The highly-anticipated Baldur's Gate 3 finally arrives this month, over two decades after the last mainline entry in the franchise. The game is developed and published by Larian Studios, which previously worked on the Divinity series. The Dungeons & Dragons-based RPG has been in the works for several years, with early access initially opening up to players in 2020 and evolving over time to add more classes, features, narrative elements, and more.

Baldur's Gate 3 features a talented roster of voice actors, like Maggie Robertson as villain Orin the Red - known for her role of Lady Dimitrescu in Resident Evil Village - and Neil Newbon of Detroit: Become Human fame as vampire companion Astarion. All of Baldur's Gate 3's recruitable companions possess their own personalities and abilities - Astarion is a high elf rogue with dubious morals and a wicked sense of humor who excels in all things stealth, for example. As players grow closer to Astarion over time they'll learn more about his traumatic past, and the vampire spawn's complex backstory coupled with a charming personality have made him a fan-favorite since early access began.

Related: Baldur’s Gate 3 Review In Progress

Screen Rant sat down with Neil Newbon, who alongside playing the role of Astarion also served as a performance director for Baldur's Gate 3, to discuss how he embodied to multifaceted character, the experience of directing his fellow actors, and the expansive branching possibilities offered within the game.

​​​​Screen Rant: To start off, I'm curious how you would describe Astarion and how you think he compares to some of the other characters that you've played.

Neil Newbon: I've been very blessed with Astarion. He's such an incredibly talented and incredibly fun character to play, so he's been a real dream. I would describe him as being very self-focused and playful with morality in that way. I think he's very aware that he's immoral, I don't think he's amoral at all. Super intelligent, can be very manipulative, can also be very moved by people and beauty and new experiences. I think ultimately his driving force really is to be free and everything that that entails.

I think to play a character who has this trauma and comes from the situation essentially of abuse, to then be able to discover their own life, discover their identity, forge new friendships, possibly romance the player, et cetera - it's a very human story and it resonates a lot with people I think - I hope it does, anyway. It certainly does with me, the idea that sometimes life throws you things that force you to deal with very traumatic circumstances sometimes, or if not traumatic, something incredibly challenging and sometimes incredibly worrying situations. But to be able to have a drive to better yourself, to better your life, to be able to open up to people as well - it's really moving, it's really touching. I feel a lot of love for Astarion.

I based it on about three different people I know and then added my own sort of dash of stuff. I did a lot of craft work, and I think the best thing about it is that we had four years and the wonderful team at Larian had an incredible writing team and developers to really develop this character and really push this character in new directions maybe that they didn't see initially. Stephen Rooney is the writer of the story and is an incredibly wonderful writer and a very lovely guy; we got to know each other outside of work, which is great. And the amazing directors and all the audio crew at PitStop Productions are phenomenal and were very supportive with my ideas, pushing the boundaries of what the initial character was, to where it could go, to where it ended up. This is one of my all-time favorite characters.

You actually have an Astarion playlist on Spotify, and I think that's such an interesting concept to imagine a character in that way. I'm curious if you just had to pick one song to represent Astarion what that would be.

Neil Newbon: Oh, man, that's tough. I like musicality for character design and work; I think all my characters that I've played have had musicality. It's very difficult to choose one. I'm gonna go through the playlist now. I use it for different moments and scenes and aspects of his character and also when he's getting to different places. So every song has a particular use. I think "People Are Strange" by The Doors, definitely one of them. "Oh! You Pretty Things" by David Bowie. Stuff like that. I've even got REM's "Shiny Happy People" for when he takes great delight in something, even if it's completely morally wrong. It's difficult to nail just one; I think something by The Doors, Bowie, something along those lines is definitely what I'd sum him up in.

I saw you mentioned in another interview that while there wasn't a whole lot of improvisation, there were a handful of lines that you created as you were recording. Are there any that stand out to you from that?

Neil Newbon: Actually they weren't new lines, I would say they were spins on lines. I spoke to Stephen Rooney, and I don't think he'll mind me saying this, but he and I got to know each other through his words. I fell in love with Steven through the character and the words he wrote, it was absolutely extraordinary. But I know for a fact that I took lines in a very different direction than he had imagined and so he started finding himself writing to my rhythm, and I was acting within his rhythm as well. I think the main thing is that my use of "darling," punctuating things with like, "Hello, darling," things like that were developed together sort of symbiotically. So I wouldn't call it strict improvisation of a line, it was more like an embellish, a garnish.

