying to deal with love, trying to deal with that?

Well, they're always trying to kind of like I might have a little bit of control issues of trying to fix things and make things good for the people that I love. Sure. And I might overcompensate a little in that area of like, let's just make everything. okay you know and and I do have a little bit of that um come here go away thing like yeah yeah yeah yeah I love you I love you don't get too close kind of thing like with my really close people there is some you know the old always that fear of loss kind of right sure sure sure so I feel like there's so much badassness and and her sense of humor is my sense of humor and I was so grateful to you and um and Val for really just letting me be myself and put all of me into Chi A and like

We were, I know, I'm pretty sure I'm allowed to say that we're finishing up the persona dance. Oh yeah, yeah, dancing all night. Which is so, like, to me, I'm like, this could be the last time. Impossible. You never know. You never know. Sure. But this is where we're, I feel like we're coming, now that persona 5 is coming close.

Yeah. I'm like, what if they never revisit for again? Like, I'm starting to feel like I need to prepare myself emotionally. Persona 5 will come out and then they'll do another mashup fighting game, dancing game, whatever way you'll be bad. I would love for ChiA to make it into Smash Brothers. Like that would be brilliant But I don't know if that would ever happen You know I I

But that's not crazy I guess now that like Atlas is owned by Sega And Sega has already got Sonic and stuff in there Like you never know Crazier things have happened The world is you just never know But I just because I love Like when I as soon as I get in behind the mic

And I'm and I'm her again There's this freedom This relaxation There's this Just joy of being her That I just I feel so good to be Chi, like that, that is life-changing because I've never gotten to get, I've never gotten to have the time to fall as deeply in love with the character. And I love all of my characters. Like, I love them. But with Chi-A, it's like a love affair. Because every time I get to go back and I get to put her on again, we get, it's very intimate to be Chi-A for me. It's very, is that something that doesn't happen with all of your characters? It does, but it's only for a short period of time. So it's like, it's the difference between dating someone for a week and dating someone for a few years.

Gotcha. Yeah. That makes sense. You can really have a strong connection with someone for a week and it could be in a wild, amazing ride with them for a week. But for a few years you go through ups and downs. You have the good and the bad. Yeah, yeah.

Like there was, with Persona Q, which was such a genius game, there was so much, like, we'd never explored Chey being terrified before. And I'm like, I was really,

I was annoyed with them. I'm like, why does she have to be scared of every? Like, I was really annoyed with it. And then we went to such a place of, actually like when I was recording it, I was freaking myself out. Like I was in a really, I was freaking out.

Like I was acting. I felt I really was feeling super scared. And I didn't like feeling super scared as Chi-A. Yeah. I didn't like that's your empowering character. Yeah. So I, that was like such an interesting psychological thing for me. I'm like, isn't that interesting that I don't, I didn't want to show Chi-A that side of Chi-A.

Sure. But I had to. So I had to go there all the way. But it was so, it was so, I felt like I was in very, as Chiae and as Aaron. Like, oh, I don't want anyone to know. I'm terrified of these. It was crazy.

That was really interesting. Like, that kind of stuff. I don't get that with any of the other parts I've ever played. I don't get that kind of, I mean, there's some, like, getting to be Urell in the World of Warcraft new expansion pack, that character is amazing. And I've really enjoyed playing her, like that journey from, like, acolyte to leader. And that brings out a whole other side of my own life experience that I find really beautiful. and deep, but I don't get to spend as much time as her.

Sure. And I would love to spend, like, months as her and be, like, get really, really deep with her. And I feel like that character I could fall deeply, deeply, madly in love with even more. But I'm never going to get that kind of time with her. Sure. Not like I do with Chi-A. And I feel like I may never get another character like Chi-A in this lifetime.

And if I don't, that's okay because I got to have her. Right. I got to be her. And I feel like out of all of my characters and my attachments to, obviously. Yeah, I was going to say you don't dress like every one of your other characters. No, I don't. I don't. I have like, no.

She's the one that I'm like, oh, I'm so attached to her. Sure. I'm so attached. But I mean, see, that's what's fascinating. Which is life-changing to be attached to something like that. Exactly. But that even said about like, what's fascinating about persona is that it works for you behind the mic and it works for the gamer that way as well.

Like in the same- Now, that's interesting. I would like to hear more about that place. In the same breath of what you're saying, right, is like, you know it's life changing for you or whatever and I was like it's life changer for me right in the same breath right

I play tons of video games right the amount of video game swag I buy based on a video game isn't that much you know what I mean like you look at my room and I have a bunch of infamous stuff and I have a bunch of gone home stuff

it's more Superman guys well that's not a video game thing he's struggled except for DC Universe Online of course oh it's not up the best except for DC Universe Online of course the best MMO of all time I'm a big DC fan

DC Universe Online No, no, no. Oh, my God. If I get sucked into a video game, I'm in trouble. My life is over. 600 hours into this one. Oh, that's brilliant. I love that you.

It's something. That's something you can call it. But that's the thing is like, not only does it resonate for me to buy all this stuff and talk about it all the time. It's the other gamers that it's resonated with, right? Like you. That's amazing to me. And you can't predict something like that. You just don't know.

No, that's the thing. And I remember, it's funny to watch the differences of it because there was a, call Moriarty, of course, co-founder here of kind of funny. He always kicks around this. Hashtag, Coln was right, BS garbage. And basically it's that he knows I love him. It's basically that he saw a game first and he told the world that was great and the world didn't believe him or whatever. Damn the world!

And I remember when I saw a persona 4 Golden for the first time, and I was a big persona 3 fan. Prona 3 is the one that really struck for me, hit it off. And I was like, oh, yeah, I'm into this. I like where this is going. But when I saw Golden, I remember writing about how excited I was and then being on a game scoop where Damon asked me like what my favorite, what game I was most anticipating this year was.

And everybody's thrown away AAA games or something big. big, right? And I was like, I can't wait for persona for golden. And he was like, that's such a weird pick for you. I didn't expect that. Da-da-da-da-da. And then when it hit, everyone slowly began to understand. You know what I mean? And now you look out and you see, like, we've talked about it. And it's still growing. Sure. Like, that's fascinating to me that people. No, it's, that dog's head. He's in the way. That's okay, baby. It's okay. Dog's pushing you farther off the mic. It's not okay, Portillo. You're a stronger podcaster than this.

Here, let's put it over here. Let's put it. Oh, it does that baby. Oh, you're so cute. You're switch it this way. There we go. There we go. He's like, that's not how I wanted it. Because like I'm fascinating when people are tweeting me, I just finished Golden for the first time. And that still goes on. And I'm always like, I'm so excited for you.

Not a day goes by that I don't get somebody tweeting me yet about persona. And it's because like a number, you know, we're not trying to be jerks about it. We're probably the biggest advocates. Or we're the loudest advocates for the Vita. We have the people talking about the Vita with the biggest audience about the Vita. And when we say that, we say by persona.

And like, I think. Although I do, I did get the Persona Q Nintendo 3DS with the case in M. I got all the Q gear. I saw it and I wanted to buy that one because I needed to upgrade. Yeah. But then we were getting so close to that dual stick one, the other stick one. Oh, yeah. So I bought, I waited for the new.

And now I have it. I just wanted everything Persona Q for the rest of my life. And I wish they would come out with an animated series just for the Q because it is so. No, but it's so cute. It was so cute. Even though it was just, oh, I love that animation. Now here's what's interesting about Persona Q. Okay.

Is that I feel like they mismarketed it. Okay. Because me being the Vita, Persona 4, Golden fanboy guy, right? Like when it came out in Atlanta with the Shadows, I, and now granted, I try to avoid lots of information on games because I know I'm going to eventually play them,

so I don't want to be, you know, bored out of my mind. I didn't realize it was going to be so persona for focused. When I got the new DS, and that was the first thing I popped in, or downloaded and played. And I started playing it,

and I was like, holy shit, like this is just picking up, or not even picking up, it's like a splinter off in the timeline or whatever. Yes. And I was like, this is awesome.

Now, I didn't like the first person dungeon crawling part of it. Okay. Just because, you're not the first person. person I've heard that from. The problem I think is just the fact that I've played, you know, however long

persona three was the first time around a PS2, then on PSP, then persona four, a little bit on PS2, then golden for however many hours. So like I know what a persona game should look and feel like. And so to run around and first person, I was like, eh, but like I wanted to keep playing to get to the next story section. I wanted to see what was happening with everybody, you know, to have Conjee back, to have new stories with GA to have all these different experiences. I was down for it, right?

Like that was the weird thing about it. So what is it? I feel like the writers just nailed it with the different personalities of the characters and they just nailed it with that identifiable ability. Like everybody has someone that they love within the cast. Yeah. You know, like I find that it's so rare that type of a thing. Well, it's so rare because, like, you figure what persona has going for it

and what, you know, JRPGs have going for it when you sit there is the fact that you are investing in knowing and expecting a hundred hour experience, expecting 60 hours, expecting to get, it's, it's, what I was talking about when I was talk about when I talk about like uh this is a walk but come we'll get back to where we're going no problem i was when I talk about Superman yeah I always talk about the best live action Superman in my lifetime in probably of all time is smallville and I say that knowing that there are dozens if not a hundred episodes of smallville that are utter trash that are just worthless you know freak of the week we needed to get somewhere but the fact that you got to spend so much time with Clark and with Lana and Pete and

exactly you know these characters in side and out in a way that when I watch a two-hour movie, I leave offended by Amy Adams' portrayal of Lois Lane and feel that I have to text Erica Durant to be like, you are not text, I'm sorry, Twitter. I don't have Eric Durrance, the cell phone, everybody. Twitter and say, you're the best Lois. You know what I mean? You need to know that.

Isn't that that. That is so interesting. And so really, you're basically telling me your experience is exactly the same as my experience, just different side of the coin. It's that time investment. Yeah. Well, that's what I'm driving back is the thing to with persona and why the game resonates. I think in the way it does, right?

It's the fact that people get to know these characters so well. You know what I mean? Like, even finishing persona and you start tearing up or like when you get there and like when you max out your social link and Yoseke is talking about like when you first met, you have like a legitimate, oh right. When I first met you, you were kind of dushy and I didn't know what was happening. And then you were kind of dushy Yosekay. You're just saying.

You think back to Kanzi and you're like, oh, right, we thought you were a bully and all these other. And like you realize that you've actually learned something about these people. And it's like, wow, that's crazy. I just got goosebumps all over my whole body from that. That's kind of amazing. That's what I do to girls. Yeah.

