When The Game Awards unveiled its nominees on Nov. 17, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 walked away as the most-nominated game in The Game Awards’ history with 12 nominations. Three of those came from one category: Best Performance, with Jennifer English (who plays Maelle), Ben Starr (Verso), and Charlie Cox (Gustave) comprising half the category’s nominations.
Nominations at The Game Awards might just be the start for English and Starr this awards season as their standout performances in Expedition 33 make them primed to receive plenty of accolades. Their castmate Cox also vying for the award — alongside Ghost of Yōtei’s Erika Ishii, Indiana Jones and the Great Circle’s Troy Baker, and Silent Hill f’s Konatsu Kato — is a bit of an eyebrow raiser.
That’s not to say Cox isn’t great as Gustave — the whole of Expedition 33’s cast could fill out nomination fields for best performance awards across ceremonies. Rather, Cox has downplayed his own involvement in the game in the past, saying his role amounted to “four hours maybe” of work. (Lead writer Jennifer Svedberg-Yen said it was more like eight, which still isn’t a ton of time in the grand scheme of things.) He recently deflected praise toward the man who might be the true star of Clair Obscur: Expedition 33.
During a recent panel at La Conve 64 in Monterrey, Mexico, captured by a user on TikTok, Cox said he was “thrilled” to be nominated, but quickly wanted to direct any and all praise toward one of his Expedition 33 colleagues. “It’s important to say that there’s an amazing French actor by the name of Maxence Cazorla, who did almost all of the motion capture for that role, in that game,” Cox said. “So any nomination or any credit I get, I really have to give to him, because I believe that the performance of that character is really down to him, and my voice was just part of that process.”
Maxence Cazorla is the motion capture actor behind Cox’s Gustave, Starr’s Verso, and Andy Serkis’ Renoir. He also had the most important job of anyone: voicing (in English and French!) the real hero of the game, Esquie.
Cazorla has shared a couple behind-the-scenes videos on his YouTube channel showing how he brought the characters to life. Suggestion: Maybe don’t watch the below clip unless you’re ready for emotional devastation.
Everything from Gustave wandering through Lumière with Sophie in the prologue to Gustave shouting the password to Esquie’s nest, Cazorla provided performance capture for. As Cox said, the voice work was just one part of the process of bringing these characters to life, and Cazorla — and every other motion capture artist — deserves their flowers.
Those flowers won’t be given by December’s The Game Awards, though. While the Best Performance category description states it’s “Awarded to an individual for voice-over acting, motion and/or performance capture,” traditionally only voice actors have been nominated. (Some nominees, like 2022 winner Christopher Judge for God of War Ragnarök’s Kratos, also provided mo-cap.) If The Game Awards wanted to truly be “the Oscars of gaming,” then it needs to use a wider lens to view the voice and motion capture talent behind these games.
Instead of a singular and broad Best Performance category, there should be multiple categories awarding actors. Two separate categories for Best Lead Voice Actor and Best Supporting Voice Actor would go a long way in recognizing a wider swath of great video game performances (and would surely get Cazorla a nom for his very wheee work as Esquie). Many screen awards shows, like the Golden Globes and the Screen Actor Guild Awards, already distinguish best-performance categories like this (and have even more performance categories to boot, like Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture at the SAG Awards).
As motion capture artists like Cazorla often provide mo-cap for a variety of characters, they surely deserve a designated category separate from the voice work. And while we’re at it, let’s get one going for Best Casting Director — someone needs to get recognized for assembling the talent behind the impressive casts of Expedition 33, Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, and more. (The Academy Awards have been slow to recognize casting directors as well, as the Oscar award for Best Casting will debut at the 2026 Oscars.)
Award shows may already be a tad bloated, especially when they double as marketing events for new game reveals and trailers, as The Game Awards has tended to with increasing emphasis each year. But for The Game Awards to continue its attempt at being an all-encompassing awards show for the games industry, it needs to start recognizing more of the people who bring those games to life.
