American voice actor (born 1976)This article is about the American voice actor. For other uses, see Liam O'Brien (disambiguation).

Liam Christopher O'Brien (born May 28, 1976) is an American voice actor, writer, and director. He is a regular cast member of the Dungeons & Dragons actual play series Critical Role, playing Vax'ildan ("Vax"), Caleb Widogast, and Orym. He has been involved in many video games, cartoons, and English-language adaptations of *anese anime. His major anime roles include Gaara in Naruto, Vincent Law in Ergo Proxy, Captain Jushiro Ukitake in Bleach, Lloyd in Code Ge*, Kenzo Tenma in Monster, Akihiko Sanada in Persona 3, and Nephrite in the Viz Media dub of Sailor Moon.

In cartoons, O'Brien has voiced characters in shows such as Star Wars Rebels, Transformers: Robots in Disguise, Avengers *emble, Wolverine and the X-Men, and Hulk and the Agents of S.M.A.S.H.. In video games, he voiced Gollum in Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor, Caius Ballad in Final Fantasy XIII-2 and Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII, War in Darksiders, Asura in Asura's Wrath, Ieyasu Tokugawa in Sengoku Basara: Samurai Heroes, Illidan Stormrage in World of Warcraft and Heroes of the Storm, Yasuo in League of Legends, Grimoire Weiss in NieR and Nier Replicant ver.1.22474487139..., the Warden in For Honor, and Barker in *anfall 2.

He is an automated dialog replacement writer for anime and has provided voice direction for over 300 episodes of anime such as Naruto. He has also voice directed for video games such as The Last of Us, Evolve, Resident Evil 5, and Resident Evil 6.

Contents

• 1 Early life
• 2 Career
• 3 Personal life
• 4 Filmography
  • 4.1 Anime
  • 4.2 Animation
  • 4.3 Film
  • 4.4 Other dubbing
  • 4.5 Video games
  • 4.6 Live action
• 5 References
• 6 Further reading
• 7 External links

Early life

Liam Christopher O'Brien was born in Weehawken, New Jersey, on May 28, 1976. His mother, Lois Wiltse O'Brien, worked as an educator as well as a quality *urance trainer and consultant. He has a sister named Cara. His family were Reformed Christians, and he was "raised by a Christian mother and attended 15 years of Christian schooling", but would later describe himself as agnostic. He began acting in high school at St. Peter's Preparatory School. After moving to New York City to attend the New York University Tisch School of the Arts, he worked in theater on various productions around the country. He met Crispin Freeman while working on a production of Romeo & Juliet in Cincinnati, Ohio, which helped him get voice-over work back in New York.

Career

O'Brien affirms that he often plays characters that are insane or evil geniuses, although he has also voiced comedic characters such as *uyama in Girls Bravo. He describes *ore from Tales of Vesperia as "slightly unhinged". In Darksiders, he voices the lead character War, one of the Four Hor* of the Apocalypse. He describes his voicing as deeper than his usual voice, and that he portrayed War as a fairly old soul who isn't surprised at the events around him. In the video game-based film Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children, he voiced Red XIII. In addition to voice acting, he has worked as a voice director and writer on various video games and anime shows.

He is also a cast member of the popular web series Critical Role, in which he and other voice actors play Dungeons & Dragons. Critical Role was both the Webby Winner and the People's Voice Winner in the "Games (Video Series & Channels)" category at the 2019 Webby Awards; the show was also both a Finalist and the Audience Honor Winner at the 2019 Shorty Awards. After becoming hugely successful, the Critical Role cast left the Geek & Sundry network in early 2019 and set up their own production company, Critical Role Productions. Soon after, they aimed to raise $750,000 on Kickstarter to create an animated series of their first campaign, but ended up raising over $11 million. In November 2019, Amazon Prime Video announced that they had acquired the streaming rights to this animated series, now *led The Legend of Vox Machina; O'Brien reprised his role as Vax'ildan. In June 2021, O'Brien was added to the cast of Exandria Unlimited, a spinoff of Critical Role. O'Brien is also one of the narrators for the audiobook edition of the novel Critical Role: Vox Machina – Kith & Kin (2021).

Personal life

O'Brien married voice actress Amy Kincaid, with whom he has a son and daughter, in 2002.

He suffers from hyperacusis, a hearing disorder that makes him unusually sensitive to everyday noises.

Filmography

Anime

Animation

Film

Other dubbing

Video games

Live action

References

Further reading

• Jeng, Way (July 18, 2006). "Being a Brief Discussion with Liam O'Brien About Koi Kaze". Mania. Demand Media. Archived from the original on November 5, 2014.
• Bertschy, Zac; Sevakis, Justin (January 28, 2010). "The Liam King – ANNCast". Anime News Network.
• "Kana's Korner" Interview With Liam O'Brien on 91.8 The Fan

External links

• Liam O'Brien on Twitter
• Liam O'Brien at Anime News Network's encyclopedia
• Liam O'Brien at Crystal Acids Voice Actor Database
• Liam O'Brien at IMDb
• Between the Sheets: Liam O'Brien – 2018 video interview by Critical Role

People

• Laura Bailey
• Taliesin Jaffe
• Ashley Johnson
• Matthew Mercer
• Liam O'Brien
• Marisha Ray
• Sam Riegel
• Travis Willingham

Related

• Dungeons & Dragons
• Geek & Sundry