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Hellena Taylor (Voice of Bayonetta) Describes How She was Offered only $4,000 USD to Voice Her Again in Bayonetta 3.

Topher

Gold Member
By the way, how long you study to do something dictate the value of doing it. If so there wouldn't be so many people with master's degrees in the humanities serving coffee.

candy john GIF


That is until I figured it out and went to grad school for Computer Science. Somehow that English Literature degree wasn't cutting it.
 

dugdug

Banned
Reminds me of the David Hayter stuff with MGSV. High on their own supply.

While 4k is a ridiculous slap to the face, she's not garnering any pity from me with the pettiness of this whole thing.

And as we all know, switching from Hayter to Sutherland was a great idea and everyone absolutely loved it.
 

SSfox

Member
I mean 4000 sounds like a joke, but can't really speak, depends also on how much she got in first 2 games, and how much actors got in paid in general. But yeah 4000 doesn't seem that much specially considering how much she brought to the character and it's a 3rd game of pretty successful franchise.
 
I don’t think her voice is like intrinsically tied to the identity of the series. It’s not like Charles Martinet and Mario.

Nintendo gave Platinum a set amount of money to make Bayo 3. Given series sales historically, I think they probably just had to prioritize their costs and make choices. I don’t see it as very newsworthy
 

Topher

Gold Member
Ridicules, no wonder they didn't hire her.

Who asks people to boycott a game and tells the new voice actors that they are "not the real Bayonetta" and posts videos of it online to start a hate campaign?

She needs to provide context for how much work it is, if it's like a week then 4K is great money.

Does she really think that since Bayonetta has sold for 450k, that means the developers are swimming in money? Ridicules.

The call to boycott really rubbed me the wrong way. That's not doing her any good. And what about the other people working their ass off to get the game done? Entirely disrespectful to her piers.

Speaking up is fine. Let her grievance be known. No need to shit on Jennifer Hale or make grand calls to boycott like she is some martyr.
 
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AetherZX

Member
lol at some of you saying “there must be something else here.”

Like what? What do you guys think is really happening? Why the fuck would she lie about this?

Goddamn, the fucking hero worship for Kamiya is always so gross.

Some of the idiots posting here are sending me too, lmao. "HoW mUcH wOrK?!" I would think after two games and other appearances in different media, she knows exactly what she's accustomed to receiving for her work.
 
It is very odd that she is using these strange, exaggerated examples to support her victim complex:

-Nurse going to pantry because she can't afford food for herself (Helena is not a nurse who saves lives, and UK's economic conditions has nothing to do with Nintendo)
-She spent years majoring in theatre and perfecting her craft. If anything, her star voice role in bayonetta would have propelled her in other cartoon, video game, movie roles. Is she not auditioning?
-Her depression, anxiety and suicide attempt was based on Nintendo not giving her enough money on the bayonetta 3 role?
-It was her choice not to accept the low pay and walked away
-Could not infuse or include royalties for her role? How was this not put on the table?

I would wait and hear from the other side before making a solid opinion on this matter
 
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hemo memo

Gold Member
I don’t think her voice is like intrinsically tied to the identity of the series. It’s not like Charles Martinet and Mario.

Nintendo gave Platinum a set amount of money to make Bayo 3. Given series sales historically, I think they probably just had to prioritize their costs and make choices. I don’t see it as very newsworthy
Nintendo is not the one handling how the studio split the budget. So this is not a good look for Platinum.
 

brian0057

Banned
lol at some of you saying “there must be something else here.”

Like what? What do you guys think is really happening? Why the fuck would she lie about this?

Goddamn, the fucking hero worship for Kamiya is always so gross.
It has nothing to do with Kamiya or some hero worship strawman.
Jennifer Hale is the more prolific voice actress of the two and, more than likely, far costlier to hire than Hellena Taylor.
The latter saying that money was the dealbreaker sounds like an excuse.
 

ReBurn

Gold Member
candy john GIF


That is until I figured it out and went to grad school for Computer Science. Somehow that English Literature degree wasn't cutting it.
You're not the only one. My BS in Behavioral Psychology wasn't cutting it. My Computer Science degree has taken good care of me.
 

Reizo Ryuu

Member
I don't think she's being "petty" here, she was alluding to not returning as the voice a year ago.
Her "side" is coming in after platinumgames said: "Various overlapping circumstances made it difficult for Hellena Taylor to reprise her role."
Sounds like this pissed her off since (from her pov) it's not "various overlapping circumstances", but just a lowball offer, and then moving on to hire someone who's probably more expensive.
 

Kimahri

Banned
I don't think she's being "petty" here, she was alluding to not returning as the voice a year ago.
Her "side" is coming in after platinumgames said: "Various overlapping circumstances made it difficult for Hellena Taylor to reprise her role."
Sounds like this pissed her off since (from her pov) it's not "various overlapping circumstances", but just a lowball offer, and then moving on to hire someone who's probably more expensive.
Yeah, that's what it seems like. She was handling it professionally until Platinum and Nintendo lied about her absence.

I'd be pissed off at that too.
 

kiphalfton

Member
Voice actors have it pretty shitty. It's known. Still a bit maddening, given this is Nintendo of all companies.

Also, no way they offered the same deal to Jennifer Hale.

Just like the rest of us, even those who went through however many years of post-secondary schooling. I feel so bad for her.

Experienced video game voice actors will receive $200 to $350 an hour or $50 to $200 per 100 words for their video game voice acting work.

Novice voice actors earn between $1 and $5 per 100 words. Video game voice actors are also eligible for bonuses up to $2,100.


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So she was getting paid for 20 or so hours of work?

