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Learn how actors become their characters in this Halo 5 roundtable

Gabe Gurwin
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Halo 5: Live - Voice Acting Roundtable
Halo 5: Guardians is now out in the wild, and while it still features Steve Downes as the voice of protagonist Master Chief, the recording process for the game has changed considerably due to the inclusion of seven other Spartans, as well as a few other key returning characters. Last night, some of the game’s biggest stars sat down with 343’s Frank O’Connor discuss what went into playing a Halo character this time around, as well as one actor’s “sounds like a video game” former career.
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Joining Steve Downes and Frank O’Connor at the roundtable are Laura Bailey (Dragon Ball Z, Infamous: Second Son), Travis Willingham (Battlefield Hardline, Infamous: Second Son), Ike Amadi (Knack), and Darren O’Hare, who voiced Captain Lasky, originally introduced in Halo 4.

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While O’Connor asks the cast questions about playing characters in the Halo universe and how to mess with telemarketers, Amadi reveals just how strange it was to play the role of Spartan Locke in Halo 5. Though this is the first time (excluding the terminals in Halo 2: Anniversary) that the character has appeared in a video game, he was the central character of last year’s digital series Halo: Nightfall, where he was played by actor Mike Colter. 343 elected to keep Colter’s likeness in the game even though he was no longer playing the character, which may have led to a first in video game performance capture: an actor playing another actor playing a character.

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“It’s weird because, on the one hand, as a voice actor I feel like it’s something I do every day,” Amadi admits. “On the other hand, it’s a real person.”

The most interesting nugget of the entire conversation, however, has to be Darren O’Hare discussing his former career. Prior to acting, he was “doing intel work” in the Army, and then worked with the Department of Defense on a counter-intelligence Joint Task Force. To help prepare for undercover operations, he took an acting class, decided he liked that line of work more, and moved to Los Angeles.

To find out if any of the other actors in Halo 5: Guardians are spies, check out the full video above. The game is available now exclusively for Xbox One.

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Gabe Gurwin
Gabe Gurwin
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Gabe Gurwin has been playing games since 1997, beginning with the N64 and the Super Nintendo. He began his journalism career…
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