Official new Lara's voice & VA discussion thread

[Driber]

Yep, it is official!

I just received this press release from Meagan herself

Originally Posted by Meagan Marie

Camilla Luddington named as of the new voice and character of Lara Croft

London (26 JUNE, 2012) Square Enix Ltd., the publisher of SQUARE ENIX® interactive entertainment products in Europe and other PAL territories, today announced that the English-born actress Camilla Luddington has been chosen to be the voice and performance actress of famous video game adventurer, Lara Croft in the new Tomb Raider® game.
After an international talent search using scouts in Europe and the US, Luddington stood out as delivering both a depth of emotion and the youthful tone needed for Lara Croft in the upcoming reimagining of the Tomb Raider franchise, due for release on March 5, 2013.

“This has been one of the most important jobs for us to get right,” said Darrell Gallagher, head of studio at Crystal Dynamics “‘This Tomb Raider game is very different to any other and we are demanding far more from the voice and performance acting than ever before as we take the franchise in a new direction.”

This July Luddington will also participate in the Nerd HQ and Comic-Con panels in San Diego, where she will join the development team as they talk about Tomb Raider and the story behind its creation.

Recently Luddington has starred in hit Showtime series, Californication© and can also be seen in the current season of HBO’s True Blood©.

Tomb Raider is slated for release on March 5th 2013.


(click to enlarge)

[hiropon056]

never heard of her.. but wow she is beautiful!

[TranceTrouble]

oeh interesting news
and i also never heard of her before

[Driber]

Looks like stevo505 was correct by first naming Camilla some months ago, hehe:

Originally Posted by stevo505

I have a feeling it might be Camilla Luddington

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Hmmm....I have a feeling our LadyR is going to be outraged that it's not Tamzin, after all

[TranceTrouble]

Originally Posted by Driber

Looks like stevo505 was correct, hehe:



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Hmmm....I have a feeling our LadyR is going to be outraged that it's not Tamzin, after all

hehe nice one Stevo
i could also see her playing Lara in the new movie they are planning. what if?

[hiropon056]

^
I also thought about that

[LadyRufina]

Originally Posted by Driber

Looks like stevo505 was correct by first naming Camilla some months ago, hehe:



-------

Hmmm....I have a feeling our LadyR is going to be outraged that it's not Tamzin, after all

I kid I'm happy for her but I do wish it was Tamzin. It definitely explains the American undertone in the new Lara's voice, seeing as Camilla has developed an American accent from living in American for many years, so maybe they could have picked a VA who has Lara's accent come 100% naturally but I do like the voice.

EDIT: I'd also like to say that from what i've seen of Camilla, she does try too hard to recognise as American. I would have liked the VA to be proud to be British and not an American wannabe. Lara is one of few British video-game icons out there today after all. It probably sounds harsh but i've grown up with Lara and this really means a lot to me.

[pomeranianpuppy]

She looks like Tulisa in that picture , i love true blood look forward to seeing her in it. The more i hear her voice as Lara the more i like it

[dark7angel]

Honestly not excited at all about this news...

I guess the complains about the accent have some ground after all. She might be British but her accent is no longer naturally British but an american mix.

I truly hope she doesn't turn out to be the movie actress as well...

[adobeARTIST]

Originally Posted by hiropon056

never heard of her.. but wow she is beautiful!

second that!!

Now that I think of it, Karl Stewart said in one of his videos that "a couple of people did guess the voice actress". I wonder who did and where. Seems he didn't mean on the Eidos forums

[d1n0_xD]

Damn my absence XD All these news... xD Nice to finally know who the voice actress is, she's beautiful ^^ I love her! Can't wait for some interviews! Soooooo, is she going to be in the next podcast? Huh? Huh?! HUH?!?

[Driber]

Originally Posted by d1n0_xD

Soooooo, is she going to be in the next podcast? Huh? Huh?! HUH?!?

That shouldn't even be a question

[Shaikh]

Congrats Camilla Luddington for the new Lara(if she browse this forum). The voice in game is absolutely stunning.

No wonder why I follow her on Twitter for 5/6 months.

[just*raidin*tomb]

No surprise at all. Congrats to her. Despite her Americanized-ness she still sounds good in the game to me.

[Darkwoodsoftime]

Pretty Awesome ! she's done a Great Job voicing Lara .

[VodkaSushiRoll]

She single/straight? haha ;p I don't do any voice acting but I pay attention to it a lot more since playing games like Dragon Age & Mass Effect. I really enjoy her voice acting, I think it's perfectly fine if you hear a mix of american/english. Lara to me mingles in many different languages, and most likely Europe of today you hear more of this type of accent over there anyways I don't know but sounds good to me.

[Metalrocks]

already posted in the times thread.. might as well copy and paste it here.

