Interview: Ben Starr, Alpha Takahashi, and Nick Apostolides talk about their role in Warframe: 1999 and their careers to date

With a massive game like Warframe that has lasted for so many years and grown massive, you’d probably think it would be easy to get some big-name voice actors to sign up to play characters. And you would be right. There's no twist here. Warframe: 1999 will feature the talents of Ben Starr (Clive Rosfield, FFXVI), Alpha Takahashi (Ayumi Komiko, Starfield), and Nick Apostolides (Leon S Kennedy, Resident Evil 4 Remake). Happily, I had the opportunity to talk to them at TennoCon and discuss their careers, and 1999.

Nick: I play a guy named Zeke. He's the frontman of a boy band from the 90s, which is hilarious. I don't know how much I can say about what happened.

Alpha: Okay, well, I'm probably actually the sidekick, Arthur's sidekick, Aoi. I'm not as cool as Arthur.

Despite the appearance of Aoi having, like, you know, white and blue themed colours, and she seems calm, she's very passionate. She's super caring about her friends and her team, the whole Hex group. So, I'm really looking forward to the players to get to know them.

Ben: I play Arthur. He's the proto-Excalibur. He is the squad leader. So, he has real Boy Scout energy. I like to kind of think of him as the kind of gravitational pull around which all the other characters are able to exist.

He's our way into Warframe 1999. He's not going to be the only character that you experience. He's a bit of a badass, but you can see what I love in the demo, is you can see his softer side.

You can see how even though he's a leader, he wants everyone to work together and just goes around asking for keys. It's the first thing Reb said to me. She was like, by the way, the first time we're going to see Arthur, he's really annoyed because he's lost his keys again.

And I'm like, great. It's a great way of humanising someone because me as a person, I would think I'm a pretty chill person until I lose either my keys or my wallet, and those are the two things. Even though they're absolute badasses, they still have that human side. They're still, like, fallible, even in a small way.

B: It's very nerve-wracking because you want people to like you, but I think at all points, and maybe my kind of co-stars will agree, Digital Extremes have been so supportive, so hands-on. I've never felt like there is more of a safety net of support. Like, Reb and Megan and the entire team have just kind of gone, come in, it's an amazing place to be, amazing place to exist, have some fun, play, and they've endorsed us and supported us at all points.

So even though it's always going to be intimidating to come on and say, like, hey, you know, this is the face of Warframe 1999, the great thing is that we see other characters as well. Like, you don't have to love Arthur, you can love Aoi, you can love Amiya, you can love all these other people who are really, really cool, interesting characters.

A: Going back to the pressure that you were asking [about], I didn't feel that until I started seeing Aoi's character in all the posters, the banners, and then now it's up on the digital billboard. I was like, whoa! People are actually coming for this and it just hit me all of a sudden.

But before that all that was registering with me was that, oh, I get to come here and meet people and have fun because I think that's the main thing that Digital Extreme staff have been communicating with us. Not just the community, but from the creator side part of it. Like, they let us have fun in this project, and it's just been a great ride with them.

N: This is my entrance into Warframe. As a long-time gamer of 35 years, I'm surprised that I just haven't dabbled in it, but it seems to me it's a franchise that you don't dabble in. These fans that are going to be coming out here, and the fans that are going to be watching the preview tomorrow, it's like half a million people, and it's a dedicated, loyal fan base.

I'm excited to be a small part of that, and to be a part of this team. And I'm actually really, really willing to learn more about it, and I do want to pick up the game and play. And what I've seen from 1999 especially, that is my type of game. I love the style, and I'm just happy to be here, yeah.

A: I started playing after I knew it was Warframe. I didn't know the role was Warframe for a long time. I didn't even get a codename. I had a different name for the character. I'm like, what am I doing? I didn't get visuals of my role until much, much later.

So I'm playing the guessing game, but the director and creators, they've been very supportive of feeding me with it. So I started playing, and I'm principally trying to catch up so I can enter 1999 quickly, but I probably have a couple hundred hours to go.

B: I'm a bit like these two. I love playing video games.

I love consuming everything about video games, so whether it's podcasts, YouTube videos, or reading articles. I'm such a huge fan of the culture around video games as well as just playing them. Even though I've never played Warframe, you can't be a fan of video games and not be aware of what a unique success story this video game is, and how you don't get to 10 years and still be thriving and growing without what Nick said about this insanely dedicated fan base that is willing to plough so much love into a game that they know they're getting so much love back.

Digital Extremes love their fans, their fans love them, and they listen to what they want. The fact that we now have a creative director who was kind of a communications director for a long time, and this being like a real stamp of who she is as a person, and you look at this game and it's just got her stamp all over it.

I was so aware of what it was, so when I was given the opportunity to be a part of it, I was like of course. You don't get to where you are without having a huge dedication to the game and to the audience.