No, it's just the power of storytelling in games. And that's what it's so hard to make people understand when I sit here and I, or not here, obviously, with the best friends, they understand. But when I go out and I talk somewhere and I talk about the power of video games and what they can do to you, and people don't understand that because they haven't had that connection, right? Well, I mean, like, there's a title I've been with since the beginning called Hyper Dimension Neptunia. I know that one. And when we first started that one, no one thought, like, I feel like we've recorded 12 games. I'm probably over exaggerating. But there's so many games that's come out in that series.

And I never, like, it was so wacky and funny. And, like, I was peeing myself recording it because it was so off the wall. You guys know who played it. It's so funny. It's so fan service-based in terms of being ridiculous. And for gamers, it's a gamer's game kind of a thing. I really enjoy it. And J-R-PG, of course.

Yeah, it's a JRP game. Yeah, it's a JRP. Yeah. And I didn't think those characters would really have character development because they feel very stock to me. But even because they keep doing like alternate dimensions and you get to see other sides of like what if, what if noir was in this dimension and she had, she was colder.

Like that is fascinating. Like when do you get to act that stuff? Like that is just amazing to me. And then to have the games blow up. Yeah. As big as they get, like, never would have predicted. Because I've worked on stuff that I thought, this is going to be huge. This is genius.

And then, like, four people know about it. Right, right, right. You know, those are the ones where they come up and they go ask from our autograph. I'm like, you know about this game. Thank you. What Conn and I keep talking about is the fact that persona 5 is going to be a juggernaut. And so many people are sleeping on it. But it's like, for me, like, I go back to when Jeff Haynes handed me Persona 3 for the first time.

I was like, you have to play this. And I played it. I was like, this is awesome. And I'm not a JRP player generally. You know what I mean? Yeah. I always need for video games something very specific. I need common ground.

I need to be able to hook in. It doesn't work unless I, like, what works for persona is you are a student in a school, something's happening. And like, I know that. I know the student part and I know the school part. So that works for me, that clicks. You know what I mean? Yeah.

And so looking to, like, you saw what happened when persona 3 came out. I was like, this is great. Why are more people playing it? It comes to PSP, more people play it. Right. You know, Persona 4 came out at the end of the PS2's life cycle. Not as many people played it, but Jeff was like, it's great. Then Golden hits.

and there's a vacuum on Vita really, right? There's not that many games on that caliber. So everybody plays it if you have a Vita. And now it's all set so when Persona 5 comes, everybody who knows about persona is going to buy it and then talk about it. And what's the people talking about it? And crazy thing, I'm excited about Persona 5,

and there's a really good chance I'm not in it. Incorrect. Well, you guys would have to let Atlas know you would want me to be in it one way or the other. Well, for sure do that. Is it Atlas USA? I forget there too. Yeah, I think it's at Atlas USA.

Kevin, find out Atlas's Twitter. We'll yell at them about this. Well, they don't know either yet. Like, they don't know anything. Because I was talking to someone from Atlas and I'm like, how do I get into P5? Yeah. And she was like, I really don't know anything at this point. Oh my God.

Don't you love that you don't know anything and it's only going to be your biggest title ever? It's at Atlas USA. Tweet that you want at Aaron Fitzgerald in the game. Kevin will put up a little thing here that'll say all this information for you to put. The thing about it, though, is you're going to be in it. You never know. I don't want to get my hopes up and be seriously disappointed. But I do, whether I'm in it or not, I'm going to solidly support whoever's in it.

Sure. Because I feel like that title is only going to take, I feel like what persona has done for games, period, has taken it to another level of what a quality that fans demand. You know what I mean? Like, look, we could do fighting games and have story and characters. We can do anything. Sure, sure, sure, sure. There are no rules.

Well, what Atlas is great at. Now, this is two conversations. So let's stick with it. What's going to happen is you're going to be in this game. Because you have the Atlas approval already. If you didn't know everybody out there, I've interviewed a lot of these voice actors. And what happens is it's all incestuous. It's all nepotism.

Like you meet Troy Baker, then you meet Travis Willingham, then you meet Laura Bailey, then you meet Damien Clark. And you all came from Texas and you're all in each other's games. Interesting. And they keep getting picked and done. And you are the same way now. Persona 4 Golden, every time she has gone on since then, then you're in Catherine as well. Like it's...

Dragon's dogma. Atlas has looked at you and been like, oh, we like her. We'll use her in other things. Yeah, they have, but they don't use me in everything. Like, they have a ton of titles that I'm not in. But they're big ones, they're big budget ones. Carol's got to come. Well, I, yeah, and I, but I'm grateful for the work they have given me.

I don't want to, and I think this is an actor's thing. You don't ever want to assume that you're going to continue working with a company because they may get, you may be oversaturated with your voice or they may not know the depth of your range and they may not know what else. They'll be like, oh, I don't know if we can use her again. You just never know. You never know. Oversaturation's a big problem.

Yeah, it can be. I remember this one kid named Troy Baker, and now he gets no jobs. He was in too many games. Wait a second. He's in everything still. He's still in everything. Yeah.

Well, that would be amazing. Yeah. Well, I think you're going to be there. I think you're going to approve. I may very, I have, there's one game title that's coming out, I think this year that I'm super excited.

It's not an Atlas game, but it's definitely. Lego dimensions. Oh my God. Rock band. I'm not in any Lego games. One day, one day. But I, there is a, yeah, I can't.

oh my god you'll guess and I won't be able to keep my face so stop don't guess don't guess because I'm super excited about it I'm super excited it's a big game to me it is I think it's huge yeah okay I'll guess off air okay so now back so that why I think you'll be there and while I think you why I also think you'll be there but also what Atlas and persona and these guys get right is the fact you mentioned earlier fan service yeah and the fact that what's amazing about what Atlas does and what Hypertonia does and all these different people and games and developers do, right, is that they are able to exist in a market right now that is either it's a AAA, it took four years, it's, you can see the pourers on their face, or it's an indie game and it's two guys in their garage,

right? The middle has fallen out for the most part. But what you find is that Atlas in particular is great at targeting their games to their audience and being like, we only need to sell 50, 80,000 copies to be a huge success, right? And not only that, that. And there's such good people. Yeah. Oh, no.

I've never met a mean person. Like that's, but that's not, that's a rarity to have a whole company that's, you know, because a game, it's hard. That's a lot of work.

It's a lot of hours. And there's such good, hardworking, put their soul, their passion into it people. Yeah. Because I've worked with companies that, not so much where there's,

it's a negative energy surrounding that company. And I feel for all of the people who have to work at a company that's negative all the time because that's got a wear on. you. I mean, some companies are genius that making it, making, helping their staff grow, and some aren't, and Atlas is one of the stellar ones for sure. Yeah, and

it's just that they know what their audience demands, they know how to hit on it, they know that they can make a game sell not millions of copies. Right. You know, I'm sure they hope they do and everything else, but they can make toys and they can do this and they can go, yeah, exactly, well, yeah, I mean, when you talk about a brand new persona game. Well, this is

available on Atlas USA, this Chi A T-shirt. Like, I'm, I was super proud of them when they started doing merchandise because, you know, there's been so many fan merch stuff, which I also, I personally support, but that, you know, I can't, you know, Atlas can't do that. Sure, they can't direct somebody else. No, no. These guys are using RIP to make money. Go give them some money.

Like, wouldn't that be great if we had some money to make our next game? Yeah. You know, these voice actors aren't cheap. Yeah, exactly. So, we've talked about it's changed everything. Was, for Chi A, did you feel the bond with the character as soon as you read the first script? Did it come? The day I walked in, and I think I've told, you might have heard this before.

I apologize if you have. I didn't audition for Chi A. The original actress, Tracy Rooney was unable to return to continue the role. Now, is that a turn on? Does that, is that weird when that happens? Is that bad blood? Super weird. Super awkward.

She knew about it, though. When a company does it right when the actress knows, well, it was kind of, it was her choice. So, well, maybe I don't know the ins and outs. I wasn't there. You're not her, yeah. Yeah, and I wasn't there. I don't know the ins and outs. But I know that she was fully aware that they were going to do this and they communicated.

So it was up and up. And to me, that's legit. It's happened to me so many times where I've been replaced or I've come in to replace someone and neither the actors are being told that that's what's happening. And then you find out and it's your friend one way or the other. And that person's like, I just found out. Or I just. It's just so awkward and so awful.

So is that easy when that, and we're going to get to your story about how you did this. Shut up. Is it easy for like when you got, so your friend replaces you, you replace your friend. Is it easy? I mean, it's obviously hard and awkward to talk to him, but there's no, you guys don't take it personally, right? You know it's a company that did this. We are very, I am so much better now. As soon as I get an inkling that I'm replacing someone, I text them immediately if it's someone I know.

Gotcha. I say, just so you know, I'm being brought in for this. Are you aware, has the company told you that you were being recast? I would say 80% of the time the person doesn't know. And I don't get that. I have not received that courtesy. My friends who take over my roles, don't text me to tell me,

oh, by the way, we took over your role. You've been recast. Jerks. You have bad friends. Well, it's that fear. It's that fear of awkwardness. I don't have that fear of awkwardness. I'm a very blunt person like Chi A.

So I'm like, this is a wrong. I got to make it right. I got to call the police. I'm going to be the detective and find out what's going. on you know so I do and then we find out where in the company it happened and who did it and how shady it went down just so we know more about that company because if I'm going to take a job from that company again I need to be aware of how disrespectful they are to the actor sure because that says a lot about that company to me that and then I get to pick and choose the companies I'd

rather work for so I know I'm like well if that company offers me a job if I have nothing else going on, I'll take it. But I, I'm, part of me is like, well, they don't honor actors. And, and if you don't honor the actor and that part of the process to me, then you're not honoring your product either. And if you're not honoring the product, then you're not honoring the audience who is paying their hard earned money for that product. Yeah. So how you do anything is how you do everything in my opinion. You know what I mean? Like from, from somebody who makes you your coffee in the morning how you treat that person, how you treat a puppy, how you treat the universe. And I'm really getting to that point in my career where I'm at that place where I don't want to work with people who aren't

in love with this job, who aren't in love with working with each other. You know what I mean? Yeah, no, totally. That makes sense. I love that. So when Trace, when I found out that I went in and it was, I, I, that was the first thing I asked, they're like, you're replacing another actress. This is the situation. She's unable to come and continue it. And Val Aram, who also is Naoto, she looked at Val 2000 or Val Aram 2000, I think is her Twitter. Um, something like that. Sure. Um, she, Google. Is it hard? She directs the games. She's the voice director as well. And she's notto. And she's Naoto. Damn. Yeah. She's amazing. So she brought me in cold without knowing anything about the character because she's known me long enough to know my personality and she's like

she turned to you the producer, exec producer, and said, I know Chia. So she just brought me in. And so I went in behind the mic. They have this beautiful recording booth at PCB productions. And I'm behind the mic and she's like, okay, this is who she is. Then they gave me a breakdown of Chiae, the character. and I just went right in to what I intuitively felt would be the description they told me. And they wanted her definitely they wanted her to sound like a teenager. That was one of the things they wanted to adjust from the previous chia. So I was directed to sound like a teenager because they didn't want me to try and imitate Tracy. They wanted me to have my own sound and be my own chiay.

