Jessica Erin Martin

Jessica Martin is the voice actress for Samus Aran in Metroid: Other M.

Interview
Bitmob: Was it difficult figuring out who should voice Samus?

Nate Bihldorff: It was tough, certainly...but no tougher than with any of our other properties. We went through the same casting procedures like we usually do. We had a ton of auditions....

Bitmob: I mean, is there more pressure on you guys because this is a traditionally mute character?

NB: I think so. The beauty of it is, we listened to the auditions then sent them over to Sakamoto-san, who's "daddy" [laughs]. He's the father of the character. We let him listen to the voices and let him sync it up with what whatever voice he was hearing in his head for Samus.

Bitmob: Does he hear the original Samus in English in his head, then?

NB: For him it's more about the timbre in the voice and the way it sounds. Of course, we can say, "OK, this inflection sounds great" -- stuff that's more particular to the English voice that he may not pick up on. But what he's really listening for is something else. It's the quality of the voice...the method of delivery that matches what he hears when he's in Samus' head.

Having him run that process lets us sleep easy at night. We want to bring his vision to life, you know? Localizing the game is all about that -- all about bringing their vision over here and making sure it's true to how he sees it. Hopefully we've accomplished that.

Bitmob: Who is the voice actress? Someone we should know?

NB: I don't think she's worked in video games before. Her name is Jessica Martin. She's done a lot of dramatic work...a lot of stage work. She's a local actress up in Seattle. She did an amazing job and was great in the studio.

After the game launches, we may make her available to you [media], but I don't think we're allowing any contact before that, just because we don't want her dropping plot points....

Bitmob: Yeah, sometimes those actors don't know what they can or can't say, which is good for us.

NB: [Laughs] Yeah, we talked to her about it, but obviously, we don't want her to give up any choice bits of info about any lines that she's recorded.

But she was amazing. It's been a very long recording project -- we've been doing this for over a year. I mean, in bits and pieces -- I don't mean recording for a year straight. That'd be the longest game of all time. [Laughs]

Like I said, she didn't have any video game experience, so it wasn't like she was coming in, hanging her coat up on a hook, and banging out the lines. It was something new for her, and she was great.

Links

 * Personal web page