Going off that $50 per 100 words number recorded, that's 8,000 words she was paid for. Or conversely 2,000 words (at $200 per 100 words).

I just checked "all cutscenes" on YouTube for the first Bayonetta, and it's around three hours. If the typical person speaks 150 wpm, then that would be 27,000 words spoken continuously throughout that entire span. There's going to be dead air, other characters speaking, etc. so you can apply some factor <1.0 to that, to whittle it down a bit. I wouldn't doubt it if the actress has like 5,000 words max, all inclusive with random one liners.

Even if you look at it from the hourly rate, as you mentioned that's roughly 12 hours (at $350/hour) or 20 hours (at $200/hour). Like I said there's only 3 hours of cutscenes for the first game. So obviously she had enough time to do multiple takes/etc. when recording.

People overreacting to this obviously couldn't care less about breaking the numbers down, or looking into how much that should roughly equate to. What should I expect though, people are idiots, shit with mone,y and have no idea WTF they're talking about in general, half the time.
 
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brian0057

Banned
underpaying talent
Yeah, I'm sure the voice of Fem Shep, Naomi from MGS, and Samus Aran in the Prime series is cheaper to hire than the actress from a series that Nintendo had to save because no one else wanted to make new games for it.
 

dugdug

Banned
It has nothing to do with Kamiya or some hero worship strawman.
Jennifer Hale is the more prolific voice actress of the two and, more than likely, far costlier to hire than Hellena Taylor.
The latter saying that money was the dealbreaker sounds like an excuse.

Are you guys implying they offered Hale the exact same amount of money? Of course she got a bigger check that she was comfortable with.
 

Chukhopops

Member
Shame as the voice acting was one of the things that made Bayonetta a cool character (especially in 1).

I thought they were pulling a MGS5 where it’s actually a different character compared to previous games but it’s not the explanation apparently…
 
She's was an employee contracted to do work. She has no right to future work nor is she in any position to "own" the character.
Low ball offer or not, she has the option to accept or not accept the offer, which she declined.

She also has the rigth to complain about it as well.

Based on the number of people who have no idea who she is, she probably hasn't built up the following or rep to be demanding high payouts yet. It's probably not a great idea to roast your previous employers on social media. I know I'd be wary on hiring her now. I guess it works for some people though.

Edit: I loved the OG Bayonetta. She definitely brought that character to life. So not hating on her at all if that's how it came across.
 
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Nautilus

Banned
I mean 4000 sounds like a joke, but can't really speak, depends also on how much she got in first 2 games, and how much actors got in paid in general. But yeah 4000 doesn't seem that much specially considering how much she brought to the character and it's a 3rd game of pretty successful franchise.
While not a bomb, Bayonetta was never really successful.
 

brian0057

Banned
Are you guys implying they offered Hale the exact same amount of money? Of course she got a bigger check that she was comfortable with.
No, we're implying that money wasn't the only reason for not hiring her.
If Platinum isn't willing to pay the long time voice of Bayonetta, why are they hiring an even more expensive and more prolific voice actress?
It can't be solely about money. They could've and would've payed Hellena if that were the case.
It's Jennifer Hale's involvement that makes us question her monetary explanation.
 

Nautilus

Banned
It's successful enough and made a lot of money. You don't have to sell COD level to be success.
No, it never was. Every gane has its own budget and level of success, sure. But the budget of the original Bayonetta was big enough that the 1 million or so it sold in the first year wasn't enough to make the game a success. So much so that Sega never funded a sequel and NOBODY was interested in it, Sony and MS included.

The only one that was was Nintendo, and even then we all guess that the only reason they do so is because of good press(Bayonetta is beloved after all, just look at the ammount of responses this thread is getting) and variety to its line up. Bayo 2 took 5 years to sell 1 million on Switch, and the Wii U must be around 700k. That's not a bomb, but considering how much the game must need to develop, that's nowhere near enough to be successful.

I REALLY hope Bayo 3 changes this, but I won't lie to myself or anyone about the real situation Bayo is in.
 

Hot5pur

Member
Voice comparison HERE.

In many ways the Bayonetta character was given life by the initial voice actress, though it's not clear if she was written to be so sassy or that evolved when they started working together.
The new voice actress seems to have a very solid background and she's similar but the original is definitely noticeably better and has more impact.

Boycott the game? Nah. Platinum just didn't think her voice was worth more than that, and that's the reality because it's a silly action game not a deep touching drama.
Voice actors get paid $200-300 per hour (of work not recorded dialog) or $50-$200 per 100 words. Pretty sure bayonetta 1 (and let's assume 3 will be similar in length / dialog) had less than 2 hours of cutscenes total, and then about 50 lines/phrases like grunts and things she does during combat.
One hour speech has about 9000 words, and in cutscenes which are mostly action I'd imagine Bayonetta speaks 5% of the time, and usually it's 1 liners. So I estimate about 1000 words for cutscenes.
Order of magnitude for that amount of work is in the thousands range. Perhaps my estimates are way off. So maybe it's an industry problem and not a Platinum problem.
A good voice actors who knows what they are doing can likely crank out many of these contracts per year and make bank.
 
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PJX

Member
Signing exclusivity with Nintendo was the worst thing that could've happened to this franchise. I'm baffled that neither Bandai Namco or Capcom didn't come out of the bidding war with the rights, guess the sharks knew there was a deal to be had.

Meanwhile, regarding the OP, what did she counter with? $1m? Seems like the two sides were a chasm apart on what they thought was fair.

Nintendo nor Platinum owns the Bayonetta IP, Sega does. Capcom or Bandai Namco couldn't come in and bid for it.
 
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