And so to do that, you was like, let's have you sound like a teenager, you know. And yeah, granted, she's not necessarily, like, I could do a teenager that sounds like an actual teenager. That's not a problem. Like, not all teenagers have a cutesy voice. But she kind of, she just does. So shut up, right? Like, this is how she talks. Some people talk like this.

And I know because I saw a woman this weekend who was in her 50s. And she had a voice very similar to she. And I'm like, oh my God, it's real. That's a real thing. People have voices. So I really, I loved you totally gave the thumbs up right away. Like it wasn't even an, I went right into recording Golden. Like, boom, done.

Let's record this. This is exactly what we want. And the more I would, the more, she was, she's a visceral character. So I like, I take the layers off. I don't have my shoes on because I'm very physical as Chi A, because I'm always, and not just the battle stuff. Like she's just really excited about everything, you know? Oh my God, Yoski, you're so embarrassing.

You know, she's just very... Yeah. Chee. She's very Chi-E. There's energy. And everything she does, there's a lot of energy. Yes, she's so energetic. And it's so effortless for that energy to flow through me to be her.

I have so much fun being her. I just... She fires me up for the day when I'm done. I'm not even tired. I'm like, I could keep being Chi-A all day, and I can't say that for him. character. So here's my question then. So, and this is divergent a bit.

You come in, you know you're taking over for Tracy. Yeah. You're doing Chia. You fall in love with Chiae. Yeah. Is there concern on your part at any point Tracy's going to come back and be like, I can do the next game or the next thing or the next thing? Yes.

Well, also, I was aware. And I think it's more just an awareness. As much as I was falling in love with Chiae, I was aware this could go away at any time based on fan reaction. and I did not expect it to be a positive fan reaction. I assumed I was going to get crapped on because I knew my ChiA was not Tracy's ChiA. So anybody who fell in love with Tracy's ChiA

and went through that experience with her in P4 and really connected with that version of ChiA, I knew those people were never going to be my fans. And I was okay with that because I loved her. It really became that place of like, I had to get to a place with, within myself of I don't care what anybody else thinks. I love this character. I love her. So even if everybody hates her, I know I did something for me that made me happy and I love her. And so that,

that kind of like, which is what I think we're supposed to do with ourselves, right? Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like, I don't care what anybody else thinks. I'm doing the best version of me I can give. And if other people don't like it, I have to let that go because I'm proud of myself and I'm proud of what I do. and I'm proud of the kindnesses that I choose to show. And I'm always trying to be a better version of me. So when the people actually liked Chi-A, that was so surprise for me. I didn't, I expected to have,

because I have some amazing people who have been with me and like, we label them fans, but they're not, like, Benjamin Oscar, if you're watching, dude, I love you. He's been around since I was in Ed, Ed, Ed and Eddie. You know, like there are people that have just followed me as a fan of my work for a very long time. So I knew those people would be supportive. And to me, that's all that mattered.

It's like, you know what? I have a strong support base of humans that appreciate my work. And I'm just going to nuzzle in with them and be like, I did my best. You know, let's move on to the next thing. But I didn't expect ChiA to blow up like she did. Not my ChiA. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Not a clue.

Like how? Did you, was there a negative reaction? Was there people who came at you? I'm like, because I've never seen it personally, but it's also one of those things that. Oh, it's there. Golden's given so many new people this game. But it's the people who loved Tracy and they,

they're never, they were never mean towards me. They'll be like, I just preferred Tracy. Oh, sure. That doesn't, like, everybody was so respectful about it. And I'm respectful about it. I'm like, I don't, if you're a Tracy Rooney fan, then you should be a Tracy Rooney fan. She deserves her following and her Chi A,

and that needs to be recognized for anybody. who played P4 and, you know, fell in love with that. I think that's brilliant. And I think there's enough room and space in the universe. Right. To hold both realities. Well, that's the best part of like, yeah. Real criticism, right?

I love it when somebody tweets at you and like, you suck on this podcast and I hate you. You're like, oh, maybe I can't take criticism upon it's like, well, that was an attack. You're totally welcome to say, I love the new podcast beyond more than I did this because of X, Y, and it's like, great. I'm glad you're enjoying the content. I'm not personally offended by that. Right. It's when you're like, oh, these guys are awesome.

You sucked. And it's like, well, wait a second. That's not really a criticism. That's just being a dick. Yeah, exactly, exactly. Yeah. So now, you said something interesting there about you don't know what to call the fans. Like your close-knit group.

Yeah. Right? There's a certain group of people like Mark who came when I came to IGN. And like I don't know. I can't remember. I don't think maybe we talked about it on an afternoon briefly. But like this was one of the most special moments I've ever had somebody I brought to interview. because I was...

Mark, you get a shout out. I was talking about it on my show and this show and kind of funny, right? And I noticed when I was doing interviews when we broke away, like with real people, like at real sites. Right, right. They were recording, like this isn't interesting. That if you didn't know our content, it sounded like bullshit when I said we call our fans best friends. If you watch this content, if you listen to our shows, you're a best friend. I love that.

And I know what you're talking about. You get it. And they get it. And anybody listening to this gets it because, like, you're in the room with us for hours on the end. Yeah. You know everything that you know Partillo. you know Christine, you know what's happening in my life. And although I don't necessarily know that about you, when you interact with me and you meet me at an event.

It's the same thing. So many kids write in that they've got cancer, they're depressed, this, that, can I have it? And I try to give them everything I can because I do love these people. And like when I met you and you were hitting it off, I'm like, oh, she's a great voice actor. She gets what's happening. And we came down that elevator and the doors opened and we were walking to lunch. And there were Greg Atlas that are already there and a bunch of other up at noon people lined up. So many awesome people had already lined up to come see it.

stopped in your tracks and you saw Mark. Yeah. And you were like, baby. And you ran over and you hugged him. You talked to him. And like you had this incredibly heartwarming, genuine human moment where you're hugging this guy. And then you explained a little bit there. And then we left more.

You're like, I've never met him before. Like I know him through the internet. He follows my work. He does all this stuff. And that was our first time meeting. In person. And I only recognize him because of his picture on social media. So stop being an egg on Twitter.

So I, yeah, yeah. Like, I would have never, like, he, and Mark, you were so sweet. You were just, you were so respectful. And you were sitting and you were waiting and your head was down and you saw me. And you didn't, you didn't say, hey, Aaron, it's me, Mark. You were just like, oh, there's Aaron. I'm just going to sit here. And I don't even know.

And I looked at you and then I looked away and then I went, roo. I'm like, I know that face. And I'm like, Mark. And he had tweeted me that he was going to come. So I knew he was going to come. Sure. But to get to see him. And after years, like Mark and I have been communicating for years on the interwebs over all of my roles and parts and stuff.

Like he's been such as huge supporter of me, which has helped me in my career because with the support, I have the courage to go boldly into new auditions for parts that might part of me is like, you're not good enough. You don't have the talent. You're never going to book something like that. But it's the support of the fans that go, well, maybe I could. Maybe I could. And I think that's how I ended up booking Yarel in World of Warcraft was because I felt that

because of Chia, I've got this huge group of support of people saying, you can do anything. I'm like, I can. That's amazing. So seeing Mark was like, it felt like a reunion. Yeah, no. It always felt like a genuine like, I can't believe we're finally touching in human form. You're real. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

It's so cool. Yeah, I mean, that's that real shit. That's that real moment. You know what I mean? Yeah. And I love having that with our fans to see you do the exact same thing. I'm like, you get it. This is real. And I love going to a different place.

Like going to Newfoundland. Right. Oh my God. And I get to see. Like, I never think. Like there's so many international fans that I talk to regular. And I think in my imagination, I'm like, I'm never going to meet that person. Right.

That's so unlikely. They live so far away. And then I went to Newfoundland and I got to meet people I've been chatting with. I'm like, I can't believe you're here. This is happening. This is amazing. I'm just as excited as they are. Yeah.

Just as excited. And that's, yeah. That's the thing, man. That's what it's all about. Yeah. That's kindred spirit. You know what I mean? There's so many people who have no idea who follows them.

And not that I'm knocking these people. No, no. Different lives, different experiences. Right. Well, and also, if you have a busier life, I get it. Like, I mean, I watch, I mean, I'm, Jen Hale is one of my friends. And that woman, I don't know, understand how she gets everything that she gets accomplished in a day. She is, uh, she's like a superhero in real life.

No, Jennifer Hale is for sure. She's not there rock climbing. She's a horseback riding. She's got a child. She's got 12 side businesses plus the most stel. career in the universe and she gets it all fit in and in the day and I can honestly say I she's made time in her crazy schedule she's made time for me for like heart to heart chats I'm like how do you even have time for this conversation right I know I'm you're on the phone

in your car you're like I got 12 minutes let's talk I'm like this is this is crazy so someone at that level of busyness if if they're not getting like Troy Baker I'm sure is the same when you're that kind he's buying socks he is on a different schedule well buy socks whatever you're doing Take photos of socks. If they don't have that time, it's not because they don't love the fans. It's just that they just don't have that time. I have a lot more time on my hands. And I'm a little bit of an internet nerd.

I love the internet. I love the interwebs. And the last blog post I wrote was your interview last March. I have not updated my own website. And I am a web nerd in a year because I've been so busy. Well, no, you just perfected it. You hit, and you're like, it's never get bad. It's never going to get better this is.

Best blog posts I've ever written. Well, this will be the next one. Oh, you go. Yeah, definitely. Then we just change it to Aaron and Greg's blog. Because Greg's not on IGN anymore. He's got his new show. Let's promote that.

Exactly, exactly. But that's the interesting. Like, I had finally had a year where I was like, oh, this is why they don't have the time. Right. Right, right, right, right. Well, and that's the thing I was telling you earlier. You're asking me how the business is going. Business is going so incredibly well.

But it's just like now I have to apologize in every email. Because I'm like, I know you sent this 14 days ago. I'm so sorry. That's crazy, right? 14 days. Like, I'm now finding emails like months ago. I'm like, oh, my God, it's been months. I apologize to anyone I haven't gotten back to.

