Final Fantasy 16's voice actor for Clive nearly skipped his first audition

The actor voicing Final Fantasy 16’s main protagonist Clive nearly missed his audition.

“I wasn’t even going to turn up to the audition,” says Clive’s English voice actor Ben Starr in a video discussion with the game’s producer Naoki Yoshida and localisation lead Koji Fox. “I’d had a really, really bad day,” continues Starr, “I wasn’t feeling very well. I think my audition was at about 5:30pm on a Friday. I was the last up to play a small role.” That’s right, Starr was originally auditioning for a completely separate role, but the crystals of fate put him on a collision path toward the game's main man.

“You were auditioning for a completely different character,” Koji Fox tells him. “A character that’s very minor in the game; only appears in a couple of scenes.” Starr even admits that he wasn’t “doing a particularly good job” and thinks he was “being a bit rubbish.” Regardless, the game’s vocal director saw the audition and recommended Starr for the lead role.

Starr says that everything changed when he was handed the script for Clive, completely unaware that he was even auditioning for a Final Fantasy game. “It just clicked,” explains Starr, “I found myself getting incredibly emotional. I found myself being able to go to places that unlocked parts of me.” 

The team credits this wildly lucky turn of events to the series. Koji Fox says that “Final Fantasy is all about fate and destiny and that Final Fantasy luck.” Perhaps some of that luck made its way to Starr. 

We won’t need to wait too much longer before we hear Starr in the role. Final Fantasy 16 recently went gold ahead of its worldwide launch on June 22 as a timed exclusive on PS5. Although, players on other platforms may need to wait much longer to play the game.

Check out our hands-on preview to see what we thought of the long-awaited RPG.