If you've played Final Fantasy 14, you know the Leveilleur twins: two young prodigies in their respective fields. Alphinaud is intelligent, cautious and a great diplomat, while Alisaie is a headstrong go-getter who –Spoilers for Endwalker– finally fulfills her promise to heal the world.
They're exceptionally well-written characters, to the point where a single dialogue prompt in the Endwalker finale “Ultima Thule” made me cry (I promised, dammit). In the game's excellent English localization, they are played by Colin Ryan and Bethan Walker, respectively, who share plenty of spoken lines with each other throughout the game's hundred-hour-long story.
The two actors recently spoke to Fanbyte's Jessica Scharnagle in an extension interview– In it they talk about how (despite the close bond between their characters) neither actor had actually met each other until 2022. That is Seven Years after her first appearance in Heavensward (there was a change at the localization company) and, according to Walker, almost nine years when development time is taken into account.
“Suddenly,” says Walker, “we get to know each other. And because we've worked together a lot over the last few years in terms of conventions… that means when we go back into the studio, it's like having a friend with you.
She adds that while their subsequent recording sessions were still long distance, “it has become easier to communicate with each other in the studio, even if.” [Ryan] not act there. Because now we have this kind of experience of what we’re like in real life, it’s been great.”
Ryan, meanwhile, recounts the surreal experience of feeling like you already know someone you've never met before: “It was strange, wasn't it? Because in the seven/eight years before that, we obviously heard about it.” “If Walker had already recorded for Alisaie, Square Enix would “feed in her lines for me to play off.”
“There was probably a familiarity when we first met.” Ryan says that he and Walker “became really good friends” and that the experience “really changes the way I shoot my scenes with Alisaie because we have a real relationship with the grassroots.” [our work] out of. It definitely helped.
But even off the stand, Walker says their new friend status means they're working on their performances: “We're talking more together now about the plot and where it's been and where it's going. I think we can encourage each other. “Now that we feel safe, it's going to be a little more difficult in the studio… I think that can only benefit the game now that we're friends.”