Exactly. When I see those ones, I'm just like, it's gone. I'm sorry. You'll hit me back up if it was that important. I'm sorry. But like that's the whole thing is just like there are only so many hours. And I always feel like I'm failing our Patreon fans. I always feel like I'm failing the kids on Facebook.

But there's only one of you. I know. And they get it. Everybody gets it. That's what the one thing that's blown me away about this enterprise is that, And now it's not The one thing that in the beginning blew me away Is that people weren't getting mad at us

Yeah When we'd miss, you know Something would go wrong We wouldn't upload the show on time There'd be a wrong show uploaded This would happen, that would happen People weren't mad They understood what's happening

You guys are awesome And that's what I was We always talk about here Colin always says And I know everybody watching's bored of this Is that you know We exchanged the reach of IGN For the intimacy

A kind of funny Yeah And that's the thing We called off all the fat You know what I mean But the people who were just trolls To be trolls And all these different stuff

Everybody here The hardcore, which I love, which I really love. And I feel like I've, the love where I am in my career, I've just, I've cultivated this amazing group of internet humans that I don't want to, I feel like it's a beautiful cultivation because I'm not surrounded by haters. Yeah. I don't get very many trolls every once in a while. It's such a rarity and I don't get a lot of negative feedback directly.

I get indirect stuff, which I'm always fascinated with when some. Somebody's like, hey, did you know that so-and-so said this horrible thing about you? I'm like, why would you pass that information on? Right, why would I want to know that? Yeah, yeah. Why would you tell me? Like, that doesn't make me like you any better because you rat it out some other person who purposely hasn't told me what they think because they don't want me to react to them. Because they're a coward.

Or what? It doesn't even matter. You know what? Everybody's allowed to have their opinion to me. Sure. It's just a flavor. Opinions are like flavor. Some people like chocolate.

Some people like vanilla. Not everybody likes chocolate and vanilla. You know, and that's okay. Yeah. And if they didn't, then it wouldn't be special. Right. Right. If everybody liked everything, it wouldn't be special.

Then you wouldn't have that intimate connection with your audience. Who gets us. Who gets you. It's such a special feeling. It's like having friends who get you. Because you're out in the world most of the time talking to strangers who don't get you. And you have to be like, I am a polite human to this other human and we sure don't talk the same language. But that's okay.

We're trying to get along in this world. But when you get to come back to this room, talk to your people, it feels kind of awesome. Well, yeah. I mean, they're the ones we're always trying to. to serve and not screw over. So that's funny when we indirectly screw them over about something. Everybody's super polite about it. Just, hey, this got messed up.

We're like, oh, so sorry, we'll fix it. But that's taking responsibility. That's real life and real relationships. It's like, I messed up. I apologize. And then the person says, oh, no problem, dude. I got you. I have some patience for this situation.

Right, right, right. You know, it's a real relationship. At least that's how I feel. Because it feels like my fans, we got hacked recently, the server. me, Cindy Robinson's website, KG Tangs and a couple of other that my man, he's been hosting and building. So it's his fault. It wasn't his fault.

He let in somebody in the back door. Somebody went into the main hosting company and put all this lines of code and just totally just took us down. And it was fans that told us. I didn't know because I hadn't visited my website in forever. And it was fans are like, hey, did you know your website's been hacked by somebody who's using this code? I'm like, no, I didn't.

And then so then I get back to Mel. And so Mel all week last week was dealing with that, trying to get all of our stuff back up. And I think it is. I think it is. You guys, I don't think the pictures are working, but feel free to go and test and examine.

Sure. But that's the kind of stuff. Like, that's the ups and the downs. And that's a relationship. Like somebody would take their time of their day to be like, hey, did you know this isn't working?

I would have never known. I was in for that kind of. The Dallas Fort Worth Airport making a connection to get to Missouri to speak at a, to speak at the university. And a fan was there. It was like, it was apology.

on Twitter, of course, and everything, wherever else we do anything. And he's like, hey, like, the episodes aren't up. Like, the full episodes aren't up because they usually go on Friday, and this is the middle of the week. And he was, like, the 15th person to do this. And I'm like, they are up. Here they are.

They're on the playlist. And he's, like, sending me screenshots and we're going back and forth. And finally I'm able to dig it out and figure out what's wrong. Wow. So many people have been, just, I can't find it. And we get that all the time where, where's the latest thing? And I'm like, here it is.

Thanks. And, like, this was one of them going a little bit deeper of, like, I can't find it. Here it is. Great. It's still not where I find videos. Where do you find videos? Because like for me,

the user experience of how you consume our content is foreign. I don't know. Is it through alerts? Is it on Patreon? Is it just by coming to our YouTube page? You're all back end. So for him to walk me through it, we figured out where the problem was.

And it's like, yes. Thank you. You know what I mean? Yes, I do know. Yeah, yeah,

yeah. That's amazing. We're lucky. We're lucky people. We really are. Now here's my question for you. And I don't, I don't need numbers.

here. Oh. I assume you're this full-time voice actress. Yeah. You make a good living. I don't, it doesn't suck. Okay. My question becomes this. How does, how, like, I understand through wrapping my head around YouTube ads and Patreon and this, how our fan base supports us, how our small fan base allows us to live an amazing life. Right. How does that work for you behind the mic? Like, do, when you're going for jobs, are people paying attention to how connected with your fans are? I don't think they give a crap. Okay. Maybe for other people, because I've seen, I've seen other people get jobs because of their social media, but their quality of talent isn't as high because they're maybe newer.

Sure. But they got the job because they have a ridiculously huge following. Right. I honestly don't know for myself, perhaps sometimes. Because you were talking about how they're supportive and they do all this awesome stuff for you. I didn't know if it goes one to one like that or if it's something else. If it's you just promoting that, I'm in this show, I'm in this thing. then they talk about it.

Yeah, I don't think my social media affects my booking ratio at all. I don't think anybody in the professional world for the caliber of jobs I'm now going for, they are not looking at my social media. Unfortunately, they're looking at IMDB, which is horrifically inaccurate. Wikipedia is very accurate, but IMDB is inaccurate. An important lesson for everybody to learn. I've tried, I tell people this on a one-by-one basis. Don't use IMDB.

IMDB is Wikipedia. If you have an account, you can go in and change things around and do things. But you can't. Not anymore. Oh, they've switched it. The way they do it now, which is so hard. They're basically, as far as I'm concerned, they're a website that forces actors to pay them a ridiculous amount of money

to have their headshot on because now the entire industry uses IMDB. But, like, say, as a voiceover actor, you don't get the name of your episodes. You don't get the, you don't get all the specific because you're in, you're out. To post it on AMD, you have to know exactly the number and name of the episodes. episode you have, there's so much information that you have to have that you don't have as the actor that you only have as the producer. And the producers aren't putting everything on IMDB. There's some stuff on my IMDB. That isn't me. I'm like, who put, that isn't me. There have been, there's IMDBs of like five different Aaron Fitzgeralds. All my credits, but they're on a different Aaron Fitzgerald account. They're all spread out. It's crazy messy. There are, there are, I am credited for every episode of a series because someone was too lazy to find out someone. I don't know. Someone was too lazy to find out which exact episode I was in that series,

which I wouldn't have a clue what episode it was because they never tell me. They never tell you. So then in the industry for casting agents stuff, how much are they looking at that or is it what I was talking about? A lot. It still is. It's not just word of mouth. No, it's a lot. Like they're looking at your credits through that,

which frustrates me because I'm like, that's not accurate. Yeah. And the dates aren't accurate because it's date of release, but not the date I worked at. Like something that just released over here and they have the Japanese release date instead of the American release date, which looks like it's a credit from five years ago. So it might look like, oh, in 2013, she only did five jobs,

but I did 27 or something. You know what I mean? That kind of, and they have the wrong birth date, and they won't take that birth date down. Like every actor, they put all these birth dates on without any verification, and people can't get them taken off, where I'm like, we have no control.

IMDB does not give us permission to go in and do anything. And I've called and harassed, and there's somebody who's got a lot of, suit against them and still harassed sounds like you're teepeeing their house there was a point where I would have I was so frustrated and so angry but that's why I don't have a photo on mine anymore because they were getting

like over $100 from me every year just to have a picture just to have a picture well that's no good well I feel like that's a little bit of a rip off no I'm at the shakedown site sure right right right you have to have to go to Wikipedia to support your actors because you can always take what's on IMDB and put it on Wikipedia and I can I can go over my Wikipedia in a glance and edit it. Well, the thing about Wikipedia, of course.

If something is wrong, I can fix it. You have your close-knit community that will be out there doing that for you. They are, actually. I really don't. And honestly, that's why I think my Wikipedia is so accurate, is because you guys are so good at keeping that stuff up to date. And I thank you, thank you for that. It's only every once in a while that somebody thinks I'm the voice of something.

I'm like, yeah, that wasn't me. No, not me at all. Not me at all. Not me at all. I put on Twitter, of course, as I often do. Why should I didn't bring my phone in? Because I don't want you on your phone. You don't get to.

I get to go on my phone. Oh, okay. You put questions for you. Okay. Oh, good. I have questions. I was logging out of my Chi-A Jackson. It's getting hot in here.

Sorry. I'm a little warm. Your man out there is loud. We had to shut the door. That's what did it. We did. So you can blame him. I don't want to be blamed.

It's because I have a man who has good conversation. He does. He knows what's up. He's out there and he's entertaining Christine. Like he's, like you said, he's bubbly. He's like you. He's a loud man like you. Yeah.

Well, you're a loud woman. Yeah, I'm a loud. I'm a loud. I'm definitely loud. Yeah. So here's speaking about what we're talking about here. Okay. Brian Artist Jackson tweets and says, it might be in, hold on, it was double.

With the importance of voice acting in video games increasing, do you feel your role in it might be in danger with celebrities coming in to do voices, all the key for suffer. Southerly. That's always, this is the thing. As an actor, there's way too much fear that we could live in on a constant basis. as a female actress and I don't like to use the term voice acting because I don't voice act to me I'm like

voice acting is that's like if I was an impressionist maybe that would be but for me I'm actually I'm an actor you know I can be I don't mind the term voice artist for some reason because I feel like that I have this vocal ability from my vocal cords that I inherited from my father that I have no control over which is why I can go from really really high

to really really low and I can do accents and all that crap I got it from my dad. But the whole, you know, wait. It's already different. Yeah, yeah. The whole celebrity thing, I kind of feel like we speak for ourselves. Because the television celebrities and they get hired usually by producers who just want to say that they worked with so-and-so. And that work goes out.

