Known For Voicing In Video Games 'Last Of Us Part II' and 'Kait Diaz in Gear 5'

Laura Bailey | Biography

ADR director of 'Gunslinger Girl'

• By Reena Chikanbanjar
• Update : September 29, 2021

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Laura Bailey is BAFTA Award-winning American voice actress. She is famous for her voice-overs in video games, including her award-winning performance as Abby Anderson in The Last Of Us Part II (2020) and Kait Diaz in Gear 5 (2019).

Who is Laura Bailey?

Voice actress Laura Bailey is an award-winning voice actress who has voiced hundreds of characters in English-version of video games, television series, and films. She is popular for her voice-overs in video game characters such as Kait Diaz in Gears 5, Lucina in Fire Emblem Awakening, Jaina Proudmoore in World of Warcraft, Chun Li in Street Fighter, Catwoman in Batman: The Telltale Series, and Abby Anderson in The Last Of Us Part II.

Some of her notable voice-overs in animated television series and films include Maka Albarn in Soul Eater, Tohru Honda in Fruits Basket, Lust in Fullmetal Alchemist, Shin-Chan Nohara in Shin-Chan, Black Widow in Marvel’s Avenger Assemble, and Gwen Stacy in Spider-Man. 

Since 2021, Bailey has been cast on Critical Role, a weekly web series in which professional voice actors play Dungeons & Dragons, in which she played the role of Vex’ahlia and Jester Lavorre. 

Early Life and Education

Laura Bailey, in full, Laura Dawn Bailey, was born in Biloxi, Mississippi, the United States, on 28 May 1981. She got inspired to pursue an acting career after watching the behind-the-scenes of teen drama television series Dawson’s Creek. Then, she studied at the acclaimed Quad C Theater program at the Collin County Community College in Plano, Texas. During her college years, she also performed in productions of Suburbia, Through a Glass Onion, and Don’t Rock the Jukebox. 

Career

While performing in one of the plays at the college productions, Bailey was noticed by voice actor Kent Williams, who invited her to audition for Funimation. Williams then had been working on Funimation’s anime Dragon Ball Z. Subsequently, Bailey began her voice career at the popular anime studio Funimation.

Bailey debuted in the anime series Dragon Ball in 1986, voicing the character Sara/Chi-Chi which appeared in three episodes of the series. In 1991, she voiced Nanako in the English version of the famous anime Only Yesterday. Thereafter, she became a part of the anime series Dragon Ball Z. Her first major role in the series was Kid Trunks, which she portrayed with a raspy voice. In 1995, she voiced Keiko Yukimura in the short comedy anime Yu yu hakusho: eizo hakusho II. 

From 1999-2000, she voiced the starring character, Marlene Angel, in the adventure anime Blue Gender. In 2001, Bailey voiced the starring character, Tohru Honda, in the anime Fruits Basket. 

Later, she voiced Lust in Fullmetal Alchemist, Tokine Yukimura in Kekkaishi, and the title character Shin-Chan Nohara in the Funimation dub of Shin-Chan.

Bailey also lent her voice in Marvel’s Avenger Assemble as the voice of Black Widow, Spider-man as the voice of Gwen Stacy, Constantine: City of Demons as The Night Nurse, and many more. 

‘American Dad!’

Bailey voiced the characters, including Jennifer, female flower thief, and Piper, in two episodes of the animated TV series American Dad! in 2021. She voiced Piper in an episode titled ‘Russian Doll’ and Jennifer and female flower thief in the episode titled ‘Family Time.’ American Dad! is a sitcom that follows Stan Smith, a conservative CIA agent coping with family life and keeping America secure in the most ludicrous way imaginable.

‘Injustice: Gods Among Us’

Injustice: Gods Among Us, the blockbuster NetherRealm fighter turned comic, has received its animated version, which will be released in the autumn of 2021 for home entertainment. The Joker dupes Superman into murdering his own family in Injustice: Gods Among Us. Driven by remorse and anguish, Superman transforms into a merciless tyrant for whom the aim always justifies the means. However, Batman isn’t pleased with Superman’s new conduct. So he decides to mobilize an organized movement to knock down Superman. 

Laura Bailey will star as Lois Lane in Injustice: Gods Among Us. Rick Morales, who previously worked on Mortal Kombat Legends: Scorpion’s Revenge, is producing Injustice: Gods Among Us, directed by Matt Peters. Warner Bros. Animation, DC, and Warner Bros. Home Entertainment are also involved in the film’s production. Ernie Altbacker (Batman: Hush) wrote the script, with Jim Krieg and Sam Register as producer and executive producer. 

