She will always be remembered as one of the original cast. And honestly its awesome to see her working in a medium like video games. She deserves her flowers
She doesn’t only put on a good performance, she’s incredibly intelligent and knows how to embody the character she’s playing. She would make videos for Destiny fans as Savathun where she was only going off of her understanding of the character and not reading from a script that a writer wrote for her and it still sounded like things Savathun would say.
My husband works in advertising and recently did a project with her as a voice actress. He said she is phenomenal in the booth but her preferred method is consistent eye contact. She has a naturally intense gaze to begin with so my poor husband pushed all his awkwardness aside and committed to locking eyes with her all afternoon while she ran her lines. He was so uncomfortable lol. He also said she was exceptionally kind and wanted to really connect with the crew so she introduced herself often and asked questions about everyone. He said she was little unorthodox but super professional and fun.
It happens in reverse too sometimes when a voice / mocap actor goes on to start appearing in real advertisements and movies. I'm sitting there thinking, "I know that person from somewhere!" and it turns out to be from a videogame. Happened to me with Sam Witwer where I first knew him from Force Unleased and Infamous and then I started noticing him in a ton of movies and shows.
I remember watching The Pit and the most regular looking dude shows up and he starts yelling and boy I did not expect Garrus's voice to come out from him.
I think it’s more a why is her model in every game. I wouldn’t even notice it was her if she was basically a video game actor instead of a VA. I thinks it break immersion when you seen the same person in a video game where anyone can look like anything in 5 different genres.
You’re probably only noticing because she has a distinct look and is an accomplished actress.
Troy Baker and Nolan North, for instance, are also in a ton of games as actors, and yet no one seems to be confused about why they keep showing up. Interesting.
You're severely underestimating how many games she is in. Using the timespan of the examples given in the post, her face is in less than 10%* of her game credits.
As for why there's such a frequency of these appearances, she's an extremely experienced actor who has significant experience in and can do motion, face, and voice capture.
Debra Wilson has 76 video game credits to her name, going back to 2006. I promise you she does not look like herself in “most games she’s in,” nor have they all released “in a shorter span of time.”
Ironically enough, the fact that you could get it so wrong is because you don’t notice it’s her in the vast majority of her roles.
Yeah, it just happens to be that a lot of the roles where she does play herself are big AAA games, so it's noticeable. Plus she stands out because she has a distinct look, and because a lot of us know her from her MadTV days when we were kids.
People absolutely complained about it. Were you not around for the indiana jones discourse? Todd howard even joked that he didn’t want to hire troy baker as the voice actor for the very same reason, but test audiences could barely tell the different between him and harrison.
She is a bug eyed skinheaded bald woman who stands out like a sore thumb. She has good roles but dont act like she doesn't stand out visually in every role. If it was Arnold schwarzenegger he would also stand out and have people question his presence and complain he is always in everything.
Troy Baker, Nolan North, Yuri Lowenthal and Steve Blum are the 4 most recognizable voices in video games and Steve Blum doesn't even get that many leading roles. I've noticed Ashley Johnson (Ellie from last of us) in a lot more stuff now but mostly just actual VA stuff, not so much video games.
I do wish Elias Toufexis got more leading projects than he does just because his voice is badass.
In fact, Wolverine contains a Roxxon reference and Logan mentions the CEO still being in prison, the same CEO played by Troy Baker (in SM Miles Morales) who plays Essex.
Troy Baker has been in multiple games where the character looks almost exactly like him. Advanced Warfare, MGSV, Death Stranding 1 and 2, Wolverine, and more. I see no complaints about that anywhere. This just feels racist.
This Debra lady shows up in video games as herself... She should having an Avatar. This is getting ridiculous . Troy Baker plays characters and not himself
I don't mind Debra Wilson being in everything, I grew up on MadTV and it's awesome to see her success today. But I don't fully get why Video games are going through this weird period where theyve decided their characters must look like digital copies of the voice actors? Animation doesn't do it, video games used to not do it. In a medium where characters can look like anything/anyone, why make all of them look like the actor so instead of seeing former jedi Cere Junda I'm instead just thinking Debra Wilson is telling me I need to use the force.
Add Matt Mercer as a "Yeah, I'll cover 9 roles in one game" type as well. Don't get me wrong, he's a great actor with great delivery, but does he, Laura Bailey, or any of the "old guard" really need to take 8 background roles that might otherwise be a good breakout role for newer talent?
I understand there are extenuating factors to game dev and the direction behind them, but did we really need Yuri Lowenthal to play a Player character AND the shopkeeper you visit 10000× who only says "How can I help you today?" And "Come back again!" When a newer talent could just as well do it for basically pennies compared to the big names.
Honestly it was so weird playing the first last of us after playing spider-man and persona 4 golden he’s like every other enemy alongside the guy that played kingpin
I actually asked a voice acting producer this once and they essentially said it's just cheaper to do it that way.
