Baldur’s Gate 3 has a trio of villains played by actors associated with iconic foes from different franchises, yet the identity of one voice managed to elude players.
The performers who appeared in Baldur’s Gate 3 were revealed in the run-up to the game’s official launch, but if you came late to the adventuring party, then it was easy to miss the slow hype built up during early access.
Baldur’s Gate 3 pits the player against the Chosen of the Dead Three: Gortash, Orin the Red, and Ketheric Thorm. Gortash was played by Jason Isaacs, best known as Lucius Malfoy in the Harry Potter movies, and Orin was portrayed by Maggie Robertson, who is behind Lady Dimitrescu in Resident Evil Village.
The last of the Dead Three was played by an Academy Award-winning actor, yet users on the Baldur’s Gate 3 Reddit were surprised to learn that Ketheric Thorm was played by J.K. Simmons, known for playing J. Jonah Jameson in the Spider-Man movies, Omni-Man in Invincible, Cave Johnson in Portal 2, and countless other roles.
“Holy butts, that’s why I recognized him,” one user wrote, “And I didn’t even realize until now that he was also Cave Johnson. And upon looking at these credits, also Ford Pines???”
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“Wait, is that why his voice was so familiar?,” one user said, while another wrote, “I like how he and Naaber appear to be the only people in Faerun with American accents.” Of course, the Forgotten Realms has all kinds of accents, including American ones, owing to all the D&D players and their surfer dude/valley girl voices.
“It’s funny, I didn’t realize it was Simmons until I saw his name in the credits. He sounds so much like Donald Sutherland to me,” one user said, while one Spider fan wrote, “I honestly didn’t hear JJ Jameson at all. Ketheric just sounds so defeated and flat. He never even called Tav a menace.”
Some old-school HBO fans (like myself) will always associate Simmons with the TV show Oz, where he played prison gang leader Vern Schillinger. Ketheric Throm might be an unkillable servant of a death god, but that’s a fantasy character who almost comes across as comedic when compared to the very real horrors that a man like Schillinger inflicts daily.