Injustice: Gods Among Us was already released in 2013 but as a mobile game and gaming console. It pitched characters of the DC universe against each other in the death battle, similar to that of NetherRealm Studios’ Mortal Kombat. The game series was popular, and DC published many comic books based on it.

ADR Directing

After working with Funimation for about four years, Bailey also started ADR (Audio Dialogue Replacement) directing. She co-directed parts in the comedy anime Kodocha, in which she also voiced Sana Kurata. She then worked on Blue Gender: The Warrior and some episodes of Case Closed. 

In 2003, Bailey landed her directing skills when she became the ADR director of Gunslinger Girl, her first major ADR directing project. She also voiced the character, Henrietta, in Gunslinger Girl. She later became a line producer for the Funimation dub of Shin-Chan, in which she also voiced the title character, Shin-Chan Nohara.

Voice Acting in Video Games

In addition to the animated television series and films, Bailey lent her voice in numerous video games. She first voiced in a video game in 1997 in Devil Summoner: Soul Hackers. Then she went on to lend voice in video games, including Rayne in the BloodRayne franchise, Kid Trunks/Gotenks in Dragon Ball Z, Kuina/Pepper in One Piece: Unlimited Adventure, Jaina Proudmoore in World of Warcraft, and Chun-Li in the Street Fighter series. She also voiced the character Nadine Ross in Uncharted series, Spartan Vale in Halo franchise, Fetch in Infamous series, Supergirl in Injustice 2, Catwoman in Batman: The Telltale Series, Fiona in Tales from the Borderlands, Kait Diaz in Gears of War 4, and 5, Lucina in Fire Emblem Awakening, and Serah Farron in Final Fantasy XIII & XIII-2. 

Her latest voice work for the video game characters includes Abby in The Last of Us: Part II, Clara-247 in Starfinder, Black Widow in Marvel’s Avengers, The Hunter in The Pathless, Dr. Mia Everett in Jurassic World Aftermath, and Kaine in NieR Replicant: ver.1.22474487139…

‘Critical Role’

Critical Role is a live stream game show of a group of professional voice actors from television shows such as Avengers Assemble, Spider-Man, and Transformers, and video games such as Overwatch, The Last of Us, and Fallout, where they play Dungeons & Dragons every week. In 2015, the gang began live-streaming their escapades on Twitch, and their videos have now amassed millions of views on YouTube. 

Ashley Johnson, Laura Bailey, Liam O’Brien, Marisha Ray, Sam Riegel, Taliesin Jaffe, Travis Willingham, and Orion Acaba are among eight voice actors who took part in the program for the first season. Besides, the show stars Matthew Mercer from Overwatch as the dungeon master, the game’s organizer who assigns missions to participants and recounts what they hear and see as they go.

The first season comprised 115 episodes, each of which lasted around three to six hours. The second season was launched in January 2018. The show’s second season aired 141 episodes as of September 2021. It contains seven of the eight actors from the previous season as entirely new characters. Critters is the name of the Critical Role fandom, which makes up a larger fanbase.

Fundraising for An Animated Series

The creators of Critical Role had started a Kickstarter campaign in March 2019 to fund an animated special based on the first season of their game show. It accumulated more than $1 million in investment within an hour of its introduction. Critical Role supporters contributed more than $11.3 million at the end of the campaign, earning the title of the most successful film or tv campaign in Kickstarter history. The campaign received almost 88,000 contributions.

Critical Role had established a $750,000 fundraising target hoping to produce a 20-minute special to honor and thank its devoted followers. However, it exceeded the expected fundraising. Critical Role received more than $11 million in financing to develop The Legend of Vox Machina, a ten-episode animated series.

Episode 1 and 2 of The Legend of Vox Machina is expected to show a brand-new story centered on Vox Machina at level 7, and episodes 3, 4,5, and 6 are expected to display Briarwoods arc. Furthermore, episodes 7 and 8 would continue the Briarwoods’ arc, with episodes 9 and 10 further continuing and concluding the Briarwoods arc.

Besides its extension in digital production, Critical Role also engages in developing campaign-exclusive merchandise items, which would be sent as prizes to those who contributed to the initiative.

