Underground Geek Network posted a video on Youtube of Baker speaking at Indy PopCon 2015 (below).
The prolific voice actor spoke at length, discussing, among other things, his musical career and upcoming game projects.
He also told the audience of the insane audition that led to him becoming the voice of Pagan Min and how he used his creative input to help the team mould the eccentric ruler of Kyrat into the character we see in Far Cry 4.
“When I went in to meet with the team about that, they said ‘whatever you wanna do,’” Baker explained.
Ubisoft was clear, however, that they wanted their charismatic villain to be very distinguished from Batman’s iconic antagonist The Joker, whom Baker previously voiced in Batman: Arkham Origins.
“There were lines and there was a script and that went bye-bye very, very quickly,” Baker told the audience. Halfway through the audition an assistant at Ubisoft interrupted and Baker saw his opportunity to have some fun with the situation and really bring the sadistic dictator to life.
Speaking in typical Min fashion, Baker said, “I’m sorry, who is this? Who is this walking into this room right now? No, no, no, no, don’t leave, sit down.”
The assistant was understandably confused and panicked by the request.
“Have a seat, please,” Baker continued. “Just make yourself comfortable. Would you like some coffee that you brought in? It looks very delicious. Now here’s what I’m going to do, I’m going to murder her right in front of you.”
The unorthodox behaviour clearly impressed Ubisoft and presumably left the poor assistant traumatised for life. “And she just starts going ‘I don’t know,’" recalls Baker, “and meanwhile the team’s going ‘This is it! This is the kind of guy that we want!’”
Still in character, Baker had said to the assistant, “So I’m going to peel your face off and put it on my own, it’ll be the most glorious makeover I’ve ever had.”
Head to 21:47 for the clip.
Baker attributes his vast exposure as an actor as the reason he was able to get away with such absurd behaviour, a wise observation as we don’t think threatening the staff is the best way for the average person to spice up an interview.
Ubisoft is known to give actors a large amount of creative input for their characters. Incidentally the character of Vaas, by far the most compelling reason to play Far Cry 3, didn’t even exist until actor Michael Mando’s audition inspired Ubisoft to create the iconic antagonist.
