Baldur's Gate 3 Astarion actor says his new dating sim character sounded too much like his iconic vampire voice, so he had to base his performance on a fictional sex symbol from an '80s British sitcom instead

Neil Newbon can't help sounding like Astarion from Baldur's Gate 3, given that he has the same voice, so when he approached the role of a personified clothes dryer in Date Everything, he channeled late actor Rik Mayall's performance of Lord Flashheart from the acclaimed '80s British sitcom Blackadder. What a lede, amirite?

Newbon recently said his approach to method acting sometimes makes it hard to shake off mannerisms from various characters he's portrayed, and in particular said his performance as Astarion still affects the way he laughs today. It makes sense then that he and the developers of Date Everything, a game that turns household items into hot people you can then date, would want to take measures to make Drysdale the dryer sound distinct from Astarion.

So, how do you do that? Well, if you're Neil Newbon, you base your performance off a fictional sex symbol from an old sitcom no one remembers unless they're very British. (Please don't leave a comment, I'm just an ignorant, youngish American.)

"I had a great time [playing Drysdale]," Newbon said in an interview with Luality. "It's a similar accent territory, because he's got like a more broad RP, whereas Astarion is a high inflected British accent. They sound similar. They are different, but they're quite similar.

"But we wanted to make sure that he wasn't going to fall into the Astarion trope too much. So I based him on actor called Rik Mayall, who does this wonderful character called Lord Flashheart in Blackadder, so there's enough that's fundamentally different."

If you understandably feel that I glossed over the wild premise of Date Everything too casually, well, there's not much else to say! You play as someone who lost their job to AI, but your life becomes instantly more enjoyable when someone gifts you a pair of magic glasses that turn all sorts of stuff in your house into 100+ dateable characters.

Your bed? That's Betty, of course. A chair? Meet... Chairemi. OK. Existential dread? Doug's comin' for ya. Your TV? That's Telly, otherwise known as TV in British. It all sounds like good fun, and it probably is, what with 95% positive reviews on Steam.

If nothing else, you get to hear Neil Newbon try not to sound like Astarion while playing a household dryer, and that alone justifies the price of admission for my money.

Baldur's Gate 3 actor Neil Newbon has turned down "Astarion-like" roles because he "wouldn't necessarily enjoy" them, but he "would love to play" the iconic vampire again