But what often happened in-between takes - I like to play quite a lot with the character and stay in the character as much as I can. So in between the takes, I improvised a lot of jokes and stuff that he would say if that line continued outside of the context of the scene. So there's a lot of outtakes with me taking the mickey as Astarion and playing around, especially with the editor. [Laughs] So there's a lot of that, that's logged somewhere, somebody has a copy of that someplace; I don't know if they're allowed to release it or not.

The other thing I would say about this is the writing across the board - all the writers are absolutely extraordinary craftspeople. And I think that there isn't much need to improvise, because often improvisation can come from an organic moment but also can come from when you're struggling to make use of or understand the line. And I've done 1000s of lines, I think I know what the rough total is but I don't think I'm allowed to say. It is an extraordinarily large number of lines that I've done as Astarion and all of them were fantastic; they were really wonderful. So I didn't really improvise very much because I didn't have to. The lines are incredible, and the directors were incredible as well. I was very, very lucky.

And you helped with directing as well with this project. I'm curious how it compares to other direction you've done - you did the directing with Deliver Us Mars, for example. Did it vary at all from your past projects, and what was it like in general?

Neil Newbon: It was a very different setup. So we're shooting - I mean, there's been videos of actors in shooting, I'm pretty sure I'm allowed to say this, because you've seen videos of Maggie Robertson and me. So we're shooting in isolation, essentially, in a very, very small volume, but it is full performance. We're in the suits, we are the characters, we're moving the characters as well as doing full performance voice, and there's video face reference as well. So you're dealing with a very, very tight area. A lot of that also is very useful for people that understand motion capture, because really it's just very focused on this particular small, tiny universe.

So that changed, that was substantially different than doing scenes like in Deliver Us Mars, where there's eight actors playing one scene and you're stunting from start to finish. You might be doing pickups, but essentially you're shooting everything over the master, maybe picking up some moments or doing alternatives. But with this, it's a branching narrative, a huge branching narrative story of which the permutations and combinations of what you could choose in this scene, depending on who you're speaking to, depending on who you are, are staggeringly massive. So we're dealing with a spider's web script program, which helps you work out exactly where you are at any given moment, but then you have to translate that to the actor as well.

I've done branching narrative many times with Detroit Become Human, Planet of the Apes, that kind of stuff. So for me, it makes total sense. But I think there are some actors that it is quite a trip to go, "Well, at this moment, this person could be dead or alive, and I could be talking to them or about them," it's quite a lot for an actor sometimes if we're not used to it. So I had a lot of fun working directly with the actors and helping them through those moments, but also helping them understand how to get into their instrument, how to get into their body more, especially people that are very used to film TV only and maybe don't have a very strong theater background, or voice actors who spend a lot of time in the booth where they might move a little bit with their performance in the booth usually, but in this situation motion capture was new for them.

I'm very lucky that I have a long, huge career in motion capture and performance capture and I know what it's like to be an actor, but also understand what's useful - I hope. I think I managed to really help some new actors into being able to explore the character a bit more than they might dare. Also, I really like actors; I really love the story and I like actors, so I have a lot of fun working directly by trying things and playing with them and trying to think laterally about, "Okay, well, why don't we do this to the line." So I was really lucky with PitStop Productions in the first place and then Larian obviously signed me off as well to become a director for them. It's been really wonderful to be able to be on that side of the game as well as in the game.

On top of that, I also was consulting with Larian, so I've been teaching animators to use motion capture performance, because obviously they have to do a lot of their own stuff. And as well as that I am also a motion capture double, so I've been doubling some of the characters - which I don't think I'm necessarily allowed to tell you right now - that couldn't actually get in the suits for one reason or another. I also do a lot with combat and stunts and running around and jumping and stuff like that. So there's a lot of me in this game, and that's really down to Larian and PitStop taking a massive punt on me and saying, "What do you want to do?" and really embracing me for everything. I also have to thank Josh Weeden at PitStop, without whom I would not be cast in the first place. So PitStop gave me the opportunity, Larian gave me a huge amount of involvement, and it is legitimately one of the best jobs I've ever done.