And then that actor either finds out very quickly that they're a good. actor using their voice, you know, just voice only, or they're a bad actor. Because what the performance, if you're on camera, it's very different from behind the mic. From behind the mic, it's a lot more theater-like because you're, you get to be a little bit bigger because you're using, on camera you're using your eyes. Everyone always says if you're doing on camera, it's all the acting happens here, which is why Merrill Streep is a genius. Like she has the ability to give you everything in the universe just right here.

We're all right here. Betty Davis, whole career, all right here. That's where the acting happens. So when we're on camera, I mean off camera, it's our whole body. It's a theater performance. We're performing with our whole body because we're getting across all sorts of stuff for an audience that may not be able to see us. Because, you know, in theater, it could be, you know, nosebleed seats to the back of the house.

You're playing to the back of the house. So it's kind of the same thing. So it's only the voice that is heard in the play. performance. And if you don't have a strong theater or comedic background, because I find that stand-up comedians and singers have already have that kind of natural ability, then what happens is someone's acting performance. If they're acting from their eyes, it doesn't translate through the sound of their voice. So they're giving you this performance behind a microphone, which doesn't work all the time. Somebody who is giving you the theater performance, which is a

character performance which takes your whole body. It's real full body acting, which you would never do on camera because you just would be fired unless you're Robin Williams. You know, like nobody's like, you're moving too much. The camera shit. Like I'm moving too much right now because I'm an animated person. That is why I do what I do for a living. So I don't, I'm not threatened by celebrities, but I'm annoyed.

Sure. That producers feel that they think that a celebrity is going to pull a bigger audience than an actual trained quote unquote voice actor sure acting is acting but not like what you're talking about you need to know everybody's got a different genre that they're really good at and the reason why you know rob paulson is rob paulson is right to the show yeah right like he's he's a genius what he does is genius his he could probably go on camera and make a killing but what he does when he when he's acting what he brings behind the microphone he's giving you What, I mean, I don't think that there is very many on-camera actors that would be as good as Rob Paulson.

Sure. His acting chops are unbelievable. They're so honed. He works so much all day. Like, he's not sitting in a trailer. When he's called into work, he's working those hours solid and he's booking job after job. So that's a lot of being on time, you know, like being on acting wise. There's just so much mastery behind that.

Not everybody is going to have that. Yeah. And I noticed the different. really as my chops keep getting better and I keep getting better at what I do, there's always another level. And I can feel the difference now very clearly when I'm in the room with someone like Rob and I'm like, I got to pull my sucks up just a hair. I'm like, ooh. Oh, I'm in over my head. I got to be in the room with John DiMaggio. Oh, yeah. That was one of those moments. And and getting to watch him do what he does and then I get to do what I'm like, I hope I don't

suck. And I don't know if I suck compared to him. I can't tell when I'm in the room with a big dog where I am on that ratio with the big dog. I'm like, do they know, do they think I'm a beginner or a greenie? How do I, how do they perceive me? I have no idea. But when I'm in with somebody who doesn't have the experience that I have, it's so loud to me. It's so clear and there's so much missing. It's like, it's like somebody who plays jazz, you know, and they're riffing. and they're just skipping over all the little, genius little things they could have put in. Sure.

And they didn't put it. It's just like, no, no, no, no. That's how someone who doesn't have the experience that I have sounds to me. So I can hear all of the inexperience. And I can hear all of the incredible experience from somebody spectacular. I'm just not sure I know where I am in that spectrum. I can't quite tell. Well, it's harder to nail yourself, right?

I know that I get the job done. It took me. It's like one of that was. Yeah, it's kind of easy to nail your stuff. Oh, yeah, it is. Hard to place yourself on a spectrum. Yeah, it is a little bit. I think you're fantastic.

Well, I feel like my confidence has gotten a lot better in the last three years. So, now, so this is interesting. So talk to me, we keep talking about where you are on the spectrum and what are these guys things. What is your career to this? Like, how does this start for you? Are you, how long have you been voice acting? Like, all these different. 20 years?

Okay. You make it sound when you talk about it, like, it's been a shorter run than that. But to me, it's a bit shorter run than that. But to me, it's, it's. It's a lifetime craft. Acting is a lifetime. It could take a lifetime to master it. A lifetime.

How did it start for you? When I was three, I memorized all the movies on the TV and would act them out to the 90-year-old neighbor. I had Wizard of Oz memorized. And I just learned this week from spending time with my family that I didn't just memorize the Wizard of Oz and perform it to the 90-year-old neighbor. Apparently, I gathered all the kids in the neighborhood,

taught them all the parts, and made them acted out with me. Nice. So my director skills were starting. I haven't used them much yet. Multifaceted. But I think maybe there might be a directing in my future. I don't know.

I have no idea. But that's kind of where it started. And so then it wasn't theater through high school and stuff like that? I was a drama nut. And it was really hard because I was living in cities that they weren't really theater-based cities. You know, they weren't artistically based. So it took a lot of discovery. Like I'm a perfect example for someone.

If you come from a town that you feel like has no, I have to be in L.A. You don't have to be in L.A. You can get your chops fantastic wherever you are. It's about showing up and just putting in the hours and practicing. Being a character actor was something I've always been. So I would be characters in local plays, in anything amateur, in drama camp. I would force my mother to put, anytime there was anything drama or theater related, I'd have to hunt it myself and go, Mom, please, please.

Because my parents were like, don't waste your time in that. Be a lawyer. Be a nurse or a teacher was the career they had chosen for me. So my whole life, they were like, yeah, you can do that on the side. But you're going to be a nurse or a teacher. But I kept doing it. I couldn't stop doing it all through school. You know, I was so annoyed one year in high school.

I was getting the drama award every year. And one year in high school, this student who was straight-A math student, which I failed every year. She got the drama award. She wasn't an actor. But I don't know. She got the drama word because she was straight A's

and she got a straight A in drama, which I also got an A. But for some reason, she got a high, and I don't know what it was. It's that bullshit of like, well, you got to spread it around. Right, right. Well, I literally, I was 16,

and I was like, Mr. Kennedy, who was my drama teacher. He was a great drama teacher, but I went up to him. I might need this for my career in the future. Why would you give an award to someone? who is never going to use the award or give a crap that she got it.

I was so annoyed. And the irony of that statement at 16, which sounds very egotistical in diva at the time, and it kind of was a little bit, was that when I started getting my stuff together to get my green card in the States, I needed everything. Really?

I had all of the drama awards and that one year was missing. And that feeling came back. I'm like, see, Mr. Kennedy, this is what I was talking about. I could have used it. US is like we really like this. Can we talk about a straight A student though? Right. What happened to the other strong student?

They needed to see that I was a professional in my industry. I had to prove I was a professional and I had to prove I was famous to get my green card. How long ago did you get your green card? I got it five years ago. Oh, okay. Five years ago. It was a very, it was a 10 year process. And I had to, which is crazy because in my head, I'm like, I'm not famous.

Like my characters are famous. Sure, I'm not. Nobody knows who I am. So I literally, and there's a ton of fans out there, you know. There was a point where on MySpace, when MySpace was the thing, I'm like, okay, fans, this is going to sound absurd, but I need fan letters and I need them to say things like this so I can apply for the green card. And everyone did it. Everyone sent me. Like, and I still have those letters, by the way, guys. Benjamin Oscar, yours is on the left of my booth when I record. So I have all of your letters helping me get to America and stay in America professionally in my sound booth because that was such a big deal to me because I needed, I just needed to prove that people from. around the world knew who I was and I didn't think anybody knew who I was like I it was the

the interesting personal development thing was that I actually ended up proving to myself that I was technically famous more than the government which I had no I did not think that was the case Is that all because of the internet? All because of the internet Right like I feel like there are no way that would have happened

if it weren't for the internet The story I always tell is at Comic-Con two years ago I'm on you know all day long so they're like all right up next is this up next is that They come up next is Teenage Mutin Ninja Turtles. And I was like, great, who's coming up? And they're like, it's Sean Aston. I'm like, all right, goonies.

It's the girl from Rest of Development. I'm like, all right, great. And then they're like, it's Rob Paulson. And I went, who's Rob Paulson? And they're like, oh, he's been a bunch of different voices. He's, he was Donatosell in the original TMT and now he's Raphael. Or no, I'm sorry, vice versa. Raphael, yeah.

Whoa, whoa. Whoa. Hey, whoa. Whoa. Whoa. Whoa. Bada Big, Bada, Bada, boom. Such a crush on Raphael when he was Raphael.

I loved the moods. I was so, I fan-girled over that when I met him for the first time. I'm like, it's like, this is going to be awkward because I totally had like an 18-year-old hots for Raphael. So I apologize for my awkward fan girl. That was the thing is they said that. I was, oh, that's cool. I remember watching the original TMTL. I like that, no problem.

And so we sit down and we're mid-interview. And Rob's telling the story and he goes, oh, well, we just come off animaniacs. And you can see it in my head the gears click. And I'm like, that's fucking Yakko. That's yet. And I, like, I don't say it. I don't say, it was like a dual interview. I love that you didn't know.

And it was just like, holy shit. You know what I mean? Just because you take, I think it's so, it sounds so simple now because now you find anybody you like on the internet, you follow them and you understand who they are and all those different things. But like, you know, like to think back to like when I'm watching cartoons and it never dawns on me. Because I don't want to, be always here from voice actors, right? Like Troy will tell stories of watching cartoons and seeing the same names over and over and I've got to be one of these people. And for me, by that point, I'm already tuned down. I'm a kid.

I'm not thinking about human being. I thought the characters were real. I never occurred to me that even though I was an actor growing up the whole time, it never occurred to me that there were actors playing those cartoon characters. Right, right. I loved their voices, and there were certain humans that I was so in love with their voice that if I heard it as another character, I would watch just for that sound. There was, it's like a vibration in that sound that my heart just opened up, and I was like,

I love, love you. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Don't know who you are. And I'm so excited, like Cam Clark finally is on social media, and he's the original Leonardo and he was Defe Lier Mousin' The Tick when I was a huge The Tick fan and so the first time I worked with him I was just the whole

time, you're the Tick. Yeah, yeah, yeah, right, right, right. That's so weird. And now he's on social media. I love, I always talk about the fact and I'm not trying to take credit for it, don't be wrong, but up at noon on IGN came around just at the time where I feel like the mass amount of gamers were really

starting to pay attention to who voiced what. Isn't that interesting? Because when we brought, when I met Dave Fanoi for the first time and when we brought him in for up at noon I remember that moment so well and then how he became a character on that show but also to everyone

and don't get me wrong I'm not trying to take credit for Lee Everett is this amazing character The Walking Dead Season 1 was this amazing game but I remember getting to bring him to podcast Beyond 300 coming down to get him and the crowd lined up losing their mind that that was Dave Fanoi. You know what I mean?

