Voicing Queerness: Dom Dinh

What does authenticity mean to you?

DOM
As someone who never really heard people of colour and of queer experience in media, it’s something that’s extremely important to me because it’s nice to see and hear yourself be represented in a way that is healthy and positive.

A lot of the time, during my childhood at least, when I’d see queer characters onscreen, it was to do with ridicule and being the butt of a joke. Whereas now I’m glad to be a part of the new acting wave, where I can represent characters of my experience, and be the one to show people that we are talented, that we have something to say, and that we do have positive experiences as part of this world.

ELIZABETH
It’s so interesting that you use the word “healthy” to open the conversation. Because you’re right – in that the majority of things our generation saw growing up made it seem like being queer or “other” was this negative life choice. Especially framing it as  a choice for, y’know, “becoming” The Queer, not just something that you are.

DOM
Yeah, absolutely.

ELIZABETH
So much can be said for the physical, mental and even spiritual wellbeing of embracing queerness and your own identity. And there are definitely both mental and physical health benefits that can come with accepting who you are, so I think it’s really interesting that you use that word offhand, if you think of all the implications that go with it.

DOM
Oh, absolutely. Even just seeing queerness framed positively can change a person’s whole mindset, so it can be huge. All the time, I was used to just seeing these queer stories that always were really tragic, or that were never made to be anything more than, “Oh, this is a queer person! Let’s all laugh at them!” Whereas now, there’s so many queer stories of trans women being happy in the way that they are, and fulfilled. Trans women’s struggles rising above more than what people perceive them as. I say healthy because it is healing to see that growth, and change.

My favourite example is Pose, which is a fantastic TV show, and has great queer representation. Those stories being told of people who are still being made fun of, but in a more positive light. I think it’s really important to explore some of those themes, while also maintaining a level of, “No, it’s good to be you. It’s good to be authentic and free.”

Have you met your own character in the game(s) you voiced?

ELIZABETH
What was that like for you, as a player, to be able to physically interact with them?

DOM
So, there’s one that was a visual-novel, and one where I’m the protagonist, and those I actually think were quite different experiences. Just from a regular voice acting standpoint, it was really weird to hear my voice back. But I moreso just found it really cool to be able to see myself in that, and hear the character just be themselves.

ELIZABETH
It’s always kinda surreal, huh?

DOM
I mean, especially to have so many people that came to me after playing the game, and being like, “Oh my god, I really relate to this character! Your voice helped my actions matter.” That kind of reaction is what makes me really realise how important the experience was, and how important the character is to a lot of people.

ELIZABETH
The emphasis of actions is really real. That element of interactivity is what makes your involvement in the creation of this piece of art feel more tangible. Because after recording, while a game is still in development, it can take so long before release that you feel sort of detached from it. But then coming across these characters through play, literally driving myself into that encounter, it’s such a reminder that, “This is a thing that I did, and it’s impacting people.” That’s so wonderful to have as an artist, and as a queer person: seeing and experiencing yourself projected back at you, if that makes sense?

DOM
Absolutely, it does. Because whilst we’re waiting, a lot of our stuff is in limbo. Oftentimes I do just forget what I voiced, what lines I said. When they release, people say, “Oh, I loved your character’s story!” And I just… I don’t remember what you’re talking about! [Laughs]

ELIZABETH
[Laughs] Ah, but the joy is discovering it all again! Because obviously we – actors – try to inject depth into everything that we do, but then unfolding it for ourselves, I think, has this very beautiful feeling of… fulfilment?

DOM
Awakening, almost, yeah.

ELIZABETH
We’re getting really flowery with it now but – AAGHH it’s just so cool!

DOM
No, it’s fantastic, honestly! It’s a great experience to be able to do that, and a privilege as an actor; to be able to consume our work in such an interactive way, as you said. Because a lot of the time, when it comes to our stories, it’s either through theatre or screen. But with videogames we can really delve deeper into a character’s psyche and journey, in a way that we’ve never been able to before.

ELIZABETH
Yep. The onus is on you to discover it in the way you wish to. Like, you mentioned visual-novels. Usually those come with lots of different routes that you can take characters down, and I think it’s so interesting to compare with real life. There are so many routes that we can go down in this world. And, especially with queerness and queer stories, it’s so fascinating to see what writers and developers do with them; and, even moreso, seeing what voice actors can do to bring them to life with such fluidity is really compelling.

You’ll have to let me know which visual-novel of yours this is, because I’d love to go play it and cheer for you and… cry…

DOM
Soon as it’s out, trust me! It’ll be interesting, as it’s the most recent I’ve done and I can’t spoil too much, but it’s something I’m really proud of. I was actually a writer on the game as well – and I had no intention of being a voice actor, at all. I wrote everything with a clear lens of what the character might sound like, no preconceptions, and I never imagined myself reading for them until the head producer said, “I actually imagine your voice.”

