Troy Edward Baker (born April 1, 1976) is an American actor and musician known for portraying lead characters in several video games. He has voiced Joel in The Last of Us, Booker DeWitt in BioShock Infinite, Rhys in Tales from the Borderlands, Delsin Rowe in Infamous Second Son, The Joker in Batman: Arkham Origins and Batman: Assault on Arkham, Talion in Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor, Kai Leng in Mass Effect 3, Jack Mitchell in Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare, Vincent Brooks in Catherine, Yuri Lowell in Tales of Vesperia, Kanji Tatsumi in Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 4, Snow in the Final Fantasy XIII series, Pagan Min in Far Cry 4, Gul'dan in World of Warcraft: Warlords of Draenor and Sam Drake in Uncharted 4: A Thief's End. He voiced Bruce Wayne in Batman: The Telltale Series. He also voiced in a number of English adaptations of Japanese anime shows, including Basilisk, Trinity Blood, Fullmetal Alchemist, and Naruto: Shippuden.
Before pursuing acting, Baker was the lead singer and rhythm guitarist for the indie-rock band Tripp Fontaine, which released the radio single "Burning Out" from their debut album Random Thoughts on a Paper Napkin in 2004. His first solo album, Sitting in the Fire, was released on October 14, 2014.
Career
Baker began his voice acting career doing radio commercials. He was recruited by Chris Sabat to do voice-over work at Funimation for the English adaptation of the anime Case Closed. He then went on to work with anime such as Bleach, Dragon Ball Z, Fullmetal Alchemist, Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, Naruto, Naruto: Shippuden and One Piece. He began working on Marvel-based animated series where he provided the voice of various characters in The Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes, and Hawkeye and Loki in Ultimate Spider-Man and Avengers Assemble.
His career in the video game industry began when he voiced Matt Baker in Gearbox Software's Brothers in Arms. In an interview with The Griff, Baker said that "It was starting to become necessary for actors to become involved [in gaming], so I got into that and it was literally stumbling from one job into the next. That was kind of my first snowball effect." His most notable roles came in 2013 where he provided the voice of Booker DeWitt in Irrational Games' BioShock Infinite and performed the voice and motion capture of Joel in Naughty Dog's The Last of Us. Both games earned critical acclaim, earning scores over 90% in GameRankings and Metacritic, and commercial success. Baker got nominated for both of these roles in the VGX 2013 and ended up winning for The Last of Us. Baker again worked with Naughty Dog on Uncharted 4: A Thief's End opposite Nolan North playing Nathan Drake's older brother Sam.
In 2011 he became the voice of Siris, the hero from Chair Entertainment's blockbuster mobile series Infinity Blade, and Talion, the protagonist of Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor which earned a rating of 9.3 on IGN. He also voiced Ace (Experiment 262) in the English dub of the anime Stitch!. Entertainment Weekly has listed him in their Best of 2013 issue for best breakout actor in the video game industry for his performance as Joel in The Last of Us, Booker DeWitt in BioShock Infinite and the Joker in Batman: Arkham Origins. He is one of the few actors to have portrayed Batman (Lego Batman 2: DC Super Heroes, Lego Batman 3: Beyond Gotham, Lego Dimensions and Batman: The Telltale Series), the Joker (Batman: Arkham Origins) and the three major iterations of Robin (Batman: Arkham City, Injustice: Gods Among Us and Batman: Arkham Knight).
Filmography
Anime
Animation
Feature film
Direct-to-video and television films
Video games
Other voice roles
Live action
Discography
- Studio albums
- Random Thoughts on a Paper Napkin (2004, as part of Tripp Fontaine)
- Sitting in the Fire (2014)
- Window to the Abbey (2017)
- Singles
- "Burning Out" (2004, as part of Tripp Fontaine)
- "My Religion" (2013)
- "Merry Christmas" (2015)
- "Water Into Wine" (2017)
- Video game songs
- "Will The Circle Be Unbroken?" (2013) â€" in BioShock Infinite
- "Cold, Cold Heart" (2013) â€" in Batman: Arkham Origins Cold, Cold Heart DLC
Awards and nominations
Notes
References
External links
- Troy Baker on Twitter
- Troy Baker convention appearances on AnimeCons.com
- Troy Baker at Anime News Network's encyclopedia
- Troy Baker at Behind The Voice Actors
- Troy Baker at the Internet Movie Database