And it's like that is such a special moment that I don't think would have happened three years prior. You know what I mean? No, I absolutely not. Absolutely not. I think and it's because you know,

my voiceover career started long before video games had voices. I never, I was most, I was a cartoon girl. I was in cartoons. So dial the back.

You go to high school, you're trying to get this award this straight A bitch steals it from you. What happened? You go to college for acting? I ended up, I ended up.

University as they may be call it in Canada? Yeah, boy, that's right. So I end up, the year, I finish out my, it's called grade 12 in Canada. I finished out my grade 12 in Victoria, British Columbia, because my family had moved from Ottawa, Canada,

which is the capital of Canada for all of you out there. So that year, I played my all-time favorite role in the universe, which is the Wicked Witch of the West in Wizard of Oz, all-time favorite role, because obviously at three I had it memorized. Yeah, of course. You've literally been preparing for this role your entire life. It's my entire life. So I got to finally play it for the first time in my career.

And my parents were like, okay, now you're going to go into nursing or teaching. And I was kind of like, right, yes, yes, I am. Because who makes a living as an actor in Canada? I don't know. But then there was this thing where I was like, University of Victoria at the time, the Phoenix theaters had an amazing program for theater. You had to audition to get in. You had to write a huge essay.

It was a very tough process to get in. I said, well, I'll just apply. I'll just apply. If I don't get in, then I'll... The universe is telling me that's not the past. Exactly. So I applied, and it was the most terrifying thing I've ever done because through the process of applying,

it really, I was really aware of how badly I wanted it. Yeah. Really aware. Right. And then I think I remember at the time, it was like 700 people got in for the first year. No, that's really ridiculous. It was 70 people who got.

in for the first year for the acting program and then every year you had to be accepted back so you don't even audition you just accepted back I made it through and I watched a lot of very talented people disappear and it's for a degree at university like to be cut from a university you don't even get your degree you have to go somewhere else and do something else in the university I thought that was crazy but every year my fingers crossed I was like because I was not the best at school. I'm just going to be real. Like I was passionate as an actress, but I wasn't the best actress there. I, you know, I did not book lead roles in the plays on that were the main stage plays. I was like the chick, because I was a character actress. I hated playing characters

that looked the way I looked. And I was like a pretty 20 something year old girl. And I hated pretty 20 something year old roles. They bored the hell out of me. I wanted the old crazy, Wicked Witch of the West. That's what I wanted. So I went through four years of university, not really booking the good stuff. And they accepted me every year. That final year, there was only like seven of us. Wow. From 70. They paired it down quite a bit. Like there was, it was no joke by that final year. Like it was, I feel like that school at that time with the professors that were there and there were professors there that were professionals in the industry. So they weren't great teachers, but they're professional. What they brought,

professionally was worth this weight in gold. And so I graduated with a BFA, which my mom called a Bachelor of Fuck All because it was for acting. Supportive parents. Yeah, yeah. Now you walk up, you just make it rain.

They were supportive. They were supportive. They were Canadian. That's a Canadian attitude. It's like, come on, if you got to take the piss, right? That's what we do in Canada. You don't take yourself too seriously. What are you?

Celine Dion. And even that her mom's probably like, really you think you're good, huh? Sure. Okay, dear. You're not as good as that girl. Sandy down the street just so you know it's like constantly keeping you it's that British thing like don't get you too big for your if you're so good why don't you have four acting awards

from school yeah exactly exactly you missed that one year right well you weren't good that year so I I got the degree and then I did the bold move with a bunch of us that graduated and moved to Vancouver yeah see what happens and I ended up with some you know theater groups you know free kind of troop theater groups I did a fake radio theater troupe there too that's not it wasn't called fake radio but it was we were doing nineteen 40s radio plays which was funny because now i'm in an actual theater group called fake radio um which i love and so i did that and i did a lot of theater and i i wasn't i never really was attracted to television but i knew there was money in television so i started the whole you know

get the headshots get everything and because i i my my confidence was shit because i never booked anything big on main stage from university. Sure. So I didn't think I was the best. I thought I was kind of like at the bottom of the rung, but I made it to the last year. So I knew I didn't suck completely. So it was like, there might be something.

And so I hid out in stage management for a while. Because the university had trade me like, in case you don't book work, you can still work in theater. So I had stage management skills. And so I started working as an assistant stage manager at some of the theaters. And one of the guys who went to university with me, and he was the tech genius named Sparky Lauren. I'm not Sparky I love you.

Sparky, I was assistant stage managing at this theater and sparky just pulled me aside and was like, what are you doing? Yeah. If you want to be an actor, go fucking act. I was going to ask, was that seems like it's got to be the toughest fucking thing of like sitting there with the flashlights that people won't trip and you're just like, I should be out there. I like being of service. I'm very good with details and assistant stage management.

Whoops, you're following the script and it's a great job. I really enjoyed it. But the acting, like to be able to go out and put myself out there, I was terrified of doing that. I was terrified of failing. I was terrified of succeeding. But I started doing it. And I booked like beer commercials. I kept booking beer commercials, like print ads and stuff.

You were a pretty 20-something. Yes. Yes. Look, drink the beer. You'll get this lushy girl. But that's what it was. Like I remember seeing the ad for some beer on the back of the bathroom stall. I was sitting having a pee and I'm like, oh, there I am.

Interesting. Awkward. beer ad while I'm peeing and that's me in the middle going yeah it was it was it Molson was Moulson ice I feel like it was Labats but I did a few of them I can't remember I can't remember I want to see I want to see these bad internet find them my mom has them my mom has them cut out his mom find them and put them on the internet yeah I'm probably I'll go home and I'll find them for you uh because it's it's pretty ridiculous I love it's pretty fun so then I started doing television and film as well and I found very quickly as a creative character person and I

I wasn't booking huge roles, but I was getting great little character bits, right? And I booked charactery characters. I wasn't all pretty girl stuff, which I appreciated. But there was so much time spent in your trailer, so much time not acting, just not doing anything. And I was so self-centered at that time thinking that what you bring to the table as an actor is everything. And I learned through television and film how many people it takes to do a production. And I learned that as an actor, you're kind of the cherry on the Sunday after all of these, humans have come together to build this huge thing and then you come in.

So it's not about you. My ego was really, which I'm so grateful for, was checked and put in place really early from the film and television industry because I learned very quickly what my role was. My role was to support the writing. My role is to support and listen to the other actors. My role is to support the vision of the director. And I got to learn that at a very young age. And it was through that, which was on and off money.

And I lived in a house of seven people. guys and one of my roommates Toby was doing looping for television and film and they needed a girl who could do accents and he's like you do accents because I did them all the time around the house and Toby wanted to blow his brains out yes he probably did so he got me a job doing that and it was my first day doing that job I was doing it was an episode of outer limits and Alyssa Milano had just got the girls done and they looked fantastic and she was she had this topless sex scene with so it's Outer Limits episode, Alyssa Milano, Topless

somewhere. And she was on top of the dude, like, you know, dudes there and she's on top. And I had to be her sex sounds. Nice. Her having sex like those noises. And for the first time, an actor who I'd never met before named Michael Dobson was my partner, and he's like, he was

in teenage mutine. He's a huge voiceover actor now to Google him. Michael Dobson, at Michael Dobson, I'm sure. and we were we were having sex together without having sacks we're like oh it's not awkward at all nice to meet you it was it was hilarious it was really and we're in a room filled with other actors like so many actors but because we michael and i we jelled right away uh talent-wise kind of the way i do with yury like with me and yury there's i feel like we've had past lives together performing yeah because they're it's effortless like we just immediately go into riffing and improv it's like

that for me and Michael Dobson. We just go into voices and accents and we were just traveling down this really creative path and he turned to me and he said, why aren't you doing cartoon voices? And I said, what, what do you mean? Yeah. He's like, you know, cartoon voices. Why aren't you doing, you know, like He-Man, the voice of he-man and he would name the Gary Chalk and I'm like,

what do you mean? What do you mean? What do you mean? And my head just exploded. Right. It took me into that reality that Papa Smurf was not Papa Smurf. I have since met the original voice of Papa Smurf. My head did explode. I'm like, oh my God. But that kind of the thing and that that started my and immediately I started that journey towards cartoons and that was what getting an agent talking to people like this is crazy and this is why when people ask me

how did you get into voiceover I'm like I'll tell you my experience but it's very hard to duplicate uh Michael Dobson told me to do it I went into contemplation I I've mentioned it before I sing the word hue for 20 minutes every day for contemplation it's my way of connecting with the divine just huge Hugh. It calms me, it centers me, it gives me amazing dream experiences, that sort of thing. Well, I was doing a 20-minute hue one day, and out of that contemplation, an entire layout of what my voice demo should be. Of all the characters I had been creating over the years, and I had named them.

So each character name and what I needed for them to say, it was all my favorite movie quotes. And so it came out of the contemplation So I wrote it down exactly the way it came to me And then I went out and I made it with Brian Dobson, Michael Dobson's brother Who is also a huge voice of talent now at the time We were both starting out And that demo and I'd never heard anybody's demo I had never heard another actor's demo

I didn't know how to make a demo But it was solid I was like we're following this It came out of a contemplation We're just following this The universe watched this My first audition was for Ed Ed and Eddie. Because of the demo, I got the audition. It was a six-month auditioning process. Didn't think I booked it. Didn't think I booked it. Booked it. Yeah. Didn't know. It was for a new

channel called Cartoon Network. Nobody had ever heard of it. It hadn't existed. Did Ed and Eddie for years. Didn't know how famous it was until we got to the States because it didn't play in Canada. So none of the cast knew it was. We just like another year? Really? Where is this playing? Who's watching it? You know, now. they know. Now with social media they all know. But they didn't know for years. I kept coming back to record. I'm like, you guys, you have so many fans in the States. I'm the only person on social media. Please get on social media. Please talk to the fans. And now they all are. Now they all are. But that was my first job. I feel like the universe was like everything in my life was in preparation

for this job. So then the question for me is why doubt it? But I still doubt myself. Even though Everything in my life was like, this is what you should do for a living. I still have moments of like, maybe I'm not good at this. Is that trying to keep yourself humble? You know what I mean? Well, first of all, I don't think I'm humble. There is no humble bone in my body. I just don't think I.