So it was really special to be able to read my words into being. It was very much like, “Oh, wow. This is my experience.” It’s something I’m really passionate about.

What do you wish would be done more when it comes to creating queer stories in games?

DOM
I feel, a lot of the time, games do get flack for sidestepping queerness. Something that we don’t talk about is that it’s okay to be both subtle and overt about the trans experience. I think there’s beauty on both ends of the spectrum, depending on how it’s done.

The queer experience comes in all different forms, so it’s important to have every little piece of it. Positive and negative. We should celebrate every win that we have in the videogame space; that we’re able to play as all different kinds of characters, and able to have growing queer representation. It’s a lot better than it was even a few years ago, and it’s only getting better and better.

What on a casting call motivates you to audition for a game?

DOM
A lot of it has to do with seeing characters, and the snippets of backstory written into the audition sides. Thinking I want to explore more about a character, even though I have so little to go off of. And that’s the beauty of it – that’s the challenge I love to explore. And, hopefully, they give me another chance to explore more.

I really try to audition for everything that I can, no matter the voice description or quality markers. I’ll just try my best, and hope they’re up for different interpretations.

ELIZABETH
Yeah, because you never know what they might actually want to go for. God knows in my time I’ve had directors do a complete 180 because they’d never considered a British accent for the role, which is usually my way of sneaking in… [laughs]

DOM
Probably because when casting calls say: “This character has no accent,” what they really mean is, “Standard American accent.”

ELIZABETH
Yeah, what’s up with that?! I personally think that accent diversity is the spice of life, and accents shouldn’t be tokenized for certain character types, but c’est la vie!

DOM
That’s your British Villain typecast talking.

ELIZABETH
It’s so true…

DOM
For me, a lot also has to do with actually seeing trans characters on a call. Because you really don’t see many.

I have the freedom to do male characters, that’s my prerogative, but whenever I have the opportunity to see more flexibility in terms of what a director wants from a female character, I jump at it. We need more deep-voiced femme representation.

ELIZABETH
Yes! We do! Even just as a cis woman, I’m tired of it!

DOM
So often, for game and anime projects, it’s the higher female voice they’re seeking. I think it’d be good for us to have much, much more of that sultry, low, powerful voice. Yes, for villains and bad guys, but also with the opportunity to be really sweet, kind, nurturing. Switch up your expectations of what a voice is capable of, because I want to be able to push further, personally.

ELIZABETH
Exactly that. I’ve seen so, so  much that apparent ‘default’ of good-aligned characters typically having mid-to-high pitch specified on their casting call, whilst bad or morally grey characters will almost always be low in pitch. As you say, my niche – and I do love it, don’t get me wrong. But sometimes it would be really nice if I could just be chill in a session, and not always screaming for blood? [Laughs]

DOM
For real. There’s a deep variety of voices out there, no matter if you’re cis or trans, and a lot of people don’t realise that; especially when they’re assuming what a character should or will sound like.

ELIZABETH
I think because – to make a sweeping generalisation – there’s historical connotations of a lower pitch voice reading as traditionally masculine, alongside the “transgressive female” aligning with masculine traits. And the sweet romance interest will have a high-pitch voice so you know they’re feminine, and they’re good, and aligning with their gender expectations. Very much Disney Princess versus Villains, as a quick example.

DOM
Even if they’re trans, as well! The number of times I see a trans woman listed as high voice only, and I’m just begging not to strain my voice to get this gig. It feels a lot like catering to an audience that shouldn’t be catered to. Like I’m putting it on; it’s practically a customer service voice, which doesn’t lend itself to giving a genuine performance or any actual connection to the character.

All I have to say is: you want a trans character? This is what a trans voice sounds like! Cast with flexibility, or don’t cast at all. When I see evidence of that flexibility being there on a call? That  motivates me. That’s  real.

What should writers & directors strive to do when representing queerness, or working with queer actors?

DOM
Ooh, that’s a good question…

Something that directors and writers should always do is have input from their actors, especially when it comes to the queer experience. That’s why it was such a blessing to be a writer on the game I just mentioned. If there were things that I felt my co-writers could’ve written more naturally, I was able to shape that, as someone with queer experience.

My character wasn’t actually meant to be trans, to begin with. She was meant to be non-binary. The producers went back to the drawing board, and thought that maybe we needed to open our minds more about the trans experience. Not have it be so black and white about representing an experience that’s specifically male, female, or nonbinary – it should have more ebb and flow to it. That’s when the decision was made, because of me being the actor and saying I’d really love her to be trans, because I don’t get to do it very often. And we have just loved to roll with the punches.

So being able to coordinate with your actors, as a writer and producer, is something to really strive for because it can make the experience very special.

What are your thoughts on inauthentic casting?

