#139

Ellen McLain is an accomplished singer and voice actress who is best known for voicing GLaDOS in Portal 1 and Portal 2.
#portal2 #valve #glados
SOCIAL MEDIA
TWITTER - @ellenmclain
TIMESTAMPS
00:00 - Intro/Kiwi Talkz Name
01:23 - Original Intention Of Robotic GLaDOS Voice
03:35 - How To Sound Like A Robot/Initial Recordings
06:07 - Candide Operetta/Broadway
08:05 - Throwing Out Ideas In The Studio
09:02 - Dynamic In The Studio With Valve Devs
10:32 - Advocating For More Valve Games/Erik Wolpaw
11:45 - Ellen Worked On Portal 2 From The Very Beginning Of Development
14:42 - Working On Other Projects Well Working On Portal 2
15:20 - Studio Sessions Never Became Monotonous/Ellen Never Gets Bored
16:40 - Books Ellen Is Currently Reading/Russia & Putin
20:02 - Drawing On Your Own Life To A Voice Project
21:00 - Ellen Has Dreams Of Murdering People
22:50 - Working With Valve
24:20 - How Still Alive Song Came About/Jonathan Coulton/Turret Choir
29:00 - Approaching Recording GLaDOS different for the Portal Songs
32:00 - Recording Dialogue Out Of Order
34:00 - Ellen Got Given Recordings Of Stephen Merchant & JK Simmons For Portal 2
34:38 - Outlaws/Stephen Merchant/Not Disappointing Fans
38:00 - Whiplash/JK Simmons/Juiliard School//Teaching
40:34 - Ellen Is Keen For Portal 3
41:10 - The Job Of The Actor Is To Not Make A Role Stale/Ellens Marriage
43:30 - Bickering Couple In Left 4 Dead/Valve Not Knowing Ellen Was Married To John Lowrie
45:58 - Improvising On Portal
48:20 - Getting The Call To Come Back For Portal 2/How GLaDOS Influenced Ellens Work On Pacific Rim
51:22 - Projects Ellen Has Worked On Recently
54:50 - Ellen Loves Working & Rehearsing
56:24 - Ellens Favourite Performance Was Opera
58:40 - Ellen Doesn’t Like Watching Her Own Performances
1:01:00 - Where To Follow Ellen McLain

[@boris.boring]

The fact that THE VOICE of GLaDOS wants Portal 3 is giving me hope

[@deftcoleman0552]

Valve themselves don’t wanna do it though.

[@felixftw4702]

@@deftcoleman0552 that's not true

[@felixftw4702]

@@deftcoleman0552 that's not true

[@angela22778]

​@@felixftw4702 wdym

[@felixftw4702]

@@angela22778 when did valve say they don't want to make portal 3?

[@RetroPlus]

When she speaks you can hear a bit of glados peeking out, what an awesome interview

[@The_Sleepiest_Socialist]

A little bit.

[@BierBart12]

I never heard glados, just the TF2 admin "Protect the briefcase" Actually, maybe even more the HL2 overwatch command. "Attention please: All citizens in local residential block, assume your inspection positions"

[@Maddie_and_Unknown]

Idk why but my favorite line of GLaDOS is when when goes "Oooooooh boy" in chamber 19 when she tells Chell "one day we will think of this, and laugh, and laugh, and laugh"

[@Mysticalfrog29]

YES! (reminds me of Wall-e)

[@Maddie_and_Unknown]

@@Mysticalfrog29 OH MY GOD I KNEW IT REMINDED ME OF SOMETHING

[@graemeporter]

Oh, hi. So, how are you holding up? BECAUSE I'M A POTATO.

[@tamus4655]

“Things are looking…pretty…goooood…….”

[@thelemmon]

​@@graemeporterthis one gets me Everytime

[@nicoarrigoni3898]

"I'm not shy, it's a waste of time" Bless her, for being an incredible voice actress and most importantly human being.

[@jalapenojaco3849]

That stuck out to me too, bless her❤

[@arkaei]

the fact that Ellen McLain knows about Narbacular Drop just makes me happy! that's proper nerd cred. heck, Ellen McLain just makes me happy. thank you both for this.