I think people who call themselves humble, you can't call yourself humble and be humble. You know what I mean? A real humble person. So is it tempering expectations? Yes. Okay. It is. You don't want to get excited for something that you know might not happen.

I'm sure you've missed, you've not booked jobs before. All the time, all the time. And I don't want to get a big head. Exactly. But that doesn't mean that I have humility. You know what I mean? Like I'm an actor. Humility is hard to find.

But I know I have a vain side to myself. There is that diva side that my brain can go to where I'm like, how? I killed that audition. What were they thinking not hiring me? My head goes there for real on some days because some days I'm like, oh man, that was good. Crushed. I impress myself. Yeah.

And then I don't get hired. And I'm like, what the what the what? So I don't like it when I feel. feel like that. Yeah, of course. My ego gets disappointed. My vanity goes, well, you're not that bit, you know, you're not the shit lady. Obviously, you didn't kill it as much as you think you did, which is disappointing.

But I also don't know what really happened. I don't know if they actually heard my audition. Like, still in Los Angeles, I work a ton in voiceover, but there's a ton of casting directors who don't know who I am. So they don't listen to my auditions because my name means nothing to them. Right. So they listen to the names that they know because you're going to get 1,500 auditions digitally.

You're going to listen to the ones you know. You're not going to, you'll get all these submissions, and they don't have time to listen to everything. Every once in a while, there's somebody who listens to everything. And I got a job recently on something. I don't think I can really talk about it. It's a cartoon, but it's, I'm so excited about it because they took the time to listen. But they didn't know who I was. But that's the way the business is.

And you're a female too. So what Troy Baker is able to book as a male is 20 times the amount that I will have the opportunity to book as a female. And that's just because more male plays. More characters more. There's more men in cartoons, more men and video games. Just more male characters, period. So being a female actress, just like in life, females, we have a lot of challenges to overcome that way. It doesn't mean you quit.

You just know that you're not going to work as often, which is super hard. Like, I'm lucky my boyfriend isn't in the industry, but all my friends who are male, female voice actors and couples, there's no way the woman is going to book as often as the man and I can't imagine how hard that is. I give super props to all my sisters who are brilliant actresses who have to watch their man book 10 times the amount of work as they do every day and that's hard ego-wise. Even though the reality is there's just not that many female characters,

the mind doesn't look at it that way. You know what I mean? Like when you're looking at your husband going to work every day and you're like, why am I not going to work every day? You're not thinking, oh, it's because they haven't written enough female characters. You're thinking, I'm not good enough. I'm not as good as him. That's what where our head goes.

We don't think of the actual reality of, honey, there's only one female character in that entire superhero group. In that ensemble, yeah. And they hired Vanessa Marshall. You know what I mean? Which, who I love, by the way, she's so talented. Do you see, and you know, you said you've been voice acting 20 years, do you see that getting better, or is that, just the status quo because cartoons are aimed at little boys. I think because of JRP's that's getting better.

Yeah. I really do. This character I did in Wow, she wouldn't exist if it weren't for the fans. The fans demanded her, demanded her. I just am blessed enough to have gotten to voice her. Yeah. But the fans demanded a character like her. So I do think that the landscape is shifting and changing.

I'm super excited to see what the future holds. I feel like possibly, I don't think we'll ever match because it's just the way the universes. I don't I'm not I'm not an idealist that that there's going to be you know equality because I feel like the this planet this world this physical universe is all about learning through challenges so that equality wouldn't have any challenges. Through inequality we are we learn patience, we learn tolerance, we learn forgiveness, we learn to let go, we learn not to take things personally. So I don't think that's ever going to balance out like I'm in this physical form of a female in this lifetime for me because I need to learn the lessons that come with it.

Yeah. Yeah. Interesting. So here's a question. I had a kid's comment that would have been a great transition, but I want to stick with what I do because this is my show. I can do whatever I want to. So you're talking about a quality and this, that and the other.

Do you feel, and this is a weird question, I don't want to be loaded, do you feel there needs to be a quality, a more, does there need to be more of a mindset to make these female characters? Because this is, you know, I'm sure. I think it's supply and demand. I feel like because of the amount of female gamers out there, you know, that yeah, there needs to be more of it. I think we need to be represented more

for that experience, but there's not enough females creating the games yet. Although I was so excited to work with a female director and female writer on Wow, and that was a big deal. And I felt like a momentous occasion. Sure. We were literally in the room. It's like, let's just stop.

It's all chicks right now, except for the engineer, in a video game. We're doing a female. This is momentous. This is a momentous. And Atlas has some great female. Like the females in video games behind the scenes who are doing all the work, those numbers are getting higher. And because those numbers are getting higher, I know that the universe will change.

Right. And so I'm not, I can't be mad at the way things are because guys are going to do what guys know for guys's universe. It's not up to men to represent women. That doesn't make any sense to me. It's just like it's not like it's not up to Canadians to represent Americans. It's not up to Indians to represent Brits. Sure. You know, who you are and where you come from,

it's up to you to represent yourself. If you feel you're not being represented in the media, then you need to get into the media and change things. Exactly. You've got to do it yourself. You can put up your own shows, represent yourselves, you know? So the fact that more women are buckling down and being like, I love Christina Applegate's character in Ron Burgundy.

You know, when she's walking through and they're all like, nice ass. She's like, I've done this before, I'll do it again. she just has to suck it up. It's a man's world and you got to play. That's what we're doing in video games as women. It's a man's world. We're coming in.

They're not going to like it. Stuff's going to go down. But don't you give up. Don't you quit because your voice is needed for those of us that need you. Because you're representing us. You know what I mean? And it's the same for anybody who is a minority of any transgender, races. You've got to show up and be there and create that content.

for yourself so that you can be represented. And I think there's room for that. Oh, my God, there totally is. No, no, no. You're right on the money with it. And you see it already happening. I always talk about the thing people lose sight of is the fact that video games are so young. You know what I mean?

And the example I always give is right that video game violence will be such a funny argument that no one will ever have when all of the old people in Congress die. Not because they're horrible, but because for them, their seven-year-old played Mario Brothers on N. then stop playing video games. That was their only experience. So you jump ahead 30 years and you hear somebody saying they killed a hooker in this video game.

They imagine a seven-year-old is killing a hooker in a video game. They've lost sight of it. Whereas right now with development, it's the same way, right? People got inspired to create video games, talk about video games, and I always talk about it as silly putty.

There was this very small thing of silly putty, right? That was Mega Man and Mario and everything else. And then creators grabbed it and started pulling it in all these different directions and out the indie market, right? You have, on one side,

you have Call of Duty. On the other side, you have coming out simulator. or on the other, you know what I mean? There's all these different things that are pulling it to where it's all going to be there. And the problem is right now with whether it be, and this is a problem in quotes, with whether it be, you know, representations of females, trans, you know, gay, bisexual, anything, any minority that needs to be represented is we're in the internet world right now where I can tweet and I can get my friends to tweet and maybe somebody changes their ending or gives us a response or does this.

And we're in an instant world. Everything's instantaneously. Whereas right now, that's not how this works. Right. You know what I mean? Neil Druckman was inspired by what he played as a kid. So we need to be inspiring other kids to continue that training to keep changing. And so right now you have this first wave of gamers or developers who are out there making games they believe in who are saying something with their games.

And that will continue to happen. But you're gen 1 of it right now. We can't sit here and we can ask and demand and say we want better things. But we can't sit here and be like, well, last year we said we wanted stronger female characters. why aren't there stronger female characters right now? Well, it's not instantaneous. It doesn't happen that way. No, exactly.

And also, and also, there are games that are made for specific audiences, like you were saying. Right. Like an all-male game doesn't have to create female characters if it doesn't want to, because that game can be played by the men who want an all-male game. We just need content creators who are doing all-female games other than the Japanese, who are killing it, by the way. You know what I'm saying? Like, it's possible and it's out there.

we just as Westerners have to start creating that content for ourselves and not not assume that a male-dominated industry is going to go out of their way to make something they have no experience with it doesn't make any sense logically the thing i always talk about is i want developers and storytellers to the stories they want to say yeah so why is character x-male well that's the story somebody wanted to tell and i don't want somebody second-guessing themselves of i have this great story and it's about that maybe it should be a girl me you know what i mean i mean i Don't get me wrong. You should, if you're a creator, think about what you're doing. But it's a part of the process is like what would, and like I did this amazing puzzle game by Crow Team.

It's called the Talos principle. And it's a genius puzzle game. And they had that choices. There's one male actor and one female actor. And I got to, I got to be the scientist. Yeah. You know, like, I know that it wasn't a light decision to put a female as the scientist. They didn't.

I'm sure it wasn't a half out. Oh, let's just make her a chick. I'm sure it wasn't because this female's experience, and it's a deep philosophical puzzle game. Like she goes on a journey philosophically through the whole game. And it's like questioning life, all those big questions. And she just goes on this intense journey. And it wouldn't have been the same experience for a male,

which is like the alien movie, totally different experience if Ripley had been a male. But it doesn't mean that they were like, oh, let's just make it a chick. Yeah, yeah. Because I think writers take a lot more time making decisions, like on a name for a campaign. character writers take a lot more time.

So we got to really honor these people who are creating the content a little more. I feel like we're so quick to judge them. We don't know what it was like to sit in the room and come up with that content. If you have never tried to write something, you have no idea how hard that is. I would love to write my own content. I am terrible at it. I need to practice. I need a good 4,000 more hours of practice on that to be any good.

So I have such tremendous respect for anybody putting together any sort of content and creative, creating characters, creating storyline, that is hard. And then to have the entire universe judge it because, oh, you didn't make this some female, that's not fair. That's not fair. To me, it isn't anyway. No, I agree 100% with you. Now, this is the transition that you would think we planned out, but again, this is just how the show works.

The question came from Jason G. He said, what does Aaron think about the way a lot of female characters are drawn in Japanese games a la criminal girls? I don't know. Oh, I know. Okay. B'ble. Art is art. So, yes, we know that the Japanese culture, like, this is the thing.