Baldur's Gate 3 took the turn-based approach, and you have gotten a lot of turn-based experience over the past few years being the game master for the Vagabond Chronicles. I'm curious if that sort of turn-based experience you've been doing on your own impacted the way you viewed working on a project like this?

Neil Newbon: I think because I'm very heavily involved in the narrative side and a little bit of the locomotion side and the mechanical side with motion capture it's very useful to understand things like why we have to transition or to keep certain things, or certain movements need to be tight or succinct, or delivery of a line might have to be tighter than the actor might want to because there's a mechanical reason. For instance, if we're doing dialogue that happens when you're running around the world but it's triggered by something or it's about a door opening as opposed to a natural scene. So it's very, very useful practice to understand that.

I think for me personally, because I'm not literally involved in the mechanics of how the combat works or how you go into sneak mode in turn based, it didn't really impact me, but I think it's very useful for us as actors to understand that. I still think it's magic, the way that people create games. I assume developers go in with a cauldron and it's just like, "Boom! A whole new system." [Laughs] It's really cool. It is very useful to any actor trying to get into games to understand games as much as you can, and really learn what the systems are, because they can impact on your movement and performance. I think it's important that you understand the why, because then there aren't any issues when somebody says to you, "That was perfect - let's do it again three times." [Laughs] You can say, "Okay, cool. There's a reason for that."

Related: Baldur's Gate 3: Why Nobody Seems To Know That Astarion Is A Vampire

And in talking about games, I have to ask: I know you've been super busy, but have you been playing anything recently, or looking forward to anything besides this game?

Neil Newbon: Nick Apostolides is a really close friend of mine, so I've been playing RE4 because I promised him I would. I recently got into Dave the Diver, which that's brilliant. I haven't had much time, but I've definitely been secretly dipping into Dave the Diver, which is great. But to be honest with you, I'm actually finishing up a mammoth BG1 BG2 playthrough.

I decided to play the Beamdog Enhanced Edition version of BG1 and 2, because I know a lot about the world and I'm a DnD enthusiast anyway; I like the idea of a DnD enthusiast. [Laughs] But I also wanted to make sure that I really understood a lot of the canon stuff beyond just my character. When you're directing, you really need to know everybody in the canon and understand where all these things tie up. So I did a mammoth BG1 BG2 playthrough, which was wicked.

Maggie Robertson also plays a role in this. What was it like to reunite with your old Resident Evil buddy?

Neil Newbon: It was great. I got to see her in London, which was awesome. I got to sit in on one of the sessions which was wicked because she's phenomenally talented. It was just a real joy.

This industry on this side, it's growing, and it's bigger, but it's not quite as big as TV and film; we get to know each other properly, which is great. I'm still very close to my Resident Evil family, which she's part of that, as well as my BG family as well now. So it was just really joyous to see old friends that are super talented getting fantastic roles and just kicking a**. She's amazing in this role; I saw a session and it's just f****** phenomenal, really cool. It's really nice and really thrilling to see friends do really well and get involved, especially with the work that you're doing as well.

And in terms of recording, I know there's a ton about the plot and scenes that you can't reveal yet -

Neil Newbon: Absolutely. Loads I can't tell you. [Laughs] I will tell you one thing, there are so many cool things that you'd have to play through multiple times to see not even all of the stuff that's in there. And that's by design, I think it's very cool. I like Larian's point of view that they really want the player to do absolutely anything they choose to do, whether it's a good idea or bad, and to do that they have to facilitate a story that can cover almost every possibility. So there's no way that anybody can see everything in one playthrough, it's impossible. And even on multiple playthroughs, it's gonna be difficult.

And that's not like a brag, that's just to facilitate the imagination of the player, and I think for a company to do that is f****** incredible. I was blown away by the permutations and the possibilities and what they were thinking, trying to think of their players as well. They're trying to think as players, "What would I do in this situation? Right, let's make it happen." It's extraordinary. This game is really, really something.