[@llave8662]

It's awesome to hear her know so much about Portal! She's awesome, thanks a lot for the conversation!

[@Twisted_Code]

It's remarkable to me that "a voice actress knows all about the game in which they played the starring role" is remarkable to anyone, but then it can happen that voice actors don't get ANYTHING but the minimum of context required to do a good job. Like here, she basically got "sound like this robot" and they didn't even tell her they would make her sound like a robot, so I guess it is kinda remarkable XD

[@Apollo9898LP]

One thing i love is how much she knows about not just about her role as GLaDOS, but the entire development of the Portal franchise with things like Narbacular Drop and such. Really cool to see how passionate she still is about the games she helped create

[@thekiss2083]

"I always want to do my best work. I think one always wants to do one's best work." That's a line I could hear Glad0s saying for sure.

[@theglitch2d]

timestamp?? 😋

[@RamdanRandom]

the way she describe the turret opera😭😭😭

[@connorward409]

Much love to Ellen. Such a gem of a human being. I fell in love with her character as a 5th grader in 2012, and only grow to love and appreciate all her roles. Thank you for all you do Ellen :)

[@Gxaps]

Man, she remembers everything!

[@shyrain67]

except for the name of cyberpunk 2077

[@theonlyeye1170]

Imagine how much valve could troll us all by making a portal 3 and on release they call it portal: rattman

[@R4t10nal]

Or Portal: Aperture, or Portal: F-Stop

[@da_bloodytanktf5348]

I think it's dope, no way chell could come back her story is done and it's perfect. Rattman on the other hand though

[@inkblotthecolt]

The fact she knows about narbacular drop is kinda awesome

[@kejax]

just thought the same…

[@Bunny99s]

I wish we had more Ellens on this planet. Wonderful voice, really engaged in what she does and a hunger for general understanding of history. If you don't learn from history you're doomed to repeat it. Incredible human being. This was a real pleasure to listen to. :) I also remember a lot of kinda useless stuff like who played in which movie, I also remember tons and tons of lyrics to many songs. I'm 40 now and I hope I have such a great memory in 30 years...

[@iambenmitchell]

When you hear her say "pronunciation" at 4:10 you can really hear GLaDOS

[@jhawk2402]

And "song" at 25:37

[@johnnydarling8021]

28:45 Me too. The Turret Opera was beautiful.

[@dinonuggies2276]

"In my dreams"in my dreams ive murdered people"😊 Wow the method acting is incredible😂

[@ginniegill1026]

I KNOW RIGHT 😭

[@johnnydarling8021]

40:30 We all want a Portal 3. I don’t know how likely that really is, given Valve track record with “trilogies”. We’re still waiting on Half-Life 3, which has become an internet joke at this point. Always possible, but don’t hold your breath.

[@peepo19]

They did alyx. Maybe a portal prequel would be more interesting from a story standpoint. Things would get complicated if you find a pretext to get Chell back into the facility. (Or you could design an outside world where she somehow needs to do something on her own will). Well you have to deal with one of 2 problems: - either the outside world design after her escape, that point is really sensitive because we have never been exposed to it as an audience and fans might have different expectations and it's hard to maintain coherence. The other option is justifying a return to the facility without it being deus ex machina (which would be empty from a story standpoint).

[@Twisted_Code]

@@peepo19 Honestly, the Half Life joke still works in a way. They didn't call it Half Life 3. I agree though, it would be tricky to get Chell back into tthe Enrichhment Center. Having not played any of the HL games I can't speak for the world at the end of those games, but I don't know that it would be particularly good gameplay either way since portal has always been about the puzzles and the crazy science lab environment. Though in terms of a prequel, maybe it doesn't have to be Chell for that, either, or at least as a main character. You could run into "little Chelley" (in a "let's confirm the fan theory about her being a bring your daughter to work-turned-test subject" way, probably. I mean they didn't tease that for nothing right?) in some pre-GlaDOS, or at least pre-neurotoxin, Enrichment Center, perhaps?

