Neil Newbon Talks About Building Astarion In BG3, Favorite Games, AI, & More
Neil Newbon, the performance capture artist for Astarion in has an extensive career in acting and has become even more popular following his portrayal of the vampire elf in Larian Studios’ award-winning RPG. The character’s development and multiple personality layers are some of the aspects that make him so popular, in addition to the memorable Astarion quotes in , which would not be as impactful if they were not delivered by Newbon.
The English actor has also played other roles in gaming, such as Heisenberg in, Nicholai in, and Elijah in. Along with his more serious roles, Newbon is no stranger to the weird and wonderful, even playing a sentient fish in called Fibonacci, in one of his funniest roles so far.
Newbon paid a visit to Brazil to attend Brazil Game Show (BGS) 2024 and, in an exclusive interview with, the actor spoke more about his career, how it was to bring life to Astarion in , his favorite games, and much more.
Screen Rant: I feel like, out of all of your most notable characters, maybe the one whose voice and mannerisms resemble your own a bit more than all the other characters is Astarion.
Neil Newbon: I think so, yeah. I think that he's got a lot of fluidity and I have a lot of flow as well. There's a lot of stuff that he does that I don't do, but I definitely felt very comfortable with him. He's very easy to get into.
Screen Rant: After, have you been recognized by your voice, by perhaps people who didn't know you, but knew your character?
Neil Newbon: No, my voice, because my accent is very different from Astarion’s. He's got a high-inflected accent. See, he talks up here. He's also got a higher register, darling. Whereas my voice is actually kind of like, a little bit London-y, a little bit American, and it's a little different.
People don't tend to recognize me for my voice, they recognize me weirdly for my face. So, I kind of look like him anyway. I think people have become very aware of my work because of the Game Awards and things like
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