At this year's Game Awards, Bethesda's Todd Howard and prolific voice actor Troy Baker were joined by none other than Harrison Ford himself to present Melina Juergens with the award for best performance for her role in Hellblade 2. Before that, though, Ford had some glowing praise for Baker's performance as Indiana Jones in MachineGames' recent heater, Indiana Jones and the Great Circle.
"I think this guy did a great job," Ford said, pointing to Baker before shaking his hand. "If I'd known he was so good, I would have done it myself!"
And I gotta say, the praise is well-earned. Baker not only nails a dead-on vocal impression of Ford, he does it while also delivering the easy charisma, humor, and emotional range you'd expect from Indy—if the game had come out a month earlier, Baker definitely would have been on that best performance shortlist instead of presenting the award.
It's probably just a joke on Ford's part, but I do gotta wonder how down he'd actually be for voicing the main character of a videogame—it seems like he has a lot of love for Indiana Jones, more than some of his other iconic roles even, but a videogame voiceover seems like the sort of thing an actor of his temperament and generation just couldn't be bothered with. That's in strong contrast with his Star Wars co-star Mark Hamill, who's had an extensive second life as a voice actor, with a ton of those roles being for videogames.
No matter how you slice it though, it has to feel good to be Troy Baker right now. How many actors get to not only take up a foundational role, but then have the legendary performer they took the baton from go "hey, good hustle champ?"
