Strassman On StarCraft II’s Kerrigan

Following rumoured news yesterday of the voices behind StarCraft II’s lead characters, IncGamers had to contact the actress for comment.

When IncGamers contacted Karen Strassman, the actress likely to play Kerrigan, she said “yes, I did voice Kerrigan recently,” saying it was “a delight to voice [her].” She also told us she “tried to stay close to what Glynnis [Talken-Cambell] did, and still let the character evolve as the creators of the game directed me to.” She’s just “not sure which versions they ended up using my voice in.”

The StarCraft II community manager Kevin Yu replied to yesterday’s news, saying “although I admire IncGamer’s indepth reporting – this is one that you’ll want to wait for an official announcement from us,”  insinuating Strassman may not be Blizzard’s final choice. However, he didn’t confirm or deny Strassman as the new Kerrigan, only emphasising Blizzard “want to make sure the fans get the most epic StarCraft II experience,” and saying Kerrigan is important as “such a notable character.”

It’s also important to note that Strassman said “the last recording I did for [Kerrigan] was a year or two ago,” and that she has not “recorded anything yet for this character in 2009.” The time may vary a lot, however, since she has had a very busy time, and doesn’t remember much about individual projects, even if it was StarCraft.

The auditions for Kerrigan and Jim Raynor took place on 11 November 2008, and as late as early March, both Talken-Cambell and Robert Clotworthy had been turned down. Some time between then and June, Blizzard were swayed by the fans and Clotworthy was brought back into the fold, and recording Jim Raynor’s voice.

While important, the Kerrigan’s role is of course a lot smaller than Jim Raynor’s, so the recording could have taken place in 2008 with Strassman, or perhaps the voice of the character isn’t even recorded to date? The fan favourite Talken-Cambell could also have been brought back into the fold and recorded but if so she didn’t mention it to us when we spoke to her in late July.

All in all, Strassman is still a likely candidate, and we all wonder how there could be so much buzz over the choice of one voice actor in a PC game!

Update: IncGamers have received confirmation from Glynnis Talken that she is definitely not the voice of Kerrigan any more, and received “a pretty definite farewell phone call” from Blizzard shortly after her recordings earlier this year.