I was surprised when I was checking my twitter feed early in the morning after 5am, and saw Laura Bailey trending — but not for the right reasons, or for something she deserved. But this needs to be heard so that this never happens again.
Laura Bailey is one of the best voice actors in the gaming industry. She voiced Jaina Proudmoore in Warcraft III, World of Warcraft, and Heroes of the Storm; Black Widow in Avengers Assemble; Kait Diaz in Gears of War 4; Chun-Li in Street Fighter V; Olympia Vale in Halo 5: Guardians; Kira Carsen in several Star Wars video games, as well as a voice actress for several TV animated series and other video games.
You will be scrolling down a long time trying to reach the bottom of her career page in IMDB. That vast has been her work as a voice actress.
Laura has 40 nominations for multiple Game and Voice Acting Awards and 17 wins. She has 34 years of experience in voice acting, even though she looks so young. You would think she has been voice acting before being born.
But she is a human being first. Then she is a voice actress. A very good one. Voice actors are not their characters. They simply voice them.
The Last of Us: Part II has gotten a lot of bad press lately. That is no excuse to treat the voice actors so cruel.
Laura Bailey voiced Abby in that game. For reasons beyond my understanding, some very low self-esteem people have been issueing insults and life threats at her.
It doesn’t matter how bad someone thinks a video game’s story is, all Laura Bailey did was to give her 100% as a voice actress — a job she has performed for the past 34 years. She read some lines of text, and gave life to a character.
Let this be a lesson to those who are a bully. This kind of threats online can be reported to local authorities. Life threats are serious, and whoever type them anonymously online will most likey be found and jailed. We have all read stories of how people who did got arrested. They thought they could get away with it. Still some people keep doing it.
Threatening a voice actor’s life, and a woman at that, is cowardly. Threatening her child too is monstruous. This needs to end.
Those who love Laura Bailey, please, send her good vibes and thoughts @LauraBaileyVO. Tell her how much you love her work. If you are in the industry or know someone, refer the job to her agent.
Things are rough in the COVID-19 era for everyone.
Other voice actors have been supporting Laura Bailey, including Matthew Mercer (McCree in Overwatch), Anjali Bhimani (Symmetra in Overwatch), and even from other disciplines: Pamela Horton, Jesse Cox, Craig Mazin (writer/producer of the upcoming HBO series: The Last of Us) .
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