ELIZABETH
I suppose I do also ask this somewhat with the framing of the, “Oh, but they had the best voice for the role” debate.

DOM
So, as someone who moderates the Voice Acting Club community, I really do have a lot of people from all different types and levels of experience asking me, like, “Why can’t it just be the ‘best voice for the role?’”

In an ideal world, yes: it would be the ‘best’ voice, where everyone can play anyone. But we’re not in that perfect world yet, and we have historically seen people of colour and people of queer experiences be turned away for simply being who they are, and they can’t even play characters of their own experience. We’re currently seeing a shift in that paradigm, where we’re finally able to see our own stories represented by people of those experiences.

A lot of times when people complain about the ‘best voice’ bias, they’re implying that the best person can’t be all those things – queer, POC, whatever – and have all that talent to give the best performance. What happens if it was the best voice for the role, but also they’re a gay person of colour? We can do that!

While acting is acting, a lot of the time it’s applied memory and applied experience. What better way to have a great performance than to have someone who has experienced those things before, and can portray them in ways that are subtle and authentic?

ELIZABETH
It was something I was arguing about last night, that exact point: that “there shouldn’t be set rules on only gay people can play gay roles, because it’s all acting. It’s all made up anyway.”

Like…. Yes?! Sure!! Like, I choose to believe that I’m pretty good at what I do—

DOM
You are! You definitely are!

ELIZABETH
Thank you. We established I’ve played a lot of killers, eldritch gods, even a talking bear – and at no point have I ever known what it’s like to be one of those things!

DOM
Yeah, I sure hope not…

ELIZABETH
But I’d still never play a trans woman, even if the pay was amazing or the project was my dream gig. Because… y’know, I don’t have those experiences that are real and have consequences for representing! Not only would it feel wrong to take those opportunities from someone who does have those experiences, but I can also only act so much without it being made from this subjective thing that I have created in my mind of what these people and their lives are like.

DOM
Exactly. Exactly.

ELIZABETH
I’m someone who did actually study a lot about gender and sexuality at university, but I’m still a cisgender woman. I will never know exactly how it is to live and breathe those experiences, in order to literally breathe that life into a character. Because that is what we do, at the end of the day; we become the soul within this thing that so many people can experience and latch onto, and feel warmth towards. But, if my experience going into that is hollow, then surely what I’m creating will turn out hollow too?

DOM
I feel a lot of people don’t understand intersectionality, as well. I’ve had people be angry that my resume contains White roles, or cis roles, but often those are for anime where everyone’s actually Asian, which I am. When I’m voicing a specifically White trans woman, obviously I’ve not lived the life of  a White trans woman, however I have lived in White society. That’s something that we all do to an extent, because of the legacy of Colonialism, is live under White rules. I’ve seen both ends of the spectrum, because I live an ethnic experience but also a White experience.

Do you have a favourite moment from working on a queer game?

DOM
I think I’ll talk about StarCrossed, because it was one of the roles I actually booked before I came out as trans. At the time I was identifying as genderfluid, and The Hero is a genderfluid character. That was really special to me, when I was still trying to navigate my feelings of transness and if I actually belonged to being trans. After I came out, it was like, “Wow, this was a character that really speaks to me! A Queer Magical Girl? That’s fantastic!”

It was a great thing to play in that space and feel safe. Especially because there was a character I’d wanted to audition for earlier that year, that was a trans woman, and I felt shafted by it. When I’d asked those developers if I could audition, they were being very… exclusionary about it, with me being – at the time – a masc-presenting AMAB genderfluid person. StarCrossed helped me see that I was able to do all of that, and accept where I could belong, and have an experience that was authentic to myself.

ELIZABETH
Amazing. I’m so, so happy you got to experience that, and to see the trajectory it’s taken you on to where you’re now thriving. To have such a key part of your creative and personal journey be so intertwined, that’s really beautiful to see.

DOM
Yeah, and I’m so appreciative of that. I started voice acting when I was literally a child. I was fifteen years old, way before I ever realised I was trans.

I’d never really gotten a chance to play characters that had a softer, feminine side to them until StarCrossed. So it really helped me to reconcile the way I could act: in my identity, in the way I could navigate these feelings of not knowing if I was allowed to voice all these different kinds of character. It felt like a privilege to have already had the experience of voicing so many characters, for five years by then, to definitively be like: “No, I’ve walked both worlds. I can voice whatever I’m comfortable with.”

Lastly, is there anything you want to say to your fellow queer voice actors this Pride Month?

DOM
Don’t let anybody tell you that you can’t. Voice as best as you can, with whatever voice you have. Whether you have a deep trans-femme voice, or a high trans-masc voice, if you’re non-binary, gay, ace – you can do whatever you want! Know that I am always in your corner, and I believe in all of you. I hope that we can make the industry a more diverse place, and a more loving place, together.