[@peepo19]

@@Twisted_Code yeah absolutely, I think a prequel would be super interesting and also funny (we get a glimpse of the old times in portal 2 I believe, and the CEO is super funny - the context too, no regard for safety or well being of the scientists/ test subjects). I can imagine it would be really funny and rich as a story.

[@shironage]

Half Life isn't finished. It's been left on cliffhangers in all games, Alyx included, however Portal has been concluded. TWICE.@@Twisted_Code

[@Twisted_Code]

@@peepo19 "Science isn't about *why* - it's about *why not.* *Why* is so much of our science dangerous? Why not *marry* safe science if you love it so much? In fact, why not invent a special safety door that won't hit you in the butt on the way out, because *you are fired!* Not you, test subject. You're doing fine. [to someone else] Yes, *you*. Box. Your stuff. Out the front door. Parking lot. Car. Goodbye."

[@rosykindbunny1313]

Ellen is a national treasure, seriously!

[@JadeManiaz]

Yep! (Also why do I see you everywhere on portal videos-)

[@rosykindbunny1313]

@@JadeManiaz I am everywhere and everyone

[@KIWITALKZ]

TIMESTAMPS 00:00 - Intro/Kiwi Talkz Name 01:23 - Original Intention Of Robotic GLaDOS Voice 03:35 - How To Sound Like A Robot/Initial Recordings 06:07 - Candide Operetta/Broadway 08:05 - Throwing Out Ideas In The Studio 09:02 - Dynamic In The Studio With Valve Devs 10:32 - Advocating For More Valve Games/Erik Wolpaw 11:45 - Ellen Worked On Portal 2 From The Very Beginning Of Development 14:42 - Working On Other Projects Well Working On Portal 2 15:20 - Studio Sessions Never Became Monotonous/Ellen Never Gets Bored 16:40 - Books Ellen Is Currently Reading/Russia & Putin 20:02 - Drawing On Your Own Life To A Voice Project 21:00 - Ellen Has Dreams Of Murdering People 22:50 - Working With Valve 24:20 - How Still Alive Song Came About/Jonathan Coulton/Turret Choir 29:00 - Approaching Recording GLaDOS different for the Portal Songs 32:00 - Recording Dialogue Out Of Order 34:00 - Ellen Got Given Recordings Of Stephen Merchant & JK Simmons For Portal 2 34:38 - Outlaws/Stephen Merchant/Not Disappointing Fans 38:00 - Whiplash/JK Simmons/Juiliard School//Teaching 40:34 - Ellen Is Keen For Portal 3 41:10 - The Job Of The Actor Is To Not Make A Role Stale/Ellens Marriage 43:30 - Bickering Couple In Left 4 Dead/Valve Not Knowing Ellen Was Married To John Lowrie 45:58 - Improvising On Portal 48:20 - Getting The Call To Come Back For Portal 2/How GLaDOS Influenced Ellens Work On Pacific Rim 51:22 - Projects Ellen Has Worked On Recently 54:50 - Ellen Loves Working & Rehearsing 56:24 - Ellens Favourite Performance Was Opera 58:40 - Ellen Doesn’t Like Watching Her Own Performances 1:01:00 - Where To Follow Ellen McLain

[@oldpcuser3136]

21:46 I recently dreamed about being a terminator. Also It's great to hear Ellen McLain, She's awesome!

[@Wisdawms]

Such a wonderful person with so much zeal and vibrancy to her!

[@Twisted_Code]

To see someone that loves their work so much is rare, and makes me wonder about the difference between us. I once heard something about how some people believe motivation is infinite, and never get tired of working. I wonder whether the former causes the latter or vice versa. Do such people believe motivation is infinite because they've never felt demotivated? Or is it their mutable mindset (in contrast to the fixed mindset) that ALLOWS them to avoid being demotivated? Whatever the case, I really want to have this love of doing things she has. I seem to get bogged down quickly when I try to do anything complex.

