Troy Baker

Troy Edward Baker (born April 1, 1976) is an American voice actor and musician, known for portraying the lead characters in various video games.He is best known for his voice performances in video games such as the character Joel in The Last of Us, the Joker in Batman: Arkham Origins, Higgs in Death Stranding, and Sam Drake in Uncharted 4: A Thief's End and Uncharted: The Lost Legacy.

Before pursuing acting, Baker was the lead singer and rhythm guitarist for the indie-rock band Tripp Fontaine, which released the radio single "Burning Out" from their debut album Random Thoughts on a Paper Napkin in 2004. His first solo album, Sitting in the Fire, was released on October 14, 2014. On October 6, 2017, Baker and the backing band of Sitting in the Fire released a second album called Moving Around Bias under the new name Window to the Abbey.

Baker began his voice acting career doing radio commercials in Dallas. He was recruited by Christopher Sabat to do voice-over work at Funimation for the English adaptation of the anime Case Closed. He then went on to work in dubbing anime such as Bleach, Dragon Ball Z, Fullmetal Alchemist, Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, Naruto, Naruto: Shippuden, and One Piece. When he moved to Los Angeles, he began working on Marvel-based animated series where he provided the voice of various characters in The Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes, and Hawkeye and Loki in Ultimate Spider-Man and Avengers Assemble.

His career in the video game industry began when he voiced Matt Baker in Gearbox Software's Brothers in Arms. In an interview with The Griff, Baker said that "It was starting to become necessary for actors to become involved [in gaming], so I got into that and it was literally stumbling from one job into the next. That was kind of my first snowball effect."His most notable roles came in 2013 where he provided the voice of Booker DeWitt in Irrational Games' BioShock Infinite and performed the voice and motion capture of Joel in Naughty Dog's The Last of Us. Both games earned critical acclaim, earning scores over 90% in GameRankings and Metacritic, and commercial success. Baker got nominated for both of these roles in the VGX 2013 and ended up winning for The Last of Us. Baker again worked with Naughty Dog on Uncharted 4: A Thief's End opposite Nolan North playing Nathan Drake's older brother Sam. He reprised the role again in Uncharted: The Lost Legacy.

In 2011, he became the voice of Siris, the hero from Chair Entertainment's blockbuster mobile series Infinity Blade, and in 2014 the voice of Talion, the protagonist of Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor which earned a rating of 9.3 on IGN. He also voiced Ace (Experiment 262) in the English dub of the anime Stitch!. Entertainment Weeklylisted him in their Best of 2013 issue for best breakout actor in the video game industry for his performance as Joel in The Last of Us, Booker DeWitt in BioShock Infinite and the Joker in Batman: Arkham Origins. He is one of the few actors to have portrayed Batman (Lego Batman 2: DC Super Heroes, Lego Batman 3: Beyond Gotham, Lego Dimensions, Batman: The Telltale Series and Batman: The Enemy Within), the Joker (Batman: Arkham Origins) and the three major iterations of Robin (Batman: Arkham City, Injustice: Gods Among Us and Batman: Arkham Knight).

As of May 6, 2018, Baker and Nolan North host the weekly YouTube series Retro Replay.

He resides in Los Angeles, California. Baker married Pamela Walworth in 2012. Their son, Traveller Hyde Baker, was born in 2018.

Studio albums

• Random Thoughts on a Paper Napkin (2004, with Tripp Fontaine)
• Sitting in the Fire (2014)
• Moving Around Bias (2017, with Window to the Abbey)

Singles

• "Burning Out" (2004, with Tripp Fontaine)
• "My Religion" (2013)
• "Merry Christmas" (2015)
• "Water into Wine" (2017, with Window to the Abbey)
• "The Promise" (2017, with Window to the Abbey)

Video game songs

• "Will The Circle Be Unbroken?" (2013) – in BioShock Infinite
• "Cold, Cold Heart" (2013) – in Batman: Arkham Origins Cold, Cold Heart DLC