Despite being from Canada, Patricia Summersett chose to audition as Breath of the Wild’s Princess Zelda using a British accent. In a recent interview with Nintendo Life, Summersett discussed how she settled on the voice and the help she received from a friend in the U.K. While she has received a mixed reaction from fans, the actress obviously put in a lot of effort into capturing the Hylian’s voice. Check out the full interview here.
As a North American, what work did you do to develop Zelda’s British accent in the game?
Prior to this game I studied in London for a Masters of Classical Acting. I’ve used RP (received pronunciation) onstage in performances such as Equus and various Pinter Plays while in London, and snippets in games, etc. Ironically, my British friend who I studied with in the UK was living in LA and helped me prepare for my Breath of the Wild audition. What I auditioned with was approved before the recording began.
I didn’t know that. Thanks, Josh.
I did not really like how she sounded like she was going to cry in every cut scene.
But I hope Zelda gets bigger role in the upcoming story DLC.
I know that was my biggest complaint too. Her voice was way over done/over acted.
yeah exactly. I’m kinda angry at Nintendo for creating such a well done game and then not hearing how weird this whiney voice sounds.
Everytime I hear “A BLOOD MOON RISES” I just feel kinda uncomfortable. Like I have to turn around and check if my girlfriend doesn’t hear how bad that voice sounds as she would just start laughing. Goddammit. Gonna switch (clack) to japanese voice acting asap.
The good thing is, that there is not that much of it, and I always skip blood moons, it was kinda atmospheric the first few times, but for the 100th time, it is starting to annoy.
I believe she has room for improvement, thats why I hope she gets more opportunities in the story DLC.
But maybe she was meant to sound whiny and not so confident.
Though I would have thought she would have grown a little bit as a character during her 100 year battle with Ganon.
Well, I don’t know if that was because of the actress, or the story. After all, the memories took place during (or, before) the great calamity. A lot was going on, and Princess Zelda was worried a lot.
Inb4 weebs complain about her voice and start praising why Japanese Zelda is much better.
She is terrible. The japanese is slightly better but honestly it’s not that great either.
Says the weebaholic.
I did not like the zelda potrayed in BOTW. She was like a random NPC with barely any back story. She was kinda like a bitch to link.
You didn’t read the journals in Hyrule castle did you? She was the most fleshed out incarnation of Zelda in the entire franchise.
Agreed.
I read all of her journals! She was VERY well fleshed out.
And yet she still sounded awful. I don’t know why they didn’t just hire a British actress.
this should be called “canadian-washing”
Still bad acting, IMHO.
Tried 5 different languages, Italian is the most professional, english seems emotionless, japanese is unlistenable (I mean zelda screams like a crazy, it’s overly “pushed”)
The animation makes her look like she is blowing her lungs out so I think the japanese voice acting succeeded there.
Thank god we can can now turn her awful voice off!
I for one think she did fine. For those complaining that she sounded too emotional, there are hints you can find in Hyrule Castle that explain her background and upbringing, which I think lends to her tone and inflection.
I completely agree with you.
Agreed. The hate is overdone. At worst the voice acting is acceptable. In my opinion, it’s great.
Anything can be acceptable if you choose to accept it. It’s mediocre at best.
I hated how she sounded like an old lady about to cry!
And Impa sounded like a teenager trying to sound old.
The weebs come out at night!
So she was faking a British accent & not using the offshoot of it that exists in the area she grew up in. :/ Fuck! Now I’ll never hear her voice the same again & will have that annoying voice in the back of my head saying “Fucking faking accents & not doing a very good job at it! Were they too cheap to just hire a British voice actress from England!? Fuck you, NoA!” It’s because of bullshit like this that I’m worried about Xenoblade 2 having a bunch of American accents & fake british accents & other fake accents! Most of Hollywood is fucking cheap & lazy as fuck when it comes to casting!
That said, I don’t think she did a bad job voicing Princess Zelda but there is definitely room for improvement.
It would’ve been nice if Emma Watson played Zelda
Or Jenna Coleman. Sadly, Nintendo was probably too cheap to hire them. I’m all for roughly nobodies being picked to play big roles, though. If Hollywood would do that shit more often, we could probably have a ton of asian descent actors playing actual asian characters instead of white washing roles all the time.