All right, everyone. We're here with Ben Star, the actor for Clive, Rosfield and Final Fantasy 16. Ben has it going today. It's going pretty good. The game's coming out soon, so things are holding up and it's quite exciting. This is like a game that we've been working on for such a long period of time and the fact that we now get to share it with everyone is really, really special. So it's really cool to sit here with you and talk about it. Yeah, we're happy to have you. So there are a few questions I'd like to ask today. Kind of pick your mind. All right, so rapid fire. What does Final Fantasy mean to you? Final Fantasy is incredible world's deep, rich storytelling and emotional characters. And how excited are you for launch? I just I just I'm so excited. I can't even put into words. And it has been the greatest honor of my life. What do you hope people feel when they play the game? I hope they will. I hope that this game will allow people to maybe see a little bit of themselves in it, you know? I think games are at their most powerful when they make us better comprehend the world in which we live. Yes, it's a fantastical setting, but we go, I recognize that and it helps us heal. And it helps us be better. So that's why I hope. So you are a huge fan of Final Fantasy as I correct? Yes, a big fan. So I would love to know how it felt for you as a fan of Final Fantasy to get to be the main protagonist in the latest Final Fantasy title. It felt is feeling will feel for the rest of my life incredibly surreal. This is a series that I that changed my life when I was a kid and I was the person who would buy the special edition day one of every single copy after I played Final Fantasy 8. And from that point I pretty much played all of them. So having a completely different perspective on this this franchise which means so much to me, understanding how much and how important it is to so many millions of people out there. And for people who've never played the game before to know that like this game could affect people the way that it affected me when I was 11 years old is something incredibly special. So I'm very, very scared, but I'm also so excited to share with everyone. Are you able to speak on the audition process what that was like for you, what it was like to audition for the role and how you got that? Well, it's all super secret when you audition for video games because they're code names on code names and I was just auditioning for a fantasy video game and I auditioned for a much smaller role and I think I did about three lines and I don't think I did them very well and then the Tano went off and went well I've blown this there will never mind is fine and then I heard the performance director say Ben would you mind reading this and I got a series of lines and I took a minute to just look at them and then I blind read them in one go and I think it went quite well because three or four days later I got the part in this video game which I didn't know what it was and then it wasn't until a couple of days later that they went by the way this is the game and then I screamed into a pillow for about four days and then they went by the way you can't tell anyone about it so it's been this this secret from my friends so many of whom have played these games as well like me and I've had to keep it from them you know they're excited for the game I just see my friends liking videos on on Instagram and YouTube and stuff and and I can't say anything so I yeah if I to really keep it short for a while yeah but thankfully you're able to come out and talk about the fact that you've voiced Clive now yeah it's it's so special and the response from all the fans has been kind of the best part of it I know this is a community who completely adore this and to be to have to kind of be a custodian of the next protagonist you know there's that there's that image of the decidia protagonist all in a circle and it's just like this iconic image of just like where we've been with this franchise and to know that Clive is gonna be the person who takes that forward and they're like oh Ben do you want to do you want to do that for us and I'm like oh okay all right I don't want to you know I don't want to screw it up but it's it's it's really cool and I can't wait to see how people enjoy the game and how it affects them you have a background in acting but this is your first kind of big role in a video game so what was that like for you to make the transition from traditional acting to voice acting I think the kind of the we were we were allowed so much bandwidth in this they are a lot of actors in this game who actually don't do a lot of video games as well because they really wanted to get people from kind of a theatrical background or a film and TV background and when we did the audition it wasn't just into a microphone we were films doing it so they knew that the technology that we were using we were gonna be using facial capture and so it meant that the transition was probably a little bit easier and over the four years doing it I learned a lot because I really thought for the first couple of months that I was gonna get fired because I just didn't know what was going on I just I was really just you know imposter syndrome was at a complete high and I just thought this can't be real right this isn't this isn't real and I've learned so much which I can take back into doing film and TV and stage and it was just an opportunity also to work with people who's work I admire and often I would come into work and then I'd be acting opposite people who's you know who's films I've seen and TV shows I've seen I just can't believe that this has allowed me to do that if you could think of a scene without getting a dispoiler territory that was really challenging for you to film maybe emotionally character wise what was it like for you to get into that headspace and how did you conquer that with some of the really emotional stuff that we had to do I didn't think about it we would we would often get the opportunities to see some of the scenes beforehand and see how they were gonna play out but sometimes I would just say why don't we just see what happens and especially when you are emotional you can't really fake it otherwise it doesn't it doesn't work so sometimes we would just have to jump in don't even think about where you're going and see where that takes you and I think I'm so proud with what we've done here because I think there is so much braw honesty in that and there are scenes in this game that were taken on the first take because we shouldn't really do that again because it felt really real I will do my duty you must do you do you do and that's really been what we've been pushing it's gonna make it as real as possible yes it's fantastical yes there are these giant beasts yes it's thrilling action but also there is at a base level this honesty and that's what we've really gone for and I'm just the opportunity to to play it to see what we've done to celebrate it and to go oh yeah that was a moment in time when I was doing it that yeah that happened and that feels raw that is an immediate thing last question I'd like to ask you today is kind of about if there were any moments of improv yeah so I think that like with with this sort of thing because the writing is so good there isn't kind of that that width to improvise stuff however because in the recording process we were able to at times I was in the booth with Ralph I was in the booth with Susanna like we were able to create these relationships where stuff if we done it separately it just wouldn't have happened that way and because there was that immediacy in acting with some of which often in voice acting you don't get to do so much stuff that is still in the game came out of those sections reads that you wouldn't really expect because they are just immediately reacting to a person right next to you and it was a it was a really great kind of freeing thing to be able to to have that opportunity and even though you know that process wasn't able to continue right right through we built these amazing relationships at that moment that we could continue on and understand for the rest of the game