Merle Dandridge Comments in PC Zone

[Chris D]

This month PC Zone has written an article entitled "His Master's Voiceover" which is a special report on the faces behind the voices of our well known voice actors.

Merle Dandridge, the voice of Alyx Vance, features in a small section:

THE REAL DEAL

Merle Dandridge is a more recent recruit to voiceovers. Hailing from a theatrical background (she still acts in Rent on New York's Broadway), Merle auditioned for the role of Half-Life 2's Alyx Vance, alongside 50 other actors. She subsequently landed the part of Gordon Freeman's sidekick in the game the globe is gagging for. How did she go about nailing the character's accent and personality?
"I don't think I ever sat down and said 'Alyx must be from this region', or anything like that," says Merle. "It was more like I explored the woman, how she thinks, how she would respond to her surroundings and who she is. She's got to have some depth to her so I opted for a richer sound. I have to say that I absolutely loved working on this script. The writers, producers and everyone else involved were just so hands on and infectiously creative. It was great to delve into a world I knew nothing about."

Nice little read eh?

 

[Crusader]

Wow...


...And in most computer games they just get someone from Burger King to try and imitate Stephen Hawking.

 

[Wsh]

That is cool
/me wishes he could get the mag

 

[mortiz]

Yea, 50 actresses ey?? Sounds like a lot of people wanted the part!!!

 

[The Mullinator]

HL2 will definately be the first FPS to actually take its characters seriously, it sounds like actual character development may be involved if there working this hard with them!

 

[Petabyte]

Thanks, that was really interesting. I'm glad games are starting to take this type of thing seriously. I thought Deus Ex kind of did this..
Except the voice actor for the player sounded kind of creepy. Like a molester.

 

[nutcrackr]

Thanks for the post, sounds interesting. I guess it would be hard to say she hated the job but at least she said the people working with her were great.

 

[king John I]

were expecting the plot to be thicker this time then, either that or she really enjoys science lab explosions

 

[DEATH eVADER]

You can see Merle Dandridge's official website, just keep your comments sensible

http://www.merledandridge.com/

It contains a list of projects such as Half Life2 (so its definately the right person I've searched on google)

Who were the other voice actors and I might be able to find their websites

 

[Vegeta897]

Yea, 50 actresses ey?? Sounds like a lot of people wanted the part!!!

What girl wouldn't want thousands of geeks drooling over her?

Nice little article. The HL Radio special on her was cool too.

 

[DEATH eVADER]

Has anybody read her bio, no wonder they chose her for the part

mother of Korean and Japanese descent and a Memphis-bred African American father.

Well that solved a few questions

 

[Vegeta897]

Has anybody read her bio, no wonder they chose her for the part



Well that solved a few questions

Wow! NICE find!!

 

[Petabyte]

That would be cool to be voice acting a big game like Half-Life 2 and get your face scanned into the game. Did they do this with Merle?

 

[Vegeta897]

That would be cool to be voice acting a big game like Half-Life 2 and get your face scanned into the game. Did they do this with Merle?

No they actually used another model to do that.
I don't remember the name off-hand..

 

[ShadowFox]

Well that solved a few questions

What questions?

 

[DigiQ8]

wow
Thats nice !

 

[kaf11]

cool read.

 

[manny_c44]

Nothing can touch the voice acting of Grim Fandango!

Its good though that VALVe is getting people who are qualified, rather than a celebrity whose name they could then slap on the box for marketing purposes. Good job gabe.

 

[DeltaBlast]

What girl wouldn't want thousands of geeks drooling over her?

That's why there is soooooo muuuuuch porn in the world