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“Fucking Dog!”. This is probably my favorite voice line of Benedikta, one of my favorite characters in Final Fantasy XVI and voiced by the lovely Nina Yndis. It’s crass, it’s violent, it’s angry- all hallmarks of Garuda’s Dominant. While her time on screen wasn’t as long as, say, some of the other dominants, she’s a huge part of many players experiences due to her presence in the early game- making her an easy fan favorite among the antagonists.
We caught up with Nina Yndis, voice of Benedikta and all around cool person to talk about life since the launch of Final Fantasy XVI. From panel appearances to voice skits on Twitter, she’s made the role her own- and in turn, the fans have given the cast a tremendous outpouring of affection.
Becoming The Shepherd Of Many Little Lambs
“It has been overwhelming, chaotic and amazing in every way. I never expected this to blow up as it has, and the fans have been so kind with their feedback and love for all of the characters but also us actors”, she says.
“Chaotic, because before this endeavor I didn’t really use twitter, and then as they released some of the first scenes of Benedikta my profile seemed to blow up with new followers and people tagging me in their tweets”, she says. “Since then I’ve tried to navigate the tool as best I can, and having such an amazing leading actor such as Ben Starr who drives the train and gets us to do all these funny videos online has been so much fun. Engaging with the final fantasy fans has been the highlight of this whole experience for me”.
Speaking of Twitter, you may recognize the cast of Final Fantasy XVI from their side-endeavor: a seemingly endless array of skits like Benedikta trying to watch Barbie to the Ben, Ralph and Nina auditioning to be in Mario.
“Ben has been driving this train and introducing us to different people and events and has engaged the whole cast in becoming active in engaging with the fans and people who have played the game”, Nina says. “It’s been such an honor to be able to travel the world with these guys and attend amazing events! And the best thing is that we all get on, and we genuinely have a lot of fun together. So it doesn’t really feel like work at all”.
“Some of the other actors were lucky enough to record together, but I’ve expressed my disappointment that I was never allowed to record with anyone! They probably thought it best to keep me locked in the booth on my own, or else I’d scream their ears off… “, she notes.
There’s also something to be said about the fan interactions, too. The entire cast are regularly tagged in fanart of both the characters in-game to even art of the actors themselves.
“People on twitter who have tagged us are amazing”, Nina says. “One of my favorites was @magda_iruno who illustrated my Wario audition as Benedikta. I was also sent a print by @jamesdiato which was an illustration of Benedikta and myself, and I framed it and hung it up on my wall. I mean, everyone who has tagged us in their illustrations have been so incredibly talented and I try to share as much as possible on my twitter profile!”
Reflecting On Benedikta
Suffice to say, a lot of the opinions about Benedikta often relate to her fate. She’s gone pretty much at the end of the game’s first arc, never to verbally or physically abuse another lucky grunt again.
According to Nina even she wasn’t aware of how quickly the character gets offed, but having seen the whole picture now she’s touched by the people who want more of the character.
“I know right…. Bring her back I say….”, she jokes. “No, during the recording we were jumping back and forth in the script so it was difficult to track her linear journey, and since everything was so secretive I actually never received the entire script, only the scenes I was recording a few days before going into the studio, so I couldn’t really tell where in the script her story ended”.
“I think Benedikta has such a strong impact on the story that to me I don’t mind that her story ends where it does. It’s a brutal ending, and I’d rather have fans wanting more of her than getting bored of her”.
Speaking of the script, Nina describes playing Benedikta as almost like a kind of therapy- the character is much more aggressive than Nina is in her day life, though she says channeling some of that frustration into the character certainly helps.
“I try to be as authentic to Benediktas truth as possible and sometimes that means digging up some existing feelings/thoughts I’m dealing with as I’m recording”, she says. “I can’t remember exactly what I thought of recording that line, but most probably I would have used some emotions available to me that day, perhaps someone had annoyed me recently, and also a good mix of my imagination. That’s the best acting concoction for me and usually works”.
“Benedikta’s final moments in the woods were the most exciting and cathartic for me”, she notes. “I personally enjoy recording the most emotional high impact scenes, and they come to me much easier than dialogue heavy more mundane scenes. It’s a way to release tension and just have a little therapy session in the booth, so the scenes in the wood, but also all of her confrontations with Cid were also a lot of fun to record. Any scenes where I’ve for the freedom to scream and be a bit mad, those were my favorite”.
Of course, nothing highlights the difference between Benedikta and Nina quite like her anecdote about laughing too much at another of Benedikta’s cussing moments while discussing her hardest scenes to record.
“The scene with Hugo at the start, I think the only note I got was to not to laugh too much…To be honest just making the line “you cock” sound somewhat usable was tough, and we probably had to do many takes of that”, she says. “There was also that scene where Torgal attacks me and I had to make a sort of strangling sound that also sounded wet because of the blood spilled. That was a tough one, so I sipped some water and tried to scream whilst gurgling the water, and I think they ended up using that take.”
Funny enough, many Final Fantasy characters continue to live on outside of their games- just look at gacha games like Brave Exvius or fighting games like the Dissidia series, who all give many characters a chance to come back into the spotlight.
When asked about the possibility of returning as Benedikta in a crossover, Nina was more than happy to do so.
“Absolutely… whenever I can step into Benedikta’s shoes I will”, she says.
As for other roles in her sights, she has one in mind. It’s a little diametrically opposed to Benedikta, especially when you count things like “height” or “presence of moustache”.
“Obviously Wario in Super Mario”, she says. She also expressed interest in Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, saying the project looked “epic and cool”.
Before wrapping up, Nina gave one more thanks to the community that’s been so welcoming to her:
“Thank you for your interest in my work and your lovely words, and I also want to thank the fans for continuing to pour love to Benedikta! It literally lights up my days and I’m so grateful that the Final Fantasy community have been so welcoming of me with open arms”, she says.
It’s always great to see a voice actor be active with their community, especially following one of the biggest releases this year. Our thanks to Nina Yndis for taking the time to chat with us about all things Benedikta, as well as the fun she’s been having behind the scenes.
Personally, Benedikta is one of the standout performances of Final Fantasy XVI, and the fact that she was one of the first characters we were really given a lot of time with from the multiple preview events as well as Nina’s animated performance adds to the affinity.
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