Troy Baker nearly talked himself out of the audition that would change gaming history. Standing outside the casting room for The Last of Us, he convinced himself he was wrong for Joel Miller and almost left. That moment of doubt captures something essential about Baker’s approach to his craft—he’s constantly pushing against his comfort zone, even when it terrifies him.
In this conversation, Baker traces his path from sweating in a converted computer room at Gearbox Software to becoming the voice behind Joel Miller, Booker DeWitt, and Indiana Jones. The journey wasn’t planned. He started as a musician in Texas, stumbled into voiceover work doing car commercials, and ended up in LA after Val Kilmer told him that some doors, when they open, demand you walk through them.
What comes through is Baker’s resistance to the usual industry playbook. He turns down roles that feel too safe. He insists on meeting directors face-to-face rather than just sending tapes. He rejected the Joker role twice before the team convinced him to get over himself and trust them. These aren’t the moves of someone playing it safe—they’re calculated risks from someone who’s learned that his successes taught him nothing while his mistakes taught him everything.
Baker’s take on the current state of the industry cuts through the noise. On AI, he sees it as another tool rather than an existential threat. On aspiring voice actors chasing social media metrics, he’s blunt: if you’re doing this for money or followers, you’ll only ever have a job, never a career. His philosophy is simple: be in service to the story, ask better questions, and recognize that making art requires risk.
The conversation ranges from his technical approach (he still loves his first $99 Guitar Center mic) to working with David Fincher, from the challenges of embodying Harrison Ford to how becoming a father changed his understanding of Joel. Throughout, Baker maintains that his process is having no process—each project demands its own approach, its own questions, its own risks.
For anyone interested in how creative work actually happens, this is worth your time.