Interview With Jennifer Hale At Fan Expo 2024 – Mass Effect’s FemShep Talks The War Against The Machines And Putting People Over Profits

“If you can put people before profits, we’ll be in good shape,” is what the iconic Canadian actor Jennifer Hale told me at Fan Expo 2024 when we were discussing Generative AI and the impact it can have on her industry.

It’s the obvious and unfortunately overlooked solution to many of the world’s problems – some may even argue all of the worlds problems. At the very least it’s reasonable to believe that even if it wasn’t a full solve, every issue facing people across the world today would be a bit easier if we all collectively agreed to put people ahead of profits – and that means everyone, chief executive officer’s at big companies especially.

Hale is one of the most prolific actors in the business. She’s been acting for decades now, and has lent her voice to some iconic roles across TV, film and of course games.

Most players recognize her as FemShep, the female voice of Commander Shepherd should you choose FemShep for your Mass Effect play-through. Perhaps younger players would recognize her as Rivet from Ratchet & Clank: A Rift Apart. Real ones though never forget her (arguably) most iconic role, Thorn of the Hex Girls.

For PSU, I got to speak with Hale about her long career, a big part of which has also been her advocacy work for her peers, whether that was by speaking out on her own or actually being on the negotiation committee during the last video game actor strike. So of course we also went down the rabbit hole of what’s happening with this current strike, how long she sees it lasting, and what needs to happen to get a deal across the finish line.

(Not) shockingly, it all comes back to finding a way to treat everyone with the same decency they’d want to receive – and also the lawyers are ruining everything.

Interview With Jennifer Hale At Fan Expo 2024 – Mass Effect’s FemShep Talks The War Against The Machines And Putting People Over Profits

Behind The Curtain

If you’ve never been to Fan Expo, then just think of any big convention you might’ve been to – say PAX, SDCC, E3 (RIP) – and know that Fan Expo is smaller. Sure, it fills the Toronto Convention Center well enough, but it’s never felt like it could really hold a candle to pretty much any other major pop-culture convention.

After previously going every year for a few of my high school and early university years, to not going at all because frankly it got too damn expensive, walking back in as someone working at the event, void of an entry fee felt like a chance to maybe enjoy the show a bit post my meeting with Jennifer. Seeing the hall again reminded me that it can still be a fun time – but I’m still unsure if it’s actually worth the price of entry.

Especially if your focus is games, because the games industry just doesn’t have a very strong presence there. This year was a bump up in presence no doubt. Xbox had a big area, Ubisoft Toronto was there in full Star Wars: Outlaws force, and Focus Entertainment was showing off Warhammer 40K: Space Marine 2, but games are by no means the main pull for the con.

Fan Expo is no different from other conventions in that you’ll find excellent local artists showcasing their work, collectors and retailers showcasing and selling various memorabilia and a slew of panels that give fans the chance to connect with the cast and creative leads of the comics, shows, and movies they love.

There’s also of course a ton of celebrity talent that comes through to Toronto to take photos with fans, sign autographs and have a short meet-and-greet. Which is what brought Jennifer Hale to the convention, alongside a few of her acting peers across games, film and TV. Myself and a friend keeping me company ahead of meeting Hale pushed through the crowd and walked to the end of the long line of tables in front of which fans would line up to meet for autographs.

She was placed in between Mario himself Charles Martinet and Baldur’s Gate 3’s most-loved vampire Neil Newbon, both of whom I saw walking about and meeting fans. Seeing all the game-focused actors at the end of the line felt about right for Fan Expo and the smaller presence games have there, even if any of these actors belong no where near the bottom of any line.

Behind her booth, and behind a curtain line I technically wasn’t allowed to cross for a bit of a quieter space, I saw just how speaking to an actor with such a long career was a bit of a peak behind the curtain of just how she’s had such a good, long career.

Her talent plays a role in it of course, but it’s her approach to her work and her constant commitment to her own learning that keep her moving forward.

X-Men ’97 saw her return to the role of Jean Grey, a character she’s taken charge of before, as have many other women. Which, was another point she cherished.

“It’s a joy to return to a character,” she said, not taking ownership but recognizing that the other actors who’ve played the roll “all share her [Jean Grey], and I feel incredibly lucky that my turn came up with X-Men ’97.”