‘Call of Duty Vanguard’

Bailey stars as Lieutenant Polina Petrova (from Russia) on the video game Call of Duty Vanguard. The gameplay setting is that of World War 2, and the trailer for this video game was released on 19 August 2021. In the trailer, the gamers can witness Polina use cunning, sharpshooting, and close-quarters combat to survive a dangerous world swarming with adversaries. Call of Duty: Vanguard will officially launch on 5 November 2021 and can be played on PC, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 4, and PlayStation 5.

For starters, the game will have 20 maps, four of which will be devoted to Champion Hill and sixteen for standard multiplayer. Furthermore, ‘Diverse locations,’ ‘New Gunsmith mechanisms,’ and a ‘New Champion Hill mode,’ among other multiplayer upgrades, will be available to players. In addition, there will be a brand-new Zombie mode to play.

Private Lucas Riggs (Australia), Sergeant Arthur Kingsley (Great Britain), Lieutenant Wade Jackson (US), and Lieutenant Polina Petrova (Russia) are among the characters in the video game, and players can personalize any one of them. There will also be lots of shootouts, parachuting, sharpshooting missions throughout the single-player campaign. Furthermore, one of the most significant novel additions is an anti-cheat system for the PC version of Warzone and other substantial changes to the game’s battle royale mode.

‘Gears of War 5’

Laura Bailey played Kait Diaz in the video game Gears of War 5. Players take on the role of Kait, who must travel through the largest and most beautiful gears world to discover the Locust’s origins and battle alongside their team to preserve what is left in this video game.

In the video game, Kait Diaz is born and raised outside of the fortified city-states that safeguard the vast majority of humanity. Her parents were the leader of this gang of outsiders; however, her father died unexpectedly years ago. Although Kait is unfamiliar with the COG’s operations, she is a skilled survivor who quickly bonds with JD.

‘Uncharted’

Bailey provided the voiceover for Uncharted: The Lost Legacy, a video game released in 2017. She portrayed Nadine Ross in the video game. She was nominated for her first ‘BAFTA Award’ for ‘Best Actress in a Leading Role’ in 2018. 

‘Skyrim’

In 2011, Bailey voiced Serana, a Dawnguard DLC character from the video game, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. Serana is a vampire heiress in this video game with a terrible past and many family turmoils to deal with. The video game players meet her when she emerges from a centuries-long hibernation in Dimhollow Crypt.

'The Last of Us Part II'

After over two decades of a career as a voice actor, Bailey landed the role of Abby Anderson in the video game The Last of Us Part II. In its original The Last of Us, she played some minor roles. The game debuted in 2020, but some vocal fans were upset by its content, including a new character Abby. 

As events unfolded, Bailey was harassed over her character as Abby. She even received death threats.

About her controversial portrayal of Abby, Bailey said, “I knew that I was going to get some hate. I didn’t anticipate the extent.”

She stated that playing the character in The Last of Us Part II was one of the most grueling roles she had done, but also shared that it was one of the most gratifying experiences in her very prolonged and impressive career.

Awards and Recognitions

For her voice acting, Bailey has won several awards and has been nominated for many awards over the years. She has received 'Behind the Voice Actors Awards' multiple times. She won the ‘BTVA Voice Acting Award’ for ‘Voice Actress of the Year’ in 2017. That same year, she also won the ‘BTVA People’s Choice Voice Acting Award’ for ‘Voice Actress of the Year’ and for ‘Best Female Lead Vocal Performance in a Video Game’ for her voice of Seline Kyle/Catwoman in Batman: The Telltale Series (2016). She also received shared 'BTVA Awards.' In 2019, she won the ‘NAVGTR Award’ for ‘Supporting Performance in a Drama’ for her role in the video game Spider-Man (2018).

 For her role in The Last of Us Part II (2020), she won the ‘The Game Awards’ for ‘Best Performance’ in 2020 and ‘BAFTA Games Award’ for ‘Performer in a Leading Role’ in 2021. For the same role, she also received the ‘NAVGTR Award’ for ‘Outstanding Performance in a Drama - Lead’ shared with fellow voice actor Ashley Johnson in 2021.

Husband

After dating for several years, Bailey married her fellow voice actor, Travis Willingham on 25 September 2011. The pair together had a son, Ronin Willingham, who was born on June 28, 2018. They currently live in Los Angeles.

In 2007, Baily moved to Los Angeles. After a couple of years, she met her future husband, Willingham, after he auditioned for Dragon Ball Z at Funimation. At the time, she was already working there. Eventually, they started dating after three years, coworking on some projects together, and finally tied the knot in 2018.

Did You know?

Previously, she had shared a room with voice actor and director Colleen Clinkenbeard while they were working at Funimation.