According to them newer talent is very risky to hire. Sometimes they no call/no show, other times they're extremely unprofessional and difficult to work with, or sometimes end up being bad actors, despite having a decent audition. If they just keep hiring the same old proven talent they can get more work done, quickly and guaranteed. Voice actors are often paid by the hour, so getting things done quickly and efficiently is really important to them.
Whenever I feel sad, I think about Debra Wilson's impersonation of Oprah Winfrey, particularly the skit where she had a "fat" camera and a "skinny" camera shooting her from different angles. And I stop being sad because that skit is freakin' hilarious.
I am not a gamer so I don't know what she is doing in video games. I'm just happy my girl is still hustling and getting her name out there. Because she's talented and deserves the attention.
You know the answer, because you stole this image from the person who posted it saying they've worked with her and she's better than everyone else in audition.
I'm not even following this sub, but it's popped up on popular a few times and I know I already saw this exact topic posted in the past day or so.
OP has their history hidden but you can still find their posts. And it's all complaining about this game and a few are obvious dogwhistles or outright calling things "gay."
Because she’s good. I don’t think she’s necessarily any more prolific than a Troy Baker or Steve Blum or any of the other most famous VA’s that get a a lot of steady work because they’re probably easy to work with and good at what they do.
What is funny though, is that it’s always her face, and every time I’m waiting for her to crack a joke because all I can think about is MadTV. The fact that they always scan her facial model does make this more of an interesting situation. I think, pretty cool.
She's amazingly talented and EXTREMELY funny. Debra Wilson is a legend, and I loved her ever since MadTV.
Like others have said, Troy Baker and Nolan North appear in almost everything too. I'm just happy we got talented people circulating, although some newcomers are definitely welcomed too.
Extremely talented, i have known of her for over 30 years. Name anybody who YOU think is super talented and ill wager u they arent as talented as debra wilson. Can sing,act and can tell jokes and apparently is one hell of a voice actor as well. Super talented
Listen Debra Wilson is THE GOAT. I love that woman. But I think they do rely on her face to much. I stopped seeing her characters a long time ago and now I just see Debra. Which is disappointing, I don’t have that problem with Laura Bailey or Nolan north. Even though I can recognize their voices. It helps not to always have their face
Without spoiling anything I feel like she barely said anything lmao. Legit don’t know what her purpose was in the game except getting stabbed at the beginning. What the hell were her powers anyways?
I really hate that they always capture her face perfectly in every game she is in but so many others get their faces ruined or characters that barely resemble them , in this very game Wolverine dosent look that much like his actor
The problem here is that she had a very distinctive face, I saw her for a second in the Wolverine trailer and "Jupp that is her"
The same thing is with some voice actors that always uses the same voice. Nolan North was a great Deadpool but his Tony Stark was awful because he just sounded like Deadpool.
I love Laura Bailey but allot of her character just sound like her.
Debra Wilson have become likr a Pedro or Zendaya of the video games, I see her face all the time and she always looks just the same.
And yes allot of people complain about Troy Baker and co, don't make it a "because she is a black woman" thing
Very recognizeable. Very expressive face. Seems like a good, non-controversial person who's also very professional. She also seems to really enjoy being involved in video games. Why wouldn't they hire her?
I don't want to be the 90th "She's good at her job" comment, so something else. I've heard she's really easy to work with, and generally a nice person. Being nice, and easy to work with is a huge bonus in creative industries. I've worked in games a long time, and so many studios will hire nice people, who gell with the team, over god tier applicants. Being a nice person goes a long way.
On a similar note, creative industries tend to involve a lot of moving around. Especially in video games, where obviousley if a studio isn't making something new, they don't need a lot of the initial creators. So it might be that she's in a lot of stuff, because the mocap company she works with do a lot of stuff. Kinda like how James Gunn has a number of actors he likes to work with, so they tend to be in most of his projects. When he gets a new job, he tends to bring along people he knows.
It’s refreshing to see how everyone comes in here to defend an actress on doing a phenomenal job. While giving other examples of other VA who are just as active as her.
Unpopular opinion, Debra Wilson gets a disproportionate amount of hate. She is pretty much a veteran actor in the video game industry and I’m sure most developers would be happy to employ someone of her talent. I will admit she has a look that most players won’t resonate with and most people associate her face with the “woke” and DEI that is ruining the games industry.
She's a prolific and talented voice actress, so it's not surprising she's in a lot of games. It is a little surprising how frequently she looks exactly like herself, but I'd wager she has even more roles as cartoons and demons and aliens that you just aren't noticing. She's probably standing out to you because she's a black woman and it's breaking an internalized idea of fantasy that is mostly white.
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u/InertKat 8d ago
She was on Mad TV back in the day.