Morrigan will always be an icon—as we’ve already discussed on this site, she’s one of the all-time companion greats, pretty much stealing the show in Dragon Age: Origins. A razor-sharp wit, a barbed tongue, and a deeper, sympathetic vulnerability. There’s very much a reason why she keeps popping back up in sequels to play the hits.
According to David Gaider, who wrote the character (and several others I quite like), her origins were slightly less high-brow than the end product. Posting to BlueSky, Gaider writes: “Originally, we were looking for a Middle Eastern actress to play her, as Shohreh Aghdashloo was slated to play Flemeth and we wanted a similar sounding voice—but it was a real struggle, and then Shohreh unfortunately had to drop out to do a movie. So suddenly we had nobody for either character!”
“Then, one day, Caroline (our VO Director) comes in with a recording sent by a rep for Claudia Black—who hadn’t done game VO back then but wanted to get into it. And it was Claudia doing a slow, beat poet rendition of [Smack That]. I kid you not. I was already a fan, so I lost my goddamn mind.” My edit in that quote is there because Gaider briefly got ‘Baby Got Back’ and ‘Smack That’ mixed up, which he later corrects. Easily done, they occupy the same venn diagram, and this was 15 years ago. “Yes, I still have the recording. No, you cannot have it.” Aw.
Gaider also reveals that Morrigan was meant to be a heck of a lot younger-sounding, as per orders from on high. “We had to agree to get Claudia to sound ‘younger’, which I was dubious about. The first two sessions we asked her to pitch her voice up and it was AWFUL.
“Claudia had to focus on sounding ‘right’ instead of acting. So Caroline and I did the sneaky thing, and in the third session we asked her to just… act. Use her natural voice. We loved her performance so much we had the feeling that the team would love it too and forget their nonsense. They did.”
Not to apply a layer of cynicism to an anecdote that’s otherwise pretty joyous, or anything, but hearing Gaider speak about pressure from the higher-ups this way is sort of fascinating, considering the comments he made last year about writers being “quietly resented”—you have to wonder if Black would have been made to force that higher register in the present day.
Gaider also shares a fun, heart-in-mouth moment wherein, upon speaking with Black, he committed a cardinal sin—comparing her to another actor. “So I meet Claudia, and I’m sweating. I think: I’ll start from the beginning, right? ‘Well, when I started writing Morrigan, the voice in my head was Helena Bonham Carter’ … Claudia gives me a look and tilts her head. ‘So what you’re saying is… I’m a very cheap version of Helena Bonham Carter.’
“I’m mortified. I melt. I gasp and stutter and she lets me implode for maybe 30 seconds before she throws her head back and LAUGHS. So wicked. I love her instantly and forever.”
Gaider finishes his tell-all with a similar expression of love for the character herself: “Morrigan became a real touchstone for me, the heart of DAO. Way beyond her initial inspirations. Some said ‘she’s just an ice queen’ like some I’d written (Viconia, Bastila, etc.) but such categories are very reductive, I find.” I’m in complete agreement—though I’m afraid to say that Alistair stole my heart before she did. Gaider can still be chuffed, though, seeing as he wrote him, too.
