New details have come to light about the Bayonetta 3 voice acting controversy
Upcoming title Bayonetta 3 has recently been in the midst of industry controversy after Hellena Taylor, the voice actress who played the titular witch in the first two games, posted a video thread on Twitter discussing the rates she was offered for voice acting in Bayonetta 3 publicly.
In the videos, Taylor alleged that she was ultimately offered a flat rate of $4,000 USD to voice the entirety of Bayonetta 3. The actress finished this thread by asking fans to boycott the game in protest of the low pay for the franchise’s star. Other voice actors within the games industry rallied around Taylor, citing their own experiences with being underpaid for video game roles. Sean Chiplock posted a tweet stating that his two lines in the Detective Pikachu film made him more money than all the work he did playing Revali, Teba, and the Great Deku Tree in The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild.
The actress who took over voice acting for the lead role in Bayonetta 3, the prolific Jennifer Hale, posted a tweet informing fans that she was under a non-disclosure agreement and could not comment on the situation.
“As a longtime member of the voice acting community, I support every actor’s right to be paid well and have advocated consistently for this for years,” Hale wrote in the screenshot statement posted on Twitter. “I sincerely ask that everyone keep in mind that this game has been created by an entire team of hard-working, dedicated people, and I hope everyone will keep an open mind about what they’ve created. Finally, I hope that everyone involved may resolve their differences in an amicable and respectful way.”
Later, reporting from Bloomberg and Video Games Chronicle have found that Taylor’s claims in the video thread did not paint the full picture of what her offer from Nintendo and Bayonetta director Hideki Kamiya actually entailed. According to sources with knowledge of the contract, and documents reviewed by both Bloomberg and Video Games Chronicle, Platinum Games intended to rehire Taylor for the third game last summer. These documents and the sources apparently indicated that the studio was planning to bring Taylor on for “at least” five voice acting sessions at a rate of $3,000-4,000 for four hours in the studio each, though some sources indicated the number of sessions may have actually been four. Both outlets corroborated that this would have brought Taylor’s rate to around $15,000. One of VGC’s sources told the outlet that this was a large increase from her rate for Bayonetta 2.
According to Bloomberg and VGC’s reporting and sources, Taylor responded to the initial offer with a request for a six-figure sum and residuals on the game. Taylor strongly denied this claim when speaking to VGC, but their sources also confirmed the request for residuals, though they didn’t have information about her asking for a set sum. In private messages with VGC, Taylor claimed that the notion that she was offered more than $4,000 was “categorically untrue,” and that the claims that she could’ve made $15,000 for the project are “an absolute lie, and a complete joke.”
“I’d quite like to put this in the [rearview] mirror and leave the whole bloody franchise behind,” Taylor told VGC. “So I think I’ll just let my videos stand. I spoke the truth.”
Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier posted screenshots on Monday of tweets Taylor posted acknowledging that the claim of $4,000 USD for the initial game offer was untrue and that she was offered $10,400 USD.
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