Troy Baker


Troy Baker is an American voice actor and musician. He is known for his numerous roles in video games, including Yuri Lowell in Tales of Vesperia, Joel Miller in The Last of Us franchise, Booker DeWitt in BioShock Infinite, Samuel "Sam" Drake in Uncharted 4: A Thief's End and Uncharted: The Lost Legacy, Rhys Strongfork in Tales from the Borderlands, Snow Villiers in Final Fantasy XIII, Kanji Tatsumi in Persona 4, Vincent Brooks in Catherine, Agent Jones in Fortnite, Talion in Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor and Middle-earth: Shadow of War, Pagan Min in Far Cry 4, Alex Taylor in The Crew, Revolver Ocelot in Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain, Higgs Monaghan in Death Stranding and Death Stranding 2: On the Beach, and Indiana Jones in Indiana Jones and the Great Circle.
Baker currently holds the record for the most acting nominations at the BAFTA Games Awards, with five between 2013 and 2021. Baker has also voiced Batman, the Joker, Hawkeye, and Loki in various media, and has provided voices for a number of English dubs of anime, including Bleach, Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, Naruto: Shippuden, Code Geass, and Soul Eater. He was previously the lead singer and rhythm guitarist for the alternative rock band Tripp Fontaine, with whom he released an album titled Random Thoughts on a Paper Napkin. He then released the solo album Sitting in the Fire before he and his backing band changed their name to Window to the Abbey and released the album Moving Around Bias.
Baker is a vocal proponent of generative AI in the video game industry. In 2022, Baker announced his controversial partnership with an NFT company called Voiceverse, which was later discovered to have plagiarized from a free service called 15.ai; Baker ended his partnership two weeks later.

Career

Acting

Baker began his voice acting career doing radio commercials in Dallas. He was recruited by Christopher Sabat to do voice-over work at Funimation for the English adaptation of the anime Case Closed. He went on to work in dubbing anime such as Bleach, Dragon Ball Z, Fullmetal Alchemist, Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, Naruto, Naruto: Shippuden, and the Funimation dub of One Piece. He then moved to Los Angeles and began working on Marvel-based animated series, providing the voice of various characters in The Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes, as well as Hawkeye and Loki in Ultimate Spider-Man and Avengers Assemble.
Baker's career in the video game industry began when he voiced Matt Baker in the tactical shooter series Brothers in Arms. In an interview with The Griff, he said, "It was starting to become necessary for actors to become involved , 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, when he provided the voice of Booker DeWitt in BioShock Infinite and the voice and motion capture of Joel in The Last of Us. Both games earned critical acclaim, gaining scores over 90% on GameRankings and Metacritic, and widespread commercial success. He was nominated for both of these roles at VGX 2013, winning for The Last of Us. He then worked on Uncharted 4: A Thief's End, playing Nathan Drake's older brother Sam. He reprised the role in Uncharted: The Lost Legacy.
In 2011, Baker became the voice of Siris, the hero of Chair Entertainment's blockbuster mobile game series Infinity Blade, and in 2014 he was the voice of Talion, the protagonist of Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor, which earned a rating of 9.3 on IGN. He also voiced Ace in the English dub of the anime Stitch! He was listed on Entertainment Weekly in their "Best of 2013" issue for "Best Breakout Actor" in the video game industry for his performances in The Last of Us, BioShock Infinite, and as the Joker in Batman: Arkham Origins. He is one of the few actors to have portrayed Batman, the Joker, and the three major iterations of Robin in Injustice: Gods Among Us and Jason Todd.
In May 2018, Baker and voice actor Nolan North began hosting the weekly YouTube series Retro Replay. In April 2020, due to an apparent disagreement on the future direction of the show, Baker left to start his own series.

Voiceverse partnership and plagiarism scandal, NFTs, and generative AI

On January 14, 2022, Troy Baker announced a partnership with blockchain-based company Voiceverse, which was immediately met with negative reception. The announcement was particularly controversial due to Baker's confrontational tone, ending his tweet with "You can hate. Or you can create." Later that day, it was discovered that Voiceverse had used voice technology from 15.ai—a free, non-commercial text-to-speech application—without permission or attribution. Screenshots of log files posted by 15, the developer of 15.ai, revealed that Voiceverse had generated audio using 15.ai's voices from My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic, pitched them up to make them unrecognizable, and then sold them as non-fungible tokens. News publications and AI watchdog groups universally characterized the incident as theft and plagiarism. Following the continued backlash and plagiarism revelation, Baker acknowledged on January 31, 2022, that his original announcement may have been "antagonistic" and announced that he would discontinue his partnership with Voiceverse. In 2023, /Film described Baker's former partnership with Voiceverse as "one of less reputable roles".
In January 2026, Eurogamer referenced the plagiarism scandal in regards to Baker's comments about generative AI, writing that his Voiceverse partnership had resulted in "fierce backlash" as a result of his "provocative marketing".

Music

Before pursuing acting, Baker was the lead singer and rhythm guitarist for the alternative rock band Tripp Fontaine, which released the radio single "Burning Out" from their debut album Random Thoughts on a Paper Napkin in 2004.
Baker's first solo album, Sitting in the Fire, was released on October 14, 2014. On October 6, 2017, Baker and his backing band, also called Sitting in the Fire, released his second album Moving Around Bias under the new name of Window to the Abbey.

Personal life

In 2012, Baker married photographer Pamela Walworth, also from Dallas. They reside in Los Angeles. They have a son who was born in 2018.

Filmography

Anime

Animation

Film

Video games

Other

Live-action

Discography

Studio albums

  • Random Thoughts on a Paper Napkin
  • Sitting in the Fire
  • ''Moving Around Bias''

    Singles

  • "Burning Out"
  • "My Religion"
  • "Merry Christmas"
  • "Water into Wine"
  • "The Promise"
  • "Breathe"

    Video game performances

  • "Take Me to Hell " in Shadows of the Damned
  • "Will the Circle Be Unbroken?" in BioShock Infinite
  • "Cold, Cold Heart" in the Batman: Arkham Origins DLC of the same name
  • "Happy Birthday: Congratulations" in Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain
  • "Wayfaring Stranger" and "Future Days" in The Last of Us Part II
  • "Fade" with Mary Elizabeth McGlynn in ''The Medium''

    Awards and nominations