Search icon

Gaming

02nd Nov 2021

In conversation with Laura Bailey, one of the most famous performers in video game history

Rory Cashin

She is likely the only actress to have played Spider-Woman, Black Widow, Catwoman, Supergirl and Mary Jane Watson.

In much the same way that motion capture performances (we’re talking the likes of Gollum and the recent Planet of the Apes movies and such) have finally started to get the critical attention that they long deserved, it feels the same can now be said for performances in video games.

For the longest time, it wasn’t as if we expected too much emotion from the likes of Sonic or Mario, but as the stories in our favourite games got more layered and more complex, so did the performances from the actors playing the characters in those stories.

There are, maybe, a handful of names in the video game performance world that are close to being household names: Troy Baker, Nolan North, Dee Bradley Baker and, without a doubt, Laura Bailey.

Bailey has been a part of some of the biggest video game franchises in gaming history – Street Fighter, Deus Ex, Resident Evil, Silent Hill, Final Fantasy, Saints Row, Fallout, Bioshock and SO MANY MORE – and we chatted to the performer in the run-up to the release of her latest project, Call Of Duty: Vanguard.

Over the course of the chat, Bailey discusses how she’d recommend folks to get into the world of performances in video games, what she considers to be the single greatest performance in video game history, seeing her work in the likes of the Uncharted games being adapted by Hollywood for live-action movies, and what it feels like to have played pretty much every major female superhero character in fictional history.

And yes, we discussed the role of Abby in The Last Of Us Part II, as well as what Bailey may (or may not) know about The Last Of Us Part III…

Meanwhile, Call of Duty: Vanguard will arrive on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC on Friday, 5 November.

Check out the full story trailer for the game right here:

Clip via Call Of Duty