[@Mordantine]

Love seeing Ellen appreciate and almost fangirl over the other actors. GLaDOS is one of my favourite video game villains of all time! I think it’s a shame they have never met one another though. @valve need to work on this!

[@jakedill1304]

Just throwing this out there, OverWatch, hands down some of the most chilling dialogue in any medium.. I just recently got back into Half-Life 2 working on a mod project and I'd never paid attention to the minutiae of the dialogue, or at least I didn't remember it.. but I was reading 1984 right around the time Half-Life 2 came out and there's this near pitch Black chill that that I get, especially the opening sequences.. I don't think I've ever seen it in another game and as far as movies, only a handful and none of them really took it quite as far and just the strength of the medium being interactive.. I recently found out compilation of all the OverWatch dialogue and played it for my wife and there's this visceral reaction.. I know you're known for the characters that you're actually able to character LOL but that is always going to be burned into my brain as this dark ominous utilitarian malice that as far as I can tell it's unmatched.. I don't know if it had the same impact on everybody like it had on me.. seems like everybody was into half like two for different reasons, and given the episode 2 direction they took and how people reminisce on the game, maybe that wasn't universal but.. just wanted to throw that out there, that roll was genuinely something so so perfect for what it was, I'm kind of floundering on the words here but.. mad props I guess?

[@bitwize]

I just love listening to her speak. All that training refined even her regular speaking voice.

[@brainfreeze10]

Love that she doesn't remember the name of Cyberpunk 2077 lol. I was actually interested in more about how that process work - if CDPR had to get permission from Valve before reaching out to Ellen or if a computerized version of Ellen's voice isn't something they really control. Great interview! She has such a long career, I feel like it could be 3x longer and there'd still be plenty to talk about lol.

[@marshymarcelo]

I think Pacific Rim had to ask permission to Valve to use Ellen's robotic voice.

[@BillKrayer12thMan]

I was waiting for the question,"Have you ever played Portal?" I think I'll ask her on Twitter!!

[@happypercussionist1]

Has she?

[@AnthonyJClink]

Did ya get an answer?

[@R-Nine]

Dang... I can not unhear glados when she speaks.

[@EzekEyes]

Omg the way she talks reminds me so much of my grandmother; the words she uses❤❤

[@Wisdawms]

51:50 Wow! She is probably talking about Cyberpunk 2077, that's crazy haha!

[@paulashwin247]

God bless one of the best characters and performances. Thanks Ellen!

[@_Toxxi_]

She has amazing energy, great interview!

[@Joes_Z-Music]

Hey Reece, glad you’re doing better! I’m still listening through this but I just wanted to pause to tell you I’m loving it (and all your other content too!)

[@KIWITALKZ]

Thanks Joe! Yes, back on my feet and good to be back in the swing of things with interviews.

[@booombasa]

This woman is a pure gem!

[@Twisted_Code]

Love the part where she recounts her confusion about GlaDOS lying to the player. Actors would do well to remember that, at any given point before or after the climax, only the writer has a complete picture of the story to be told. Sometimes, it's best to just roll with the lines one is given and don't think too much about "truth" or how a scene will play out. Perhaps this goes for life as well. In terms of individual "stories" iif not for a grander scheme. To quote Matt Smith, "we are all stories in the end, just make it a good one".

[@mistspirals]

I love listening to her go on little tangents so much, this is such a good interwiev and she gets to just talk and bring up things she's interested in randomly. It's so sweet, and reminds me of my own late grandmother somehow. I could listen to Ellen talk about basically anything for hours and hours haha, she's so wonderful ❤

[@ragintombo]

Great to see you back! Also, I had to make sure it wasn't Saturday when I saw this notification.

[@KIWITALKZ]

Thanks! Been a while since I had done a poddy so decided to release it during the week.

[@BierBart12]

Someday, there will be an entire animation of this video with Ellen as the TF2 administrator

[@planetarygo11]

This is such an amazing podcast , its kinda hard to me understand cuz i dont speak english but the bit I got Its amazing, I love her!!! U made my childhood.

