Troy Baker

Troy Edward Baker (born April 1, 1976) is an American voice actor and musician. He provides the English voice and motion capture for Joel in The Last of Us', The Last of Us: Left Behind, The Last of Us: One Night Live, and ''The Last of Us Part II'. ''

Career
While voicing and motion capturing for Joel, Baker also voiced Booker DeWitt from BioShock Infinite and Nightwing/Sinestro in Injustice: Gods Among Us. He was also the voice of the Joker in various DC Comics video games and Batman: Assault on Arkham, Delsin Rowe in InFamous: Second Son, Pain in Naruto: Shippūden, Rhys from , the second Greed in Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, Snow Villiers in the Final Fantasy XIII trilogy, Kanji Tatsumi in Persona 4 Golden, and Hawkeye in various Marvel cartoons and video games. He once again worked with Naughty Dog on the final instalment of the Uncharted series, Uncharted 4: A Thief's End, as Nathan Drake's older brother, Sam.

When auditioning for the role, Troy understood he was the youngest person to do so. When walking in, he noticed how flustered Johnson was, having had a rough session with the previous auditionee. Baker remarked how he instantly felt a need to take care of Johnson, which came through in his audition, convincing Johnson that Baker was right to act opposite her.

Baker, when crafting Joel's character, focused on how he "has very few lines left to cross" and wanted to bring more emotion to the character, something Neil Druckmann did not initially consider but did support. While making the cinematics for The Last of Us, Baker stated Sarah's death scene was his least favorite to shoot because of its highly emotive content; "you don't want to go there as an actor". Indeed, when filming the scene, people had to leave the set because of how distressing it was. Having believed he was not going to surpass how well he performed the scene on the first take, Baker became frustrated at having to keep re-shooting the scene, becoming exhausted at how emotional it made him. He also had to re-shoot the scene again weeks later, which he believed made it "artificial", making him angry. Druckmann, who noticed Baker's resistance, walked him through it instead in a mechanical manner, helping Baker realize his acting interfered with the scene's meaning; he understood that stripping it back, toning down his character's traumatic state, had ultimately improved the scene; "less is more". Baker also remarked on the awkwardness regarding the ranch house scene, with both he and Johnson agreeing it did not quite feel authentic until Johnson added a shove into the scene, which they felt added the realism the scene demanded.

For the release of The Last of Us Remastered, Baker took part in a commentary of each of the games cinematic scenes with Ashley Johnson and Neil Druckmann. Baker made several remarks of the game, including that he "squealed" when he saw W. Earl Brown auditioned for the role of Bill, enjoyed the scenes where his character could just sleep the most, felt sorry for actor Brandon Scott due to the stunt crew giving him the most physically exhausting audition, and that his stunt double (Reuben Langdon) could "punch way better than [Baker] could". He also commented how he persuaded Druckmann to change the direction of Joel's character; Druckmann initially had Joel not care for anyone but himself before meeting Ellie, not even his partner Tess, but Baker brought a new angle to the character where he does care for others deep down, he just doesn't show it.

While watching the winter scenes, the trio remarked how Baker never got the chance to act with Nolan North, whom Baker was a fan of. Baker corrected them, stating he did get to act with North in the Cannibals torture scene, North having stood in for the man Joel would interrogate; North's lines were dubbed over after such. Concerning North, Baker said he "became truly awed by him" when he got to view a brief segment of North acting as his character, David, admiring how "he crafted the character". Baker even mentioned that the idea to have Joel still keep his watch (albeit broken) after the 20 year time skip was only added after they shot most of the scenes, dialogue coming later when they dubbed over the scenes.

With the reveal of a sequel to The Last of Us, entitled The Last of Us Part II, in December 2016, Baker is set to reprise his role as Joel, reportedly taking "a backseat" in the game. He later admitted at the PSX Q&A panel he was "thrilled" to be involved in the game again due to bring able to work with Naughty Dog again and how The Last of Us changed his life. He also remarked that he almost didn't audition for the role of Joel years earlier out of fear he wasn't the right person for the role. Indeed, Neil Druckmann (when Troy first auditioned) had a mind to reject Troy Baker's resume, simply based on his cover picture as he was "too young, too handsome", yet Baker's voice and acting convinced him otherwise.

At PSX 2017, Baker and Johnson performed a duet together in their roles as Joel and Ellie respectively. Troy sang as played his guitar for the event. He later discussed the game with Johnson and other actors for The Last of Us Part II, though kept story details vague.

Trivia

 * Baker's first audition, alongside Johnson, was the car scene when Joel and Ellie are driving to Pittsburgh.