Speaking in broad terms, are there any scenes, either that you directed or you acted in that stand out as especially difficult or especially satisfying to get right?

Neil Newbon: There's two that stand out immediately. One, I actually directed Dave [Jones] in his first sex scene with Astarion. So I actually was the director going through the scene not realizing that we're going to use Astarion as the possible pairing, because it doesn't have to be Astarion. But I didn't realize that. So I directed Dave about to make love to my character as it turns out, which was a real trip. [Laughs]

That was one, another one that I can't tell you what it was about, and not everybody will see this, but I improvised a movement thing. It was an idea that just popped out of me and I felt it was an amazing opportunity to really show something, like the totality of Astarion. And I'm not going to go into any detail at all, and not everybody will see it. But if somebody is into Astarion, if they like him a lot and they want to see the possibilities, they will come across it. It was something that I was very grateful to both Greg and Jason who really believed in me and believed in my take on the character. It wasn't something in the script, it was something that I came up with with Greg in the moment, and I think they've left it in so. It was something which I think was a really beautiful, organic moment. I will say nothing else because I don't want to spoil it. There's also another scene which is huge and massive, and I really dig that scene, it was amazing - and I can't tell you anything about it. [Laughs]

I didn't have one bad day; I had one challenging day where physically I was burning out; I was working so much that physically my voice went, my body went, I was just like a jelly mess, so I took a couple of days off and then was back in again. But never bad days in terms of the work or in terms of people. PitStop is an incredible organization, an incredible audio studio that really has a great family vibe there. They're really inclusive as well with great representation in the crew, and also just really funny and really supportive and really lovely. Same with Larian, Larian's an incredible organization, incredible game studio that really gives a s*** about the people that work there and really support you.

I've worked for great game companies in the past, I've never experienced that level of love, support, interest, and genuine friendships coming through on a project. It's been extraordinary actually. Friendships beyond the cast and the director as well, I've been getting to know the devs so well that I'll actually give them a shout every other day, go for coffee. It's very cool. I know I'm gushing quite a lot.

I feel like it's an impressive enough project that you're very much allowed to gush about it and the team.

Neil Newbon: Yeah, if I wasn't in it, I'd still be playing it. I'd still be gushing over it. I'm a massive Baldur's Gate fanboy; played 1 and 2 and the expansions, Siege of Dragonspear as well, played that and enjoyed that, Icewind Dale, all of it. This game, when it came along - I screamed quite a lot. It was great.

And that about does it for my questions, but I'm curious if there's anything else you want players to know about your role or the project in general.

Neil Newbon: There's a couple of things, really. It goes back to what I was talking about with PitStop and Larian. Larian is a really interesting game studio. The addition of the they/them pronoun, I worked out how roughly how much money it was for them to simply - and this was going back three-quarters of the way through the game cycle recording, when we are up against it anyway, like we are really motoring trying to get everything done - they included that they/them pronoun. We all started doing it, everybody using different pronouns for various things towards the player or something about the player or other people. And it is 1000s, and 1000s, and 1000s, and 1000s of hours, and it is a huge amount of money they spent purely to be inclusive in that way, which is absolutely appropriate. I think it was an incredible statement.

They really spent a lot of money and time that we didn't really have to do that, and I think it was really commendable and really cool. There are lots of people of all different types of gender identities, sexualities, ethnic backgrounds, et cetera in the company, but also in PitStop as well and in the cast and characters inside the actual story. I just think it's really cool. One of the best elements I find is that they are really representational of as many people as possible that you can possibly include in a fantasy setting that mirrors real life. It's amazing. And I feel very honored.

My character is immoral, he's a vampire, but he's also pansexual, and that's not the first thing you find out about him. It's not like, "I am this, this is my statement." It's more just like another aspect, another facet of my character, like "Oh, I'm also pansexual, that's another thing." It's not the only thing about me, it's another thing about me. I just think it's cool. It's normalization, which I think is very important, especially for younger generations to feel accepted, to feel seen, to feel known in that way. Players can think, "My character can represent who I am and be all the aspects of me, not just a hairstyle."

Source: Larian Studios/YouTube

Baldur's Gate 3 is available today, August 3, for PS5, PC, and Mac via Steam and GOG.