WOW. she looks gorgeous.
ok, looks besides , after watching more of the videos we have, im still neutral with her voice. maybe i just have to hear her parts more clearer then from what we have so far.
maybe CD can reveal a audio file so that we can hear her voice only, without any background noises or a ingame scene were we hear her voice clearer.

[Elliot Kane]

Originally Posted by dark7angel

Honestly not excited at all about this news...

I guess the complains about the accent have some ground after all. She might be British but her accent is no longer naturally British but an american mix.

I truly hope she doesn't turn out to be the movie actress as well...

I'm with Dark Angel on this one.

How pretty she may be has no bearing on her talent as a voice actress, and I found her totally unconvincing. She sounds like someone putting on an English accent, not a native speaker.

***

Also, just to be pedantic, I'd like to remind everyone that an English accent is not the same as a British accent.

Scots, Welsh and Northern Irish are also British. Does anyone really think Lara should sound like this:



Love the accent, don't get me wrong, but still...

[pomeranianpuppy]

She's lived in america for the past 6 years so no wonder she don't sound completely english, my mum develops a southern twang after watching an episode of true blood or the walking dead

[Metalrocks]

well. lets hope she will sound better in the final product.
she is totally new to me and i looked her up a bit. never watched any of the shows she was in. dont like watching TV anyway since they show crap most of the time.

[LadyRufina]

Originally Posted by pomeranianpuppy

She's lived in america for the past 6 years so no wonder she don't sound completely english, my mum develops a southern twang after watching an episode of true blood or the walking dead

Ikr. I lived in Italy for 4 years and studied it for GCSE and A-Level and I easily drop into an Italian accent a lot of the time. I thought that it was Tamzin Merchant but she slipped into an American accent accidentally for some reason but I guess we know why now. The acting is good, imo. The accent didn't bother me until now because now I know that Lara is definitely going to have an American slur from now on and it wasn't a slip up. It's probably going to irritate me the more that I think about it.

@EK: I totally agree. And it's not even just an English accent. There's Geordie, Manchester, Liverpool, Yorkshire, East London, Devon/Cornwall, Bristol, North London - those just to name a few are the very distinctive ones. I'd say Lara's accent was a sort of Surrey, Sussex, Kent accent now but it was more North London.

[Elliot Kane]

For anyone who cares, BTW, The Sun has an article on Camilla & TR today. I can't direct link it, for reasons that will become obvious if you look, but it won't be hard to find on their site

[dark7angel]

Originally Posted by Elliot Kane

For anyone who cares, BTW, The Sun has an article on Camilla & TR today. I can't direct link it, for reasons that will become obvious if you look, but it won't be hard to find on their site

Personally, I find this really sad that CD were trying to stray away from the oversexualized image Lara had and now if you google Lara's new voice actress you get to see her boobs on the top images from the results...

I have nothing against this girl, but I was really hoping for something else.

[LadyRufina]

Originally Posted by Elliot Kane

For anyone who cares, BTW, The Sun has an article on Camilla & TR today. I can't direct link it, for reasons that will become obvious if you look, but it won't be hard to find on their site

Oh great. This is very unfortunate for Camilla because it's not her fault for trying to a role but the decision to cast her is going to come down on Crystal like a ton of bricks, especially seeing as this whole 'sexualised' drama hasn't died down yet. It's just going to get worse. The Sun are just trying to make it bigger than it is for sales and it looks like it's working.

[Elliot Kane]

Originally Posted by dark7angel

Personally, I find this really sad that CD were trying to stray away from the oversexualized image Lara had and now if you google Lara's new voice actress you get to see her boobs on the top images from the results...

I have nothing against this girl, but I was really hoping for something else.

Must admit, I'm not vastly bothered by that aspect. Trying to recruit a young actress who has NO history of taking her top off for a role would severely limit the field. Granted that in itself is kinda depressing as a commentary on the role of women in film, but still...

When playing through the game, I doubt I'll even be thinking about what Camilla looks like. What she SOUNDS like, however, will be of vital importance...

Originally Posted by LadyRufina

Oh great. This is very unfortunate for Camilla because it's not her fault for trying to a role but the decision to cast her is going to come down on Crystal like a ton of bricks, especially seeing as this whole 'sexualised' drama hasn't died down yet. It's just going to get worse. The Sun are just trying to make it bigger than it is for sales and it looks like it's working.

It's The Sun. Given a choice between showing topless pictures of an actress and not doing so, their default position is obvious and utterly predictable.

Camilla chose her roles and when/if she started to get better known, the old topless stuff was bound to get dragged out for a wider audience.

CD must have been aware of this, and still cast her, so presumably they were prepared for this, expecting it, and don't mind.