Jennifer Hale, who is the new voice of Bayonetta in the forthcoming Bayonetta 3, has shared a message with fans on Twitter simply titled “About Bayonetta 3”. In the message Hale says that she has consistently advocated for better pay for those in the voice acting profession and that she also has great respect for all her peers. She continued by saying that she is naturally under a non disclosure agreement (NDA) so she can not speak too freely regarding the situation which arose last week when Bayonetta’s original voice actress, Hellena Taylor, said that she refused to voice Bayonetta in Bayonetta 3 due to the fact that she was only offered a maximum of $4,000 for her voice work by Platinum Games, which is not a great deal of money at all for voicing the main character in such a large and acclaimed series as Bayonetta. Hale finished her newly published message by saying that she hopes everyone involved in the situation manages to resolve their differences “in an amicable and respectful way.”
“With regard to Bayonetta 3,
As a longtime member of the voice acting community, I support
every actor’s right to be paid well and have advocated consistently
for this for years.
Anyone who knows me, or has followed my career, will know that I
have great respect for my peers, and that I am an advocate for all
members of the communitv.
I am under an NDA and am not at liberty to speak regarding this
situation. My reputation speaks for itself.
I sincerely ask that everyone keep in mind that this game has been
created by an entire team of hard-working, dedicated people and I
hope everyone will keep an open mind about what they’ve created.
Finally, I hope that everyone involved may resolve their differences
in an amicable and respectful way.
With love and respect to you all,
Jennifer Hale”
Pure Class. and given that she’s under an NDA I didn’t expect her to chime in at all, but she did so within the confines of NDA and still got her points across.
That’s very understandable coming from her. I guess she truly understand what Hellena Taylor has been going through and been taking for granted unfairly about the amount she receives for her hard on work.
They are dub voice actors for a foreign market…. neither of them are even the actual voice of Bayonetta. Its a japanese game, not American, how delusional do you gotta be to think you can get people to boycott, or in this situation feel the need to “release a statement” from this new woman. They are replaceable with subtitles, why do they think they are actual Hollywood actors just because a videogame they recorded lines (in a very short time frame) sells well.
One correction to make
Bayonetta never had a Japanese voice in the games until 2 (and by extension 1 since they added the dub to the wii u version, which was then ported to steam), so there was no Japanese voice in the games for 5 years.
But, the real problem is, that that 4,000 she apparently was offered (if true), was fair for a short gig toward someone who had not worked in voice acting for 4 years, and only has 1 notable role at all.
She’d have to voice six possibly more different Bayonettas…. We hit a pandemic a stock market crash and inflation… We don’t know Helena’s situation besides her asking for basic pay…. Bayonetta 3 is far more story involved than bayo one and two where. She was new back when she did one. And since then did a full anima movie, anarchy reigns, bayo 2, smash bros wiiu and ultimate and wonderful 101
It’s fair she’s become attached to Bayonetta she played a part in the characters design giving her a voice and the blueprint on what she sounds like. I understand that.
Yeah her asking (not demanding) people to boycott was abit much she just wanted to help gather attention to an issue that has happened many times with voice actors being lowballed for their work…..
Here’s a great example of someone being a giant a-hole without even having their facts right.
Jennifer Hale is a very well known voice actress with MANY noticeable roles under her name. . maybe do your research before you dismiss people’s work. Additionally, the game sells great in the western market and for English speakers, the English voice IS the voice of Bayonetta. One role or more, voice actors are recognized by the gaming community for their roles.
She’s a generic brit voice and replaceable, also her imdb is horrible and this will likely blacklist her
They aren’t the dub… Bayonetta was originally English only… Her voice is what set the blueprint on what Bayonetta sounds like… Jenifer hale an American had to emulate Helena taylors voice whose natively from the uk.. .helena Taylor isn’t American she’s British .
All she asked was to be payed a basic rate. She’d be voicing 6 different bayonettas … Doing reshoots and retakes..trying to capture the right emotion, attitude and tone of whatever event if going on in the scenes
People literally take classes, go to school and study…
voice acting isn’t as easy as you think it is…
This just confirms there is more to the story than what the original VA told us.
Now see, that’s the approach Mrs Taylor should have taken. No entitlement, no insults, and no manipulation.
I’m honestly ashmed seeing so many people just take Hellana’s side without even thinking about lending an ear to the other side.
It’s Twitter though it’s all about taking one side instead of hearing multiple sides of the story to see if things add up, people do and say many things for clout on there, still find it weird she brought it up super closer to launch instead of a month before, as the last major Bayonetta update was in September direct.
That’s what triggered my paranoia, too. Why not bring this up sooner instead of 2-3 weeks from release? One could argue she waited for this moment to get the most attention. Not a peep of her being replaced til AFTER we were made aware it was a new VA. Since she turned down the role, I’m assuming no NDA was signed so she could’ve came forward at any time before last week & after turning it down.
What other side? Platinum and kamiya didn’t help the situation…. She spoke her peace she doesn’t have anything to lose that she already didn’t have…
I’m not talking about that dude I’m talking about Helena and Jennifer sides to the story, kamiya a men child anyway, and he has no shame in showing it on twitter.
+felixgray
The thing you need to know about Kamiya is that his Twitter Personality is fake. If you go through all the interviews and videos he’s appeared in, you’ll find he’s actually a really nice guy and anyone that’s familiar with him knows he treats Twitter like a playground which honestly isn’t that unreasonable when you consider how pathetic Twitter is.
Twitter really is pathetic, wait you mean it’s all an act and he’s just trolling I guess that make sense twitter is pretty toxic.
Considering how quick people were to side with Heard without hearing Depp’s side, this shouldn’t surprise you. The Bloomberg article that came out isn’t helping Taylor’s case. And it lends credence to what Kamiya said about untruths.
Good response from Hale.