With a voiceover career spanning over fifteen years in television, film, and video games, Matthew Mercer is one of the most prolific voice actors in North America. Having worked on projects ranging from Resident Evil to Dragon Ball Super, he went on to voice the marine turned police officer Stryker in 2011's Mortal Kombat 9. Mercer reprised his EarthRealm fighter role in the animated film Mortal Kombat Legends: Battle of the Realms and also portrayed the cyber-ninja Smoke for the movie's epic, bloody martial arts tournament.
In an exclusive interview with CBR, Mercer discussed reprising his role as Stryker for Mortal Kombat Legends: Battle of the Realms and shared his history with the Mortal Kombat franchise. Mercer also teased the future of his fantasy tabletop web series, Critical Role, as it branches into comics with an original graphic novel by Sam Maggs and Hunter Bonyun.
You've been with the Mortal Kombat franchise for some time, and, with this year being the 30th anniversary, do you remember your first experience with it?
Matthew Mercer: I do, very much. It was an impactful moment playing it at our local Circle K growing up. It would've been around fifth grade in '93 or '94 and the game came into our local Circle K and replaced our Neo Geo machine, which we were really sad about, but then we saw this amazing fighting game with lifelike digitized actors and so much blood! It was that ultraviolence that appeals to you when you're on the cusp of puberty and I was like, "This is the coolest thing ever! It's got ninjas and everything!"
We immediately turned it into a routine after-school, going in and playing and learning it. And then when they ported it to the SNES, they had to edit out the blood to be sweat so Genesis all the way! [laughs] There was a Game Genie code where you could turn the sweat red but that was it.
Do you remember first getting the nod to play Stryker in Mortal Kombat 9 and then again for Battle of the Realms?
Oh yeah, it was huge for me! I was still relatively fresh in my voiceover career and any opportunity I had to be a part of something I grew up a fan of was huge. It was a big nerd full circle for me. Being able to step into it was a huge honor for me, even if it was Stryker, who is not an overtly appreciated character from Mortal Kombat III, but that was a fun challenge. How do I take this character that kind of looks a bit goofy and was misunderstood for a lot of his early iterations in the series and make him fun, identifiable, and look like he fits in with the rest of the people so people want to play as him? We all worked hard on that. I feel like we did a good job based on people's opinions of Stryker going into that.
It was a huge honor to do that and to get the call for this was great! Spoilers for an old video game but Stryker dies horribly like a lot of the other characters and I [thought] that was the last chance I get to play him. When they called me back to play in this, I said, "Yes!" It was so good to jump back into his suit.
Coming back to the character for Battle of the Realms, what did you want to retain and what did you want to change up?
I definitely wanted to give him a little bit more of a wry edge. When you're a man out of time and place -- just a dude who has a day job who gets pulled into a world of cyber-ninjas and demons with tons of teeth and arm blades from another dimension -- that's pretty crazy. He definitely represents a lot of that perspective as the everyman in a ridiculous scenario which was a big push for his performance in this. The other [thing] is just recognizing this is ridiculous so you can't help but laugh sometimes at it. There's this little wry smile going, "I guess this is what we're doing!" Finding those beats of humanity and bits of humor to it was fun and then just getting into some genuinely violent fights.
You're pulling triple duty on this project. How is it to play Smoke in this film?
That was cool too! Smoke has this history in the series of being one of the earlier hidden characters, not quite before Reptile or Noob Saibot. It was really cool to be offered the chance to bring him to life, let alone to play through his journey from a human-trained ninja to his corruption into a cyber-ninja version and his own struggle with his still-existing seeds of humanity. It was a huge gift to play in that space the way that we did. I loved it! [laughs]
You've worked with voice director Wes Gleason for a long time. How was it working with him on this project?
I'm very thankful that I've had the opportunity to work with Wes, let alone have him trust me with stuff that he keeps bringing me back for more projects. That's a huge honor for me. He's one of the best in the business. He knows exactly what he wants and expressing the means of conveying what he's looking for succinctly. It definitely feels like a collaborative process.
For this, the level of hyper-violence required always has a fun back-and-forth between actor and director to make sure the hits feel like they hit particularly hard and that the violent deaths come across as sufficiently violent. [laughs] Most of us got to have a lot of fun with this project, surprising each other from across the recording boundaries. He's just great.
As someone with the unique perspective of playing Mortal Kombat since the beginning and voicing the video games and in an animated movie, why do you think the franchise has endured for thirty years? What does Battle of the Realms bring to the franchise?
Out of the gate, everyone will say Mortal Kombat is just violence. Yeah, it is, but at a time when there was a lot of blowback towards the idea of embracing the violence of combat. It was a safe haven for teenage kids that wanted to dive into the hyper-violence of some of the best adult action movies and martial arts films but also brought in that unique mixture of dark mysticism and an actor punching people in the balls. It's this [melting] pot of things that you don't get to see thrown together and it pulls it off well and it carved its own unique niche. It managed to maintain that through the years by throwing fresh paint on it by adding new, interesting characters, and finding ways to spin the storyline in the best way.
With this, in particular, it hits a lot of that with a modern reboot take on certain characters. These are familiar characters and aspects told through the lens of the writers of this generation to take it into a very serious route and make, what looks like on paper, an absolutely chaotic bit of world-building. Ground it in the right places. Make it ridiculous in the right places and really embrace what makes Mortal Kombat Mortal Kombat. I think it does a fantastic job of that. It's just a blast.
Critical Role is getting an original graphic novel this year. What is it about the comic book medium that lends itself as Sam Maggs and Hunter Bonyun add to the story that you're telling?
First off, it seems like it shouldn't even be a thing. It's a process of pinching myself that people want to write and engage with original stories and this world that I made up for my friends. It's a huge honor and really cool opportunity to explore other facets of the world that the players or viewers didn't have the opportunity to explore. Bringing in incredible writers like Sam Maggs to realize it and drive it and dive into our world and create and spin their own interpretation of these narratives in it and elevate it even farther. It's such a cool, collaborative process. Dark Horse Comics has been incredible to work with from the get-go and they've been nothing but eager to facilitate everyone's creative vision and collaboration. I'm just pinching myself and I can't wait for people to check out more of the book when it comes out. It's freaking cool. [laughs]
Who's your go-to character when playing Mortal Kombat?
When I really want to kick someone's ass, I'm prone to go with Scorpion or Sub-Zero. Those are my OG types and have power types that best facilitate my means of trapping people. For the most part, they've stayed fairly familiar throughout the franchise. Even when it's changed so dramatically, I still feel comfortable with them and can figure it out pretty quickly. I feel like Cyrax is pretty unfair in Mortal Kombat III, with those teleport punches. It's like Ryu and Ken in Street Fighter, Scorpion and Sub-Zero have been my boys since Day One. [laughs]
I'm not just saying this but Fei Long is my favorite Street Fighter character so it was cool hearing you in Street Fighter IV as him.
All these fighting game franchises that I grew up with, and I grew up as a heavy fighting game fan, to be able to be a part of them is just freaking wild!
Directed by Ethan Spaulding, Mortal Kombat Legends: Battle of the Realms is available now on Digital HD and Blu-ray/4K UHD.