I've been in two Western games, created games. Well, no, one Western created game. Like Skull Girls, I play Parasol. She is very pendulous. She's very pendulous breasts. It's fantastic. She got so much flak when she came out for how she was designed, even though

she was not a sexual character she didn't have to respond to any male character she was not she was the princess of an entire kingdom and she was the one in charge of everything but all people focused on with the size of her breasts which and like

this girl is juicy she's not like skinny hips she's got hips too so she represents actual women that I have in my family and people I know and people there was a huge backlash on how she looked And I thought, isn't that funny That there's a backlash on this character

But I never, like I have played Characters drawn Even more ridiculously in anime Dressed way in much less clothing That don't get any flack Like why is it that character got flack But you know Bullet from Blaze Blue

Nobody mentions the fact that she's wearing Strings of clothing And that she's incredibly pendulous Fascinating to me, fascinating And then when I did Dragon's Crown and the sorceress came out. Oh, yeah. Oh, God. Who was one of my favorite characters, by the way,

because I feel like I got to do that entire narration, and I think I killed it. I was so excited to do that. And she, again, doesn't need any mail for support. She's not looking, she's not there to support them, and she's her own strong ass-kicking character. She'll take you through the game. She's smart.

She's intelligent. She's articulate. She's, you know, that narration, like she was a real human to me. And the best cosplayers I have seen so far, are the girls who cosplay her. Like, girls, shout out to you. You look like badass bitches. I freaking love you.

And the real, real women, real sized women, dressed as this character. Like, nobody gets to dress like. Like, all the little Japanese characters that are very small, they can be, they can be cosplay by the bigger girls, but it's not, it's harder. You know what I mean?

Like, when you get to represent your own body and feel confident in your own body and be like, boom, I'm nailing this character because I actually have that character body shape. That is so empowering as a female. That feels fantastic. And the fact that it's enough covering where you don't

have to feel awkward about it is brilliant. Now, I played enough of other characters where like Cherry and Sabre Marionettes J, that anime series, there was an episode where she was wearing a fish bowl for a panties, a fish bowl with a fish in it. And I'm like,

that is some crazy stuff. And that was all fan service. Like that whole game was like, here, let me cater to the male. audience and sexually titillate the male audience for me it's not how the character is drawn it's who the character is that sometimes gets in my way when a character is catering to a male audience like with that cherry character I had a real hard time playing that character it was my first anime really other than Kodachi and Ranma one half and I was like I don't know if I could do this

because she was so hey master master can I draw you a bath and I'm like why is she saying why is she dressed like that say master why she got to be like that Why do you know me? But I didn't realize that the Japanese culture, like there's a whole cultural thing that didn't translate to me at the time because I didn't know the culture. Sure. You know what I mean? Sure. Different standards.

I also didn't know that the males get it in their own way just as bad. I also didn't know that they represented, you know, L-Chi, lesbian, gay, trans, by, I didn't realize that all those kind of things were represented in Japanese art forms. I didn't know a lot. So you don't know what you don't know. So it's easy to judge when you don't know what you don't know, and especially easy to judge. stuff that's coming from a different culture. Sure. And again, it's a flavor thing.

I mean, you hit the nail on the head right of the fact that why Dragon's Crown is a big deal versus all these other animates you've been in is because Dragons Crown got promoted. You know what I mean? Like it got trailers and this and people were trying to and so like all of a sudden eyes were on it that, you know, don't understand where these people are coming from. Don't understand what you have built

for the character behind the scenes, right? Because it's just like Far Cry 3, right? When they put out that image of pagan men. Oh my God. Put out that image of pagan men, everybody makes jumps to assumptions. They all jump conclusions on their jump to conclusions, Matt, of what this person is without playing the game, without knowing, without knowing this kind of thing.

And so the culture thing, JRP's get away with tons of crazy motherfucking things because it's 90 hours into the game that this happens and it doesn't appeal to this mass audience. And it's crazy to me, like in Dragon's Crown, it's not like she was the only one. You know, they make it out like, oh, look what they did to this character.

But the male characters, to me, are way more hypersexualized than she is. Like the Amazon, she looks like Grace Jones to me from Conan the Barbarian. And then the sorceress looks like any 80s fantasy movie to me. But Yuri's character, the magician guy, the sorcerer, yeah. He walks with his groin forward and goes, that to me is much more hypersexualized than my character. Who happens to jiggle? Because guess what?

Women jiggle. That's a real thing. I'm like, why is everybody making an issue? But it's because jiggling just started in video games. Yeah, well, now we have all the polygons in the text. And now that we've got jiggling, people are very uncomfortable with the jiggling. Oh, my God, it jiggles. Yeah.

You know, well, guys are like, I'm like, really, really? It's silly. Like, Patrick Sites' character, hugely over-exaggerating, just as old. And I love the style of it. To me, and that's the game I play, by the way. That's the game I'm addicted to. That's what I will lose an entire day to Dragon's Crown. But I was really into all those movies back in the ages and 90s, all those fantasy movies.

I loved it. And every reference is in there. there from the holy grail yeah it's in there yeah yeah dragon's kind of does great uh we've taken up a lot of your time before we leave and are you going to brunch with me we never to yeah we are we're just making sure we're here for the day we're in several well you're leaving after brunch i got things to do well i'm going into san francisco that's fine you're allowed to do that okay what i want to know he was like no you can't hang out with me no we're done no we're we're done christine's very tired yeah we're over you what i want to what i want to do is i want you

we glossed over this now we're doubling back to it okay tell me more and everybody out there about Hugh. You sing Hugh for 20 minutes a day. Yeah, it's an ancient, ancient, ancient name for divine source. How long have you been doing it? Over 20 years. Okay. How did you find out about it?

One of the guys, he was a lighting designer named Tim, and he was, I lived in Canada, I was working as an assistant stage manager. He was so chill all the time. He was always cool, always in a good mood, always laughing, always looked at the bright side of life. And if you've ever been worked in theater and it's getting to crunch time, people get insane, like as if this play is going to be the be all end all of the universe and all the everything hangs on this balance. And he never let the stress get to him. And I worked with him for a good year and a half before I finally turned to him. And I said, what how can I be more like you?

Yeah. Because I was living a very stress-filled life. And I was very angry a lot of the time, very frustrated. And he said, have you heard of the hue? I said, I haven't. He said, it's a love song to the creator of love. So he taught me to sing it. You just sing it, and there's no wrong way. You can sing it to your favorite song. You can sing it Hugh, Hugh, Hugh, Hugh, Hugh. You can sing it Hugh, Hugh.

But you sing it for 20 minutes a day. You don't sing it more than that. You don't have to. 20 minutes a day. Eyes closed, eyes open, whatever you want to do, whatever is comfortable for you. And what it does, and all I can speak of is what it's done for me. Yeah, no, no.

I can't speak for anybody else's experience. But for me, in that first week, because he said, go sing it for a week. week and if you want more information I'll give you more and for that week I sang the hue and my heart opened you know that they you say you have a heart chakra right here my heart opened and what I experienced was not only was I noticing love coming at me from the universe like people were seem nicer to me but for the first time in a long time I was genuinely wanting to give love to other people Like I'd been kind of forcing it and kind of feeling obligated in that Canadian polite way

Of like I have to be polite to you because I'm Canadian But I wanted to feel I wanted to be because I see he was that person He when he his heart was so open He was when he talked to somebody he really talked to them Yeah He was really he wanted to there was a love behind it and I wanted that I wanted to be able to do it and that first week I mean I won't even get into what it did for my dream state

I started journaling my dreams after I started singing the hue because my dreams got a Amazing. Amazing. And so I started singing The Hugh, and then he gave me some books that went deeper into the experiences I was having while I was singing the Hugh, and I was having experiences. Some people see different lights, hear inner sounds. Some people pop out of their body. Some people find themselves in an alternate reality and have experiences. There's all sorts of kind of spiritual experiences one can have using the hue. I was getting a lot of past life. recall like I was remembering and it wasn't just random past lives I was remembering like past lives that were still an obstacle in my daily life today so I was getting a relationship with someone I'd find out that I killed them in a past life and then I'd be like oh that's why we hate each other in this life and they're after me and and it was my like I could see the karmic or law of cause of effect and being like so I I was a horrible person to that person

previously and so right now I'm just getting back what I dished out and it allowed me to let go like that kind of insight into my daily living became I could let go of things faster I didn't have to be angry or defensive and I stopped being a victim because I realized there were some things that I had earned yeah you're getting payback I was getting I was I was just paying a debt kind of a thing and so 20 years later what I can say it is done for me is I am a much kinder person my heart is and I've never plateaued with it. I've never gotten to a place where I got bored with it. I've never gotten to a place where it hasn't taken me to another level. And my heart, I still feel like I'm not Tim. I'm still not Tim, so I have still a long way to go to get to Tim's mastership of awesomeness.

But I have that goal, you know. And for me, it brings me peace, inner quiet. It brings me healing. When I'm physically ill, it'll bring me a healing. souless in times of grief. And when I'm angry, I do it through gritted teeth. Shoo! Because it's the only thing that gets me out of anger. Wow. It's the only thing that gets, because it's like a band of anger.

When I'm trapped in anger, it's this horrible cycle where I get frustrated and I can't get out. I just can't get out of it. And it may not be something I'm expressing, but it'll be in my head or in my heart, and I'll be carrying it. So the hue pops me. It's like I'm on a broken record. and the Hugh pops me out of that broken record and I can be me, just me.

That's awesome. Yeah. That's fascinating. And I think like maybe that's why the word human has the hue in front of it. That's our divine part of ourselves mixed with the man part of ourselves and that's the experience we're having.

That's awesome. This is very fascinating. There's very, very fascinating. There's a page about it on my website, but I think you can go to the hueysong.org. There's an actual website for the, I think it's the hueysong.org. But I also have a page of my own.

own experience on my website. Everybody check it out. What's your website? Aaron Fitzvio.com. Again, it may not all be operational. But it's kind of, I think the gist of it is there. The guts are there. The guts are there.

And of course, Aaron Fitzgerald on Twitter. Yes, yes. You're in all sorts of persona games. Yes. You're fantastic. You're fascinating. Thank you for coming. I really enjoy this conversation.

I know we were on camera, but I really feel like this is my favorite part. This is that we were just talking. No agenda, nothing to promote, nothing whatever. I have a good visit with you. We just happen to record it and share it with you guys. Yeah. We'll periscope. brunch to make you we won't really pick us no we want um ladies and gentlemen this of course was

the kind there you're gonna get a lot of meat at this place too this ladies gentlemen this was the kind of funny games cast presents persona for changed my life uh let us know what you think of this this is just an idea i kicked around over text message i think it went Kevin do you enjoy yourself you can't thank you so much Kevin yeah thank you I don't they can't see a thumbs up unless you Kevin is gorgeous ladies he is well yeah you're missing out he should be on camera Felicia day called him disgusting wow not because of his looks because he won't he made it he made his girlfriend touch tongues okay well don't worry all ladies and gentlemen this of course is a production of kind of funny hit us up at youtube.com slash kind of funny youtube dot com slash

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