Mulgrew Talks Dragon Age: Origins
2 min readStar Trek: Voyager‘s Kate Mulgrew is voicing Flemeth on Dragon Age: Origins, an RPG that tells the tale of a kingdom besieged by dark forces.
Flemeth is a mysterious “witch of the wilds” who is the mother of the sorceress Morrigan.
Doing voice work for a game is different than acting in front of a camera, but Mulgrew enjoyed taking on the role of Flemeth. “Well, there’s nothing more liberating, in a way. This is every actor’s true dream. I’ve likened it to going into a dark room with a very smart child who demands an epic story on the spot, one that will change their life. And you have two flashlights, and you have that moment captured in time, and you get to just go, and the kid is going to go with you. So, it’s a beautiful little journey you get to take.”
Being able to act without cameras, makeup or costumes is also freeing. “You’ve got the script in front of you, and you’ve got the engineer. And for some reason, it takes me back to the absolute core of who I am, as an imaginative person, as an artist, and that is to tell the story, in the moment. And being one of eight children, I often did this in the closet in my room, and it was better than being on Broadway! It was great.”
Voicing Flemeth, according to Mulgrew, is “every actress’ dream because the vocal dexterity required is both challenging and very freeing…almost joyful to go that deep. She’s dark. The game itself is epic, dark, and brutal, but it’s very smart. So I’m always engaged. Everything that comes out my mouth is very important.”
“She’s a witch,” explained Mulgrew, “but she’s mysterious, and you have to stay with the game and stay with the character to discover just how mysterious she is. There are undercurrents and secrets to her, and when you understand that hers is a history rich in despair and loss, then you can grasp her fury and her power in a different way. And as an actor, being able to know that, and I know that people playing this game may not know that, and even our hero [of the game] doesn’t know that yet, there’s a sense of great adult play.”
Mulgrew encouraged her Star Trek: Voyager fans to try the game. “I found this to be a thoroughly compelling video game to perform in and that I hope that when [people] play it, they feel that from me. And just take the journey and understand that the excellence in this journey lies in the intelligence of this particular story.”
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