Key Takeaways
- Neil Newbon explains how he got into acting in video games.
- He credits discovering motion capture in the late ’00s with saving his acting career.
- He has since gone on to appear in games like Baldur’s Gate 3, Resident Evil Village, and Detroit: Become Human.
Neil Newbon has shared how he got into acting in video games, and how it saved his career. He credits motion capture work with helping him get out of a career slump, paving the way for him to star in huge games like Baldur’s Gate 3 and Resident Evil Village.
Speaking in an interview on Ginx TV, which airs tomorrow night, he says he discovered mocap through an article about Lara Croft, who was voiced by Keeley Hawes at the time. The end of the article mentioned mocap, which prompted him to consider it for his own career.
Neil Newbon Says That Video Games Saved Him
“I was broke, man. I was broken actually,” says Newbon. “2008 was okay. 2009 was the year where I was like ‘I can’t do this anymore’.”
He says a big issue in finding roles is that actors have to look a certain way most of the time, or they won’t even be considered. However, as he then discovered, this is not as much of an issue in the gaming industry.
“It was games, that saved me,” he explains. “I was reading a PC Gamer magazine. It was about Keeley Hawes who was doing Lara Croft. It was about her voice work and at the bottom of the article was a tiny little picture about motion capture.
“I didn’t know what it was,” he says. “Nobody ever talked about it. I had nobody that knew anything about it, but I saw it and went, that is theatre and film. I get it. I don’t know if I can do it, but I reckon I can. So I’m gonna maybe have to quit [acting] anyway because I see no way out of this. Why don’t I just contact these people called Audio Motion?”
He outlined all of the experience he had, and was brought in to audition for Ghost Recon: Future Soldier. This kickstarted his gaming career, and he specifically credits Brian Mitchell and Stacey Boisselle from Audio Motion with getting him where he is today.
This must have been an incredibly busy year for Newbon, as the ongoing success of Baldur’s Gate 3 meant that he and the rest of the cast were off doing the rounds at various conventions. Still, he made time to appear in Fallout: London, a fan game that was released as a huge mod for Fallout 4.
Neil Newbon’s full interview will air on Ginx TV this Sunday on Freeview channel 282 and Sky Glass channel 419. It will also be available through the Ginx TV website via a Patreon subscription.