Speaking of returning to characters, while Bioware is currently busy with something about some dragons, we know that soon after that more of the focus will be on what’s next in the Mass Effect franchise. So it was at least worth asking Shepherd herself, if the character would be making some kind of return.

“I’ve heard nothing, I would be there with bells on and I think Mark [Meer] would too,” she tells me. I asked if she’d come back even if it’s in another role, should the character not make a return.

“I would come back to Mass Effect in a paper bag,” she says laughing. So at least we know she’s on board for the project. Hopefully Bioware is listening.

“Bioware is such an exciting company. That team breaks ground, they do things that are so beautiful and driven by a love of the creative process.”

And for Rivet fans like myself, I did later on ask if we’ll see the new Lombax make a return, to which I got the same answer that she hadn’t heard anything, but would be there for Rivet “with bells on.”

Much as we both could’ve talked about our love for Bioware, the more pressing issue was in fact the creative process itself, or more accurately how it’s being threatened, you might say.

Over our conversation, the SAG-AFTRA strike looms. Less like an elephant being avoided and more like a dark cloud blocking out the sun. It’s on the mind of every actor who works in games, and as someone who has previously been leading negotiations for contracts between actors and video game studios, it’s constantly on Hale’s.

The War Against The Machines

“I think AI as a whole,” she began before taking a pause, “has stunning potential to up-end many things in our world.” And she’s not wrong. Whether you’re for AI and more specifically generative AI or not, both sides can agree it could (and in ways already is) lead to some massive changes.

The strike itself is evidence of that. The actors want clear protections against AI, so that their likeness, voice, and body cannot be replicated and used without their consent and without being compensated for it. Needing to have these rules and protections in at all, is already a tangible impact generative AI technology has had.

Because as soon as generative AI technology became the latest investment fad and tech-toy for people to play around with, did people start to abuse it for sinister means.

Then there’s the belief that generative AI technology is going to increase work productivity across the board, essentially eliminating the need for certain jobs, and it’s not just the jobs of game developers that would be in jeopardy.

No company is immune to executives and leaders who see their workforce as numbers on a spreadsheet, who, if they could would almost definitely replace the cost of keeping actual people with keeping on a lot less to maintain an AI program that did a lot of the work people used to do.

And that’s what Hale is scared of. Her own research tells her that we’re heading for “30-40% unemployment in the next couple of decades of everyone.” To her, actors and performers sounding the alarm now are just the “canary in the coal mine.”

“The truth is there’s a ton of money being made – and it’s going somewhere. But ever since this whole concept of shareholder supremacy and the CEO being elevated to such high, high levels, since the 80’s, working people are being strangled under foot.

What anybody goes through right now, who’s forced to take a part time job is honestly cruel.

When you don’t know week-to-week how many hours you’re going to get, or how you’re going to feed a family, that is de-stabilizing to you as a person. And if you’re a mother or a father or a household provider, you’re de-stabilized, so your kids are de-stabilized, and the future of that world seems pretty bleak.

I mean, I don’t know if anybody has read about the French Revolution, but hey, heads up. We need to take care of people because it doesn’t go well when we don’t.”

Whether or not invoking the French Revolution is a bit hyperbolic, the shock of hearing it does at least give me pause to try and imagine if things could actually get that bad. At least in games now, they can feel like that. I’ve met more developers in the last two years who are looking for work than who have it, and any games news writer can tell you that it’s easy for things to feel bleak when you’re writing multiple layoff stories in a week, for weeks on end.

To be fair this is just my anecdotal experience, but the French Revolution feels like nothing compared to the dystopians you can imagine should our use and reliance on technology go array. However the reality is that we have the chance now to prevent any kind of Terminator-like future can help stop you from entering that rabbit hole.

Even realizing that though can make you feel like the stakes are even higher. The truth for every industry is that we all need proper regulations and rules around generative AI, so it’s not misused and abused.

“Gen AI specifically for us as performers is concerning,” Hale said. What’s at least hopeful, is that everyone, on both sides of the negotiating table, seems to get how important this is, and that for the duration of these contract dealings at least, Gen AI won’t stop being a major issue. It’s here, and we have to deal with it.

