Video: The flattest performances by Hollywood actors in games
Cut! Outside Xbox has some notes.
Peter 'Tyrion Lannister' Dinklage has taken flak for his voice performance in the Destiny alpha. To be fair, he is playing an emotionless AI called Ghost - and also his is far from the worst video game performance we've had from an admired Hollywood actor.
Voice acting and screen acting are completely different deals. You have the artificial setting of a recording booth, for starters, if you're not doing some fancy-pants full motion performance capture.
Then, in most cases, there is the lack of other actors to interact with; a real director; or a full explanation of the background of the character or context of the story. That's a perfect combination of trying circumstances for an inexperienced voice actor.
Does that explain Michael Biehn's performance in Aliens: Colonial Marines, which sounds less gruff-but-likeable space marine and more confused, medicated man woken at 4AM and asked to read a script down the phone?
Or Bruce Willis's baffling turn in PlayStation game Apocalypse, which is the worst Bruce Willis performance of all time? Yes, even worse than his appearance on The One Show.
Still, there is more than one way to give a ropey performance in a video game. Stick around until the end of the video for the most unflat performance in video game history, by way of contrast: Tim Curry as the glorious Premier Anatoly Cherdenko in Command and Conquer: Red Alert 3.
Did we omit a more terrible celeb voice actor? Let us know in the comments, and drop by Outside Xbox for more video game videos.