From voicing characters to voicing apologies: Baldur’s Gate 3 actor comes under fire

Voice actor Frazer Blaxland, who portrays Dammon in Larian Studios’ award-winning RPG Baldur’s Gate 3, recently came under fire from fans and colleagues alike.  They discovered that he has engaged with several transphobic and anti-Palestinian communities on X. Blaxland initially posted an apology, but his statement has since been deleted, prompting the Baldur’s Gate 3 community to call for the recasting of the beloved NPCs voiced by the actor.

In Larian Studios’ 2023 RPG, Blaxland voices several NPCs. The most notable is Dammon, a tiefling blacksmith integral to the progression of Karlach’s companion quest Our Fiery Friend. Blaxland also voices a handful of other characters including Anders, Arne Jacobson, and Bunt Chugley, which means his voice can be heard throughout the game’s three acts. Following the game’s release, Blaxland received an immense amount of support from fans. The actor frequently reposted fan art on X and opened a Cameo account, where fans could pay for personalised messages from Blaxland’s character Dammon.

Blaxland consistently engaged with posts spreading transphobic and anti-Palestinian rhetoric

However, in mid-March 2024, X user @fangedfeind uncovered that Blaxland consistently engaged with posts spreading transphobic and anti-Palestinian rhetoric. Some of the content that Blaxland interacted with included derogatory posts celebrating the arrest of pro-Palestinian protestors, articles calling transgender Miss Nevada winner, Kataluna Enriquez, a “biological male” and tweets stating that pronouns are used to “validate a person’s delusions about their identity”. Fans were also critical of Blaxland’s Cameo account, where the actor performed romantic scenes between the fans’ in-game characters and Dammon. Blaxland would perform these scenes if the character was a woman, however, male romantic requests would receive Blaxland acting out a rejection scene. His Cameo prices rose by $20 as complaints began to mount.

Following swift backlash from fans of the game, Blaxland unfollowed hundreds of accounts on X and posted a statement arguing that he “wants peace for all” and apologised to fans who were “hurt and impacted by this”. However, despite saying that he was thankful for fans “checking me”, Blaxland surprisingly deleted the statement shortly after, with no further updates on any of his social media.

Despite this silence, fellow actor Neil Newbon, who won Best Performance at the Game Awards for his portrayal of Baldur’s Gate 3’s Astarion, spoke out against Blaxland’s behaviour. On a recent Twitch stream, Newbon described the situation as “very disturbing, very shocking, very saddening” before reiterating that he is “a proud supporter of the LGBTQA+ community” and “very much against the genocide in Palestine”. Following this, Blaxland was removed from Newbon’s motion-capture company website, Performance Captured Academy, with Newbon seemingly severing the professional ties he had with the actor.

Fellow Baldur’s Gate 3 actress Jen English, who plays Shadowheart, and the game’s Performance Director, Aliona Baranova, also spoke out against Blaxland’s behaviour. On their shared X account, the couple shamed all “bigotry, transphobia, homophobia, colonialism, and genocide”, making a clear statement against the communities that Blaxland interacted with.

Blaxland’s behaviour was particularly shocking to fans of Baldur’s Gate 3 due to the celebration of queerness seen throughout the narrative, with the player’s characters being able to engage in queer relationships with their camp companions during the game. In January, the game was nominated for a GLAAD award for its strong queer representation. This included characters such as Dame Aylin, a fearsome aasimar in a lesbian relationship with Isobel, a similarly formidable cleric, and the transgender character Nocturne featured in Shadowheart’s quest. The centrality of queerness to the story of Baldur’s Gate 3 makes it unsurprising that its community has been seen as a safe space for queer people and allies, causing Blaxland’s interactions to greatly upset fans of the game and his characters.

With fans disappointed in Blaxland’s actions and no further apology in sight, calls for Larian Studios to recast the characters he voices are only growing.  Whilst Larian Studios has announced that there will be no DLC released for Baldur’s Gate 3, the studio continues to release frequent patches and updates for the game, leaving a recast for Blaxland’s beloved characters in the realm of possibility.