Troy Baker

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.^[1]

Baker's career in the video game industry began when he voiced Matt Baker in the tactical shooter series Brothers in Arms.^[2] In an interview with The Griff, he said, "It was starting to become necessary for actors to become involved [in gaming], so I got into that and it was literally stumbling from one job into the next. That was kind of my first snowball effect."^[3] 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^[4][5] and Metacritic,^[6][7] and widespread commercial success.^[8][9] 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.^[10]

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 (Experiment 262) 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 (Lego Batman 2: DC Super Heroes, Lego Batman 3: Beyond Gotham, Lego Dimensions, Batman: The Telltale Series and Batman: The Enemy Within), the Joker (Batman: Arkham Origins), and the three major iterations of Robin (Tim Drake in Batman: Arkham City, Dick Grayson (as Nightwing) in Injustice: Gods Among Us and Jason Todd (as Red Hood and the main antagonist) in Batman: Arkham Knight).^[11]

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.^[12]

Voiceverse partnership

On January 14, 2022, Troy Baker announced a partnership with Voiceverse NFT, which was immediately met with negative reception.^[13][14][15] The announcement was particularly controversial due to Baker's confrontational tone, ending his tweet with "You can hate. Or you can create. What'll it be?"^[16] The controversy intensified on the same day when it was discovered that Voiceverse had used voice technology from 15.ai—a free, non-commercial text-to-speech application—without permission or attribution.^[17] Log files 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 NFTs—violating 15.ai's terms of service that explicitly prohibited commercial use and required proper attribution.^[18]

When confronted, Voiceverse claimed that someone on their marketing team had used 15.ai's technology without proper attribution because they were rushing to create a partnership demo.^[19] This explanation was met with further criticism from 15.ai's anonymous developer (who responded with "Go fuck yourself"^[20]) and the broader voice acting community, who raised concerns about AI voice technology's potential impact on the profession.^[21] Following the continued backlash, Baker acknowledged on January 31, 2022, that his original announcement may have been "antagonistic" and announced he would discontinue his partnership with Voiceverse.^[22][23]

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.^[24][25]

Baker's first solo album, Sitting in the Fire, was released on October 14, 2014.^[26][27][28] 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.^[29]

Anime

Animation

Film

Video games

Other

Live-action

Studio albums

• Random Thoughts on a Paper Napkin (2004, with Tripp Fontaine)
• Sitting in the Fire (2014, solo)
• Moving Around Bias (2017, with Window to the Abbey)

Singles

• "Burning Out" (2004, with Tripp Fontaine)
• "My Religion" (2013, solo)
• "Merry Christmas" (2015, solo)
• "Water into Wine" (2017, with Window to the Abbey)
• "The Promise" (2017, with Window to the Abbey)
• "Breathe" (2020, with Window to the Abbey)

Video game performances

• "Take Me to Hell (Broken Dream)" in Shadows of the Damned (2011)
• "Will the Circle Be Unbroken?" (with Courtnee Draper) in BioShock Infinite (2013)^[253]
• "Cold, Cold Heart" in the Batman: Arkham Origins DLC of the same name (2013)^[254][255]
• "Happy Birthday: Congratulations" in Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain (2015)
• "Wayfaring Stranger" (with Ashley Johnson) and "Future Days" in The Last of Us Part II (2020)
• "Fade" with Mary Elizabeth McGlynn in The Medium (2021)