Hale identifies though, that the problems are mostly arising when the agreement needs to go through legal. Quid pro quo, the lawyers are ruining everything.

“I will say, I’ve done a ton of talking and a ton of research around this and I continue to, I’m by no means fully informed. I’m as informed as I can be today on this day, and I continue to ask questions of the people in and around the negotiations.

What I’m understanding is that the actual people doing the work, the actors, the producers, the devs, the employers, are really on the same page.

It’s mainly falling apart when the spirit of what they’ve decided is handed to lawyers, and they have to codify the new boundaries. And there are loop-holes that are being left in, because a lawyers job is to serve their client, and their client is often companies and large companies.

And the CEO’s current description of providing value is optimizing shareholder return and optimizing assets – and I think if everybody’s eyes can turn to taking care of human beings – and crafting language that takes care of human beings, we’ll be in a really good place.

If it were set up so that the actors and producers who are in the room could speak directly to each other and work on some general language together that’s then handed to lawyers and the spirit of that is respected and protected I think we’d get right back to work.”

Now, Hale does make a point to say that there is plenty of work happening through the interim agreements SAG-AFTRA has available. She herself had worked the week before Fan Expo on a project thanks to the agreement.

Her description also lines up with the recent news from SAG-AFTRA that no less than 80 game studios have signed the interim agreement.

“I mean, basically…actors are just asking for really simple things. Like control over where their voice and likeness are used. Consent to even use it in the first place, and compensation for using it. If you take my voice or my movements and make a new project out of it and I don’t get paid for it, I can’t feed my kid.

I can’t feed myself, and you get a society full of people in that situation, I mean we actors and performers are just the canary in the coal mine. It’s coming for all of us, and frankly AI is just a tool.

It’s like a hammer, I can take a hammer and I can build you a house, or I can break your knees. But I’m a person, and if each person will take responsibility for treating other humans the way they need to be treated, we’ll be alright. If you can put people before profits, we’ll be in good shape.”

It’s decidedly more difficult though to put people before profits when you don’t know what you’re talking about. That’s about as generous as I can be when describing the words from Amazon Games head Christop Hartmann, who said that games “don’t really have acting.”

Hale was far more generous in her response to Hartmann’s words, which at the time had only come out in his IGN interview the day before. Before joking (but in a way that you’d know she was serious) that she thought of having an “act-off for games,” Hale showed kindness the likes of which comes from those who’ve been around long enough to see plenty of questionable things said.

That’s not to say she didn’t call him out for it, though.

“Honestly I feel for him, I have compassion for him because I’m going to guess, from that comment that he’s not a gamer. I’m gonna guess he was simply looking at numbers and the processes that he oversees, that he’s not involved with the creative or artistic side and he spoke out of turn.

And I think we’ve all spoken out of turn, and I feel bad for him that it’s been done so publicly, because now he’s got to walk it back.

So I think the best thing we can do is have compassion for him, and maybe let him re-think that. And I for one absolutely volunteer to sit down and have lunch with him, walk him through the different awards that my peers have gotten and share with him incredible, moving clips of some of the best game acting ever, I think he’d truly enjoy it.”

Educating executives like Hartmann who’ve shown they don’t know the business they’re in (a point Roger Clark made recently about Hollywood executives and game adaptations) still remains only part of the problem.

The lawyers are still ruining everything, and while Hale admits she can’t predict the length of the strike, she doesn’t see it ending until both sides, lawyers included, can get in a room together and work something out.

“I think it’ll last until the lawyers will allow the two sides to work with them, speaking out loud in the room together to craft language. Truly the two sides are not far apart at all, it’s just breaking down when the attorney’s go to codify this language and they’re leaving these loop-holes that are dangerous for us.

And yes, of course, most of these companies would never abuse the principle, but that’s not why rules exist. Most people aren’t going to slam their car into somebody else, but we make it illegal because occasionally it happens and we need to have remedies.”

Having the rules is what’s important, which is also part of why the fight for proper protections for performers against Gen AI doesn’t stop at the end of these contract negotiations.

The National Association of Voice Actors (NAVA) has been working to bring the “No Fakes Act” to the United States government, an act with the main goal being to protect against deep-fakes and other abuses of Gen AI technology.

