Actor Freddie Prinze Jr. reveals that his favorite role of his career was voicing The Iron Bull in Dragon Age: Inquisition. While his career goes back to the mid-1990s and includes starring roles in I Know What You Did Last Summer, She’s All That, and the Scooby-Doo movie from 2003, it seems that Dragon Age: Inquisition’s bare-chested Qunari spy was the part that stuck with him the most.
Dragon Age: Inquisitions launched in 2014 to a generally positive reception and was BioWare’s most successful launch according to EA’s sales numbers. It was the second BioWare game to cast Freddie Prinze Jr. in a major role, the first being his portrayal of Mass Effect 3’s Lt. James Vega, having voiced the same character in the animated film Mass Effect: Paragon Lost. Inquisition players meet The Iron Bull relatively early in the game, and he’s one of the most popular inquisition characters in large part due to the performance that Prinze brought to the table.
The collectibles company Funko recently interviewed Freddie Prinze Jr. on its Original Funko YouTube channel and uploaded clips from the interview to TikTok. Prinze brought up his voice acting for bioWare games about 15 minutes into the video. He explained that while James Vega was a relatively easy character to voice, Inquisition’s The Iron Bull was his favorite. That wasn’t just his voice acting role either, but his favorite part from across his decades-long career. “But The Iron Bull is the one,” said Prinze. “Like, that’s the voice that’s my favorite character that I’ve ever played, ever.”
The actor almost seemed surprised by what he said, noting how his favorite role was from a video game rather than She’s All That or the Scooby-Doo movie. Freddie Prinze Jr. also gave some insight into his performance in Dragon Age: Inquisition, explaining that BioWare wanted The Iron Bull to sound more like a stereotypical linebacker. However, Prinze didn’t feel like that fit the character and convinced the studio to let him experiment with different voices. After performances inspired by Thunderin Pete from The Micky Mouse Club and Winston Churchill, he settled on a combination of the two.
This is the voice that BioWare ultimately went with for The Iron Bull in Dragon Age: Inquisition. And while both of these influences are apparent if one knows what they are listening for, it’s almost impossible to imagine the giant horned warrior sounding like anything else. It’s therefore not unreasonable to suggest that Freddie Prinze Jr. is a big part of what made the character so beloved.
Dragon Age: Inquisition is available on PC, PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, and Xbox One.
