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UPDATE: Bayonetta creator Hideki Kamiya has seemingly responded to Taylor’s claim via Twitter, posting the following: “Sad and deplorable about the attitude of untruth. That’s what all I can tell now. By the way, BEWARE OF MY RULES.” Shortly thereafter, Kamiya deactivated his Twitter account, but it has since returned.

You can see our original post on this matter below.

We learned recently that Bayonetta’s original voice actor Hellena Taylor would not be reprising her role in the upcoming Bayonetta 3. Instead, she’ll be replaced by veteran voice actor Jennifer Hale. Platinum Games’ Yusuke Miyata clarified the change, stating that “various overlapping circumstances made it difficult for Hellena Taylor to reprise her role.” Unfortunately, it seems that there are more sinister things going on behind the scenes than that. This was brought to our attention by Hellena Taylor herself in a series of videos posted to her Twitter account:

In the videos, Taylor explains that the reason she declined to return as Bayonetta is because Platinum Games only offered her $4,000 USD as a flat fee for the entire job. This is a shockingly low offer considering that the Bayonetta games have made approximately $450 million in sales, as noted by Taylor herself. She goes on to say that she was originally asked to re-audition for the part and passed “with flying colors”, but only received the indicated offer which she describes as “insulting”.

As a result of all this, Taylor is asking fans to boycott Bayonetta 3. She suggests fans take the money they would have spent on the game and donate it to charity instead. She also states that while she supports voice actors of all kinds, she believes her replacement Jennifer Hale “has no right to say she is the voice of Bayonetta”.

This is certainly a troubling turn of events and one that will no doubt darken the upcoming release of Bayonetta 3 on October 28th. It remains to be seen if Taylor will be successful in her efforts to get fans to boycott the game. Regardless, this story will hopefully shine some light on the mistreatment of voice actors in the video game industry. At this time, there has been no response from Platinum Games or anyone else involved with Bayonetta 3.

You can click here to watch all four videos posted on Hellena Taylor’s Twitter account and get the full context.

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Comments (34)

conangiga

1+ y ago

@cassiel

THIS
I read $4000 and thought that it was a large sum for such a short game.

She's being a salty sammy since she didn't get her share of the total revenue, but that's just normal buisness practice. By that logic everyone ivolved should get a raise.
Did I get a raise following my companies record sales last year? Nope.

The german voice actor of Johnny Depp wanted a biiiiig raise after 'The Pirates of the Caribbean' turned out to be such big hit. What did he get in the end? The boot! Like it should be!

Edited 1 time

hawk

1+ y ago

It's unprofessional to put squabbles like this out into the public on Twitter.

Platinum is free to lowball offer her, and they don't owe her a spot in the next game. They just need to weigh it with the possibility that fans will not like that her voice has changed. It's a free economy and Hellena can go elsewhere for her work. But to ask fans to tank the franchise for her is as unprofessional as Platinum's lowball offer.

And let's please understand that we're watching a spat on Twitter. We're probably not getting all the details, and what Hellena says might be exaggerated or lacking in context, and we're certainly not hearing Platinum's side properly.

Let them squabble, and buy the game if the reviews are good.


smasher89

1+ y ago

I wonder how it differs from 1 and 2.


bakfug

1+ y ago

What makes this offer "shockingly low"? By all the information we really have to go by online for other voice work, this seems pretty par for the course. I've always found this a tough subject to consider. On one side, it's easy to sympathize with the voice actor, because the industry really is out to low ball them and drop anyone who unionizes. We also feel emotionally attached to them and their roles.

But I still understand the other side. They record in the booth for 1-3 days and then they are done unless they are doing full motion capture too. It's easy to vilify a company since it feels significantly less personal than a human appealing to your morality, but what really would be a reasonable offer here for what really could be a single day of work? Plus, we have no idea what really went down, to be quite honest.

The real suspect thing here is saying the games have made over $450 million, assuming we are talking USD. We know 1 on PS3/360 sold at least 1.1 million, 2 on Wii U 300k, and 2 on Switch 1.04 million. Let's be extremely generous and even add another 2 million copies sold because of remaster on PS4/Xbone and the Steam versions of 1. Adjusting the latter 2 million down to $20 instead of $60, that wouldn't even be half of $450 million in sales for the game. If someone knows where the other nearly $300 million in game sales "as noted by Taylor herself" comes from, feel free to let us know.


You misheard her. You are probably referring to the "betrayal" line. She says "portrayal." Which in that context, she isn't trashing her.


kuribo

1+ y ago

Hellena Taylor hasn’t worked on anything since 2014. She’s not some accomplished voice actor. And now she’s made it unlikely she’ll get more work anytime soon.

Says she supports voice actors but also says Jennifer Hale “has no right” to say she voices Bayonetta?! Hale has every right. As do all the other voice actors that play Bayonetta in the Japanese, French, German, etc languages. The character doesn’t belong to Taylor.

Atsuko Tanaka is the original voice actor for Bayonetta and is still the voice actor for Japanese. So if anything, Taylor has no right to claim she is Bayonetta.

Edited 3 times

siavm

1+ y ago

I saw a YouTube interview she did with this thing called Nintendo players uk. At 7:30 in the video she said the voice sessions went for 4 days and 16 hours. $1000 a day to voice lines sounds more reasonable than just the vague $4000 with no context she gave.


conangiga

1+ y ago

@kuribo

'Hale has every right. As do all the other voice actors that play Bayonetta in the Japanese, French, German, etc languages.'

Sadly, there are no other dubs than english and japanese.


curry

1+ y ago

Sounds really fake to me, she wasn't even insulted in any way, she simply wasn't chosen for the job, just like anything "real life". How is that a voice actor with a huge resume takes the job at the supposed "insulting" offer and she refuses it? (which we won't ever know if it's true that Nintendo of America offered that). If I refuse a job, well, someone else might take it right?
Either way, I'll be playing the hell out of this game when it releases.