Baldur's Gate 3's Neil Newbon explains how he got into video game acting.

Key Takeaways

Neil Newbon explains how he got his start in video games.
He credits his discovery of motion capture in the late 2000s with saving his acting career.
He has since appeared in games such as Baldur's Gate 3, Resident Evil Village, and Detroit: Become Human.

Neil Newbon shares how he got into video games and how it saved his career. He credits his motion capture work with helping him break out of a career slump and pave the way for him to appear in big games like Baldur's Gate 3 and Resident Evil Village.

In an interview with Ginx TV, which airs tomorrow night, he said he discovered motion capture through an article about Lara Croft, who was then voiced by Keeley Hawes. At the end of the article he mentioned mocap, which made him consider it for his career.

Neil Newbon says video games saved his life.

“I’m broken, really broken,” Newbon says. “2008 was okay. 2009 was the year I thought, ‘I can’t do this anymore.’”

He says the biggest problem with finding roles is that actors most of the time have to look a certain way or they won't even be considered. But as he discovered, this isn't much of a problem in the gaming industry.

“It was the game that saved me,” he explains. “I was reading PC Gamer magazine. It was an article about Keeley Hawes, who played Lara Croft. It was about her voice work, and at the bottom of the article there was a little picture about motion capture.

“I didn’t know what it was,” he says. “No one ever talked about it. No one knew about it, but I went and saw it. That's the play, that's the movie. Okay, I don't know if I can do it, but I think I can do it. Then I guess I should probably stop. [acting] Anyway, there is no way to get out of here. “Why not just contact the guys called Audio Motion?”

He explained his entire experience and ended up auditioning for Ghost Recon: Future Soldier. This launched his gaming career, and he specifically credits Audio Motion's Brian Mitchell and Stacey Boisselle with getting him to where he is today.

It's likely been an incredibly busy year for Newbon, as the continued success of Baldur's Gate 3 has kept him and the rest of the cast from attending various conventions. Still, he found time to appear in Fallout: London, a fan game released as a massive mod for Fallout 4.

Neil Newbon's full interview airs this Sunday on Ginx TV's Freeview channel 282 and Sky Glass channel 419. You can also watch it on the Ginx TV website via a Patreon subscription.