B: My favorite video game. The one that I talk about is Final Fantasy VIII. I have been shouting from the rooftops about that for ages. I wore a Final Fantasy VIII t-shirt to the golden joysticks. 

That's the game that really changed everything for me. But also, it's really mad that I'm sitting here with Nick because Resident Evil 4 is one of my favourite video games of all time. I played that the remake to death last year. I put so many hours into it. I remember the first meeting, Nick, and geeking out, because you're Leon Kennedy.

A: Do you know Puyo Puyo? It's like Tetris with slime. It's a retro game now, but I used to play it all the time. Aside from that, aside from Final Fantasy, I am torn between 7 and 8. Kingdom Hearts, I am a big fan of Disney itself, so when they made a game it was great.

N: For me, I'll give you a top five because I have to. Mega Man 3. Castlevania III. the music is unparalleled. Super Metroid. Final Fantasy VII, love that game. And then Resident Evil 4, the original.

N: A lot of feelings. When I got the phone call, immediately it was a surreal feeling. I almost passed out. It was like internal happiness and bliss. And then right about a minute later, the pressure set in because as a fan, I understood. I have my own favourite voice actors and they're not me.

But that's the point. He's an icon. He's been portrayed by fantastic actors, and all I wanted to do was to do him justice. I didn't want to try to copy, emulate, be better, be liked better. I didn't care about any of that. I just didn't want to mess it up. I had the pressure from the fan base because I understood it.

My personal favourite is from the original four, and I got to train with him. He trained me with voiceover. I got to tell him in person that he's one of my heroes, and he's probably one of the biggest reasons I'm an actor today is because of him. So I'm not even my favorite Leon.

A: Oh, I didn't know that. Thank you for pointing that out. Discoveries. Maybe so. Maybe my next one will be like outer space. An actual alien. And it’s funny because I think there was a good ten years I did not get human roles. All my stuff on my resume, including on-stage theatre. I played a scorpion. I am just happy to be human.

B: Yes and no. The parallels are that they're played by the same actor. But I think that in every role you approach, you have to kind of wipe the slate clean and go what is it that this character requires in service of the story?

Whenever I approach anything, I'm not going, ooh, I want to steal this and this and this. But the one note that I was given by Reb was “I want to hear gears grinding into the dirt”. That was the texture.

B: The first game I ever did was Quantum Break, a Remedy game. And I've actually met Sam Lake and I know him relatively well now since, but the really annoying thing is they changed my name on the credits. So my name is Ben Star with one R because they misspelled it. 

So on my IMDB page, I'm also known as Ben Star with one R. And so I would love to revisit that role and tell them how to spell my name correctly so my IMDB page doesn't say that.

A: My first video game character also I would like to revisit because that was a fighting game and I grew up playing Street Fighter 2 and I loved it so much. I like punching people on screen. Also, that role was not human as well. That one was also a ghost.

It was just so much fun. I actually had somebody come up to me in this room saying I still love your character. You are my main. And I was like, thank you. Me too.

N: For me, I honestly haven't voiced a ton of characters. I was in another great franchise called Life is Strange. Played two characters there. And actually, you know what? This guy named Frank Bowers that I voiced.

He was kind of, you weren't sure if his motives were pure. Very layered, complex character. But he had East Coast vibes. He was kind of like the second-hand man to the main villain of the story. It was fun to play with. I had my East Coast swagger, which I always liked.

So I leaned on my Boston accent just a little bit, and I would love to do that a little bit more in my career. That swagger is hard to nail down. If you're from the East Coast, you'd understand. But if you're not, it's hard to describe. So Frank Bowers in Life is Strange.

A: Currently, Warframe. I play Warframe on my mobile. And it's surprisingly incredibly smooth. I'm so satisfied with it. I didn't know what I was getting into. I've never played on mobile for graphics-heavy video games. And it's really good.

B: I have a weird relationship with mobile games. When I first got my iPhone 12 years ago, I realized you can play all these games that you couldn't normally play. And so, other than playing the classics at the time, like Cut the Rope and Angry Birds and Temple Run, I started playing Broken Sword 1 and 2.

When I first ever experienced them. And then, I might be a heathen here, but I played KotOR on my mobile. So I played Knights of the Old Republic on my mobile and it's probably one of the greatest video games ever made. And I played it on my mobile.

N: And for me, Solitaire. That's it.

N: I have a lot of lives that I have lived. I would probably be a carpenter, a woodworker. That's what I do. I've been working with wood. I've been a tradesman for 24 years. And so, that would make me happy is building stuff.

A: I really want to be an alpaca. I think that would make me so happy, and I know for sure that it's going to make other people happy too. They're just happy.

B: When I was a kid, I either wanted to be an actor or a fast train driver. I was really scared. I was really scared of the trains that would come past my local train station. Really, really fast.

So I thought that if I became a fast train driver, I would get over my fear. And so I've always thought that if I wasn't an actor, there's a world in which I would be just driving trains all over.

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