Voice actors share Diablo 3 stories

Blizzard gives us a glimpse behind the scenes of Diablo 3 by chatting with the voice actors who portrayed Tyrael, Azmodan and Covetous Shen. And yes, James Hong played Covetous.

8

Blizzard gives us a glimpse behind the scenes of Diablo 3, chatting with the three voice actors that played pivotal characters Tyrael, Azmodan and Covetous Shen in the game. And for the record, I nailed the voice of Covetous in one of my game diaries without knowing it.

Veteran character actor James Hong voiced the wise and somewhat addled jeweler. In talking with Blizzard, Hong said he felt his character was a god at one time:

"I like to think that he’s a deity of some kind. To me, he's probably an outcast among the deities, who was thrown onto [Sanctuary] because he was naughty. Now, he's just doing his deeds. He's a scrounger. He looks for little pieces of jewelry, and tries to make something out of everything that he finds. He looks like a bag man, and he's very sarcastic, but his knowledge is great. So there's something behind that knowledge -- how he got it, and how he became a maker of jewels is a big mystery."

Jonathan Adams, a veteran TV character actor who has done a lot of voice work, played the briefly fallen angel Tyrael, and he had to play a fine line between the character as an angel and as a human:

"My basis for Tyrael was Tyrael as man AND angel. 'How would a person sound if he knew he was once an angel, but now has human limitations?' That kind of juxtaposition is fun to play with in fantasy and science fiction -- you get characters like Data on Star Trek who's so much fun to watch, because he’s human and robot, and you're watching him struggle with what that means. That's what makes those characters fascinating. What I did is [project] what Tyrael would be if he knew nothing about being an angel, and he was simply human, and he had just woken up."

Finally, David Sobolov, a Canadian voice actor, said he loved playing a villain in Azmodan:

"I like intelligent villains. It's what I gravitate to. They always think they're gonna win. They have so much confidence; there's not a thought in their mind that they won't prevail, and they love torturing their enemies. I'm doing something with my hands now like a puppeteer ... when they get someone in their grasp, there's an evil sense of play, where they’re in control. It’s very sadistic, I know, but it's fun to play something so far away from myself."

Check out the full interviews, especially with Hong. Pretty interesting to see how the actors get into the characters.

Contributing Editor
From The Chatty
  • reply
    September 13, 2012 2:00 PM

    John Keefer posted a new article, Voice actors share Diablo 3 stories.

    Blizzard gives us a glimpse behind the scenes of Diablo 3 by chatting with the voice actors who portrayed Tyrael, Azmodan and Covetous Shen. And yes, James Hong played Covetous.

    • reply
      September 13, 2012 3:19 PM

      Finally, David Sobolov, a Canadian voice actor, said he loved playing a villain in Azmodan:

      "I like intelligent villains."

      ... he must have HATED playing Azmodan then.

      • reply
        September 13, 2012 3:26 PM

        My thoughts exactly. *vanishes in a puff of smoke* BWAH HAHAHAHAHAHA!

        • reply
          September 13, 2012 3:27 PM

          (More a comment on D3's "intelligent" villains than on the big crab-looking dude himself.)

      • reply
        September 14, 2012 3:24 AM

        Haha yeah, what? Intelligent? Where?

    • reply
      September 13, 2012 6:31 PM

      lol, this is really, really retarded

    • reply
      September 14, 2012 2:17 AM

      James Hong's work was the high point in the voice acting in D3. I really wanted there to be a side story with his god mystery...

      • reply
        September 14, 2012 2:19 AM

        it's coming in the thieves guild DLC

        • reply
          September 14, 2012 5:04 AM

          I always feel like they are watching.

    • reply
      September 14, 2012 6:02 AM

      Did the guy who voiced the Templar play the engineer on Enterprise? If not - it sounds just like him.

      If you didn't know James Hong played Covetous you need to go back and watch BtilC and The Golden Child about 300 more times.

      • reply
        September 14, 2012 6:50 AM

        Not the engineer, but the tactical officer (Malcolm Reed).

Hello, Meet Lola