[@KIWITALKZ]

If my podcasts get big enough I would like to organize voice dubs in other languages, so non English speaking people can understand

[@reblvdair1239]

From 9:34 to 9:40 : "Lots of laughing.." was totally her and GLaDOS, i heared this directly and i'm currently not fully listen to it, because i have it playing in the background

[@Heroas_Hamseros]

More of GLaDOS and the little turrets.

[@Ronin777z]

Awesome interview! Ellen is such an awesome person and sweet lady. I can listen to her talk all day

[@oracleorca]

I'm not natively speaking English. after hearing GLaDOS, i really wanted to be able to understand English and speak it. Now I can! i have international friends. thank you! ❤ too bad I don't have a cool voice like her, she made my childhood ❤

[@AndyRobertooie]

I love everything about this woman, and i hope more people are like her in the future.

[@ljlybell_]

i love portal so much i love ellen mclain she’s so talented omg i loved hearing about her life and her experiences

[@kettujabamiesukkeliukko]

Ellen is such a great woman. Thank you Kiwi for this.

[@suka_]

hearing her adressing russian story was so surprising. btw she pronounced all last names correctly!!!!!

[@user-pg4cg9xv5s]

ㅁㅊ 글라도스 성우분 인터뷰가 5일전? 와... 효과 안먹여도 특유의 톤에서 글라도스가 들린다

[@samuelmeier1617]

I like her selecton of books 😊

[@KyloRen4238]

Happy Birthday Ellen McLain. U look amazing. Also. I love Cyberpunk 2077. Wow. My older brother played Cyberpunk 2077. Oh yeah, theirs even Cyberpunk Edgerunners, love that anime, it's fuckin' awesome and badass. UR great. May the Peace be with u Ellen McLain. From Harlingen Texas. December 1, 1952 December 1, 2022 through December 1, 3022

[@KyloRen4238]

Ellen McLain Game 1. Rogue Deleman - Cyberpunk 2077 2020

[@Twisted_Code]

52:00 oh you poor thing, any gamer that's noot completely out of the loop could probably tell Ellen is talking about Cyberpunk 2077... Well, despite being GlaDOS, I guess she's not omniscient, and it was cute to see hher try to think of it.

[@bdcooper93]

what a brilliant human being. she's such a light.

[@-.._.-_...-_.._-..__..._.-.-.-]

What a pleasant person. It's clear Valve hired her for much more than her voice.

[@negry_]

Anyway, this cake is great, It's so delicious and moist

[@YungSoad]

♥

[@The_Sleepiest_Socialist]

Great old woman!

[@vasiliypupkin3239]

I hear the Overwatch from HL2 😂

[@Scoobe]

Interesting

[@user-pg4cg9xv5s]

3:44 47:47 I'm different

[@jessicaharkild7093]

I seriously cannot believe this woman is the infamous GldDOS

[@laymovayadolka2327]

Why?

[@queefcheif9306]

i flipped my shit when i heard glados in Pacific Rim

[@TheFoolsVr]

What’s the system that makes your voice sound like glados

[@Xaviboy812]

I wish she revoiced some lines!

[@brandonpittham]

0:44 or she could have said "test subject name here"

[@rorke6092]

she's like a charming version of Hillary Clinton

[@Fruithead48]

Trur

[@RedSpade37]

Oh my _gosh_ I agree.

[@shyrain67]

its so funny that she forgot the name cyberpunk 2077. she mustve just done the role and forgot about it right after

[@megalomaniapl]

Administrator gaming

[@CsjStudios]

SELF DEFENSE DREAMS

[@minecraftcoolboy4578]

His name is Whis?

[@ntp7]

I would suggest changing the thumbnail. This will get tons of views instantaneously

[@KIWITALKZ]

To what? Any suggestions?

[@ntp7]

@@KIWITALKZ Maybe to you two talking. You on one side she on the other. And maybe like some text "this is glados". If people know this is a new present interview they will watch it. Check out thumbnail on this video by chalkeaters she mentioned: kzbin.info/www/bejne/m3WlkICOopiWe6M

[@hooliorama69]

All i can hear is the "No, no, noooooooooo!'