“NAVA, Carin [Gilfry] and Tim [Friedlander] and Matthew [Parham] and Cissy [Jones], all those guys have vociferously lobbied congress to create protection for us at the federal level in the US, and the No Fakes Act is now before congress. So I think getting that voted on is going to help us a lot.”

Paramount for the actors striking though is getting a deal that has the protections against AI they need, the ones granted in the interim agreements. With those protections, even actors like Hale can feel free to take contracts with AI companies – in fact, she already has.

“I was on the negotiating committee for the last strike, and it was the longest strike in SAG history – it was brutal. Polarizing talk, other-ing people, demonizing and villainizing people on either side is only going to prolong the pain.

We need to find our common ground, dig in, and if we can all think back to a couple of decades ago when we used to have civil discourse…a great negotiation ends in both sides being both pleased, and a little bit displeased.That is what compromise is.

Now, I think there are things that dangerous to compromise on, like giving away our ability to make a living. But we are not anti-technology, we’re pro-technology.

I’m in the process right now of recording sound sets for an AI company, and I’m absolutely ready to partner with them because I’ve given them my consent, I have control over where it’s used and I’m being compensated. I am here to partner with technology all day. Just don’t steal from me.”

Hale’s acceptance of how the reality of her job is changing is arguably the best path forward. Many would say a blanket “no” against everything to do with Gen AI is best, but we’ve already had reports of developers being forced to use Gen AI, and it’s already in our games without us noticing, even paying for it.

So if we’re past the point where Gen AI is going to be in our games and used in the game development and creative process whether we find it or not, it would be far more heartening to know that we had some rules in place wherever possible, so even staunch objectors could sleep a little easier at night.

It’s even more heartening to think that if SAG-AFTRA is able to get an official contract with the AI protections it wants, unsullied by lawyers, then perhaps the other unions forming across the games industry could add in protections of their own tailored for developers. Anything to make sure that we never forget the human element to the creative process.

Because if you think another live service clone of a popular live service game feels ‘soulless,’ and it was made by actual people, imagine how much worse it would be with Gen AI holding the brush.

“The war of the machines, I don’t know that that’s a war with bullets. I think what’s being currently waged on a silent level is an economic war. We’re going to be eaten apart from the inside out, and we’re going to become husks of humans who can’t support our people.

And when you meet a person who can no longer care for their family, who can no longer care for themselves, who because they’re not wealthy, they suffer, then you meet somebody with nothing to lose, and that’s a problem.

That’s the war against the machines right there. And we have the ability to intervene so it does not happen.”

Community, Co-operation And Great Overwhelm

Of course there is a solution for all these worries, see Hale’s words at the top of this article. “People over profits,” and you can also add to that community and co-operation.

You’re probably aware of the phrase, ‘survival of the fittest,’ and you might even be aware that it wasn’t Charles Darwin who coined the term, but Herbert Spencer. What you’re probably not aware of though, is that if you actually read the texts where the phrase is used, you won’t see it very often.

According to Hale and a friend of hers with an anthropology degree who did the readings, you’ll read the words “community and co-operation” far more often than you will “survival of the fittest.”

“Community and co-operation. That’s how we actually survive.” It’s the bright light at the end of the tunnel, that we do have the power and potential to work towards a better future, one that doesn’t end with us fighting killer robots. Hale’s already done that enough times in enough franchises.

In the time between now and the possible killer robots though, I ask Hale if there’s anything she’s not yet done in her illustrious career that she’d like to. “I want a role where I can ride a horse and sing,” she says. Perhaps Red Dead Redemption 3 will be able to fill that void.

She’s also wanting to return to on-camera work instead of just voice work, though that’s something that will wait until her son gets a bit older. Right now, while he’s still young Hale says she’s in her “parenting run.”

“The thing right in front of me that’s most precious is parenting. This is my parenting run. I’m getting the most of my time as a parent right now.”

As if a child didn’t keep her busy enough, Hale keeps moving in plenty of other ways, including launching a website all focused on teaching new voice actors, her own music and more.

All of which manifests for her as suffering from “great overwhelm.” As we’ve established though, things could be worse. Hopefully we can stop “worse” before it gets here.

Thank you to Jennifer Hale for your time and generosity in your answers, and to all those who helped make this interview happen.