Veteran Star Wars Actor Reveals the Trick to Making Each Clone Feel Unique

He doesn’t keep track of how many he’s voiced in total, instead leaving that to the fans. “The fans do that very well,” he says with a laugh.

Those fans all have their favorites, some of whom Baker can’t recognize. “Sometimes they bring to me [memorabilia] to sign at a convention for a clone that I don’t remember,” he admits. Baker still strives to make each clone their own unique person — even if he can’t remember them all.

One of Baker’s newest clones is Trick, an operator in Bit Reactor’s Star Wars Zero Company. Baker calls Trick an “unusual guy.” He was injured prior to events of Zero Company and was slated to be decommissioned, but instead later joined the misfits that make up the mercenary group. “There’s something kind of wily and relatable and fun about the guy to me,” Baker says.

Baker approached Trick the same way he does all his clones: by learning what the writers are looking for. “The question of the individuality and uniqueness of a particular clone tracks back to the script,” he says. “Because there’s usually a tone, a placement, an age, a character that they’re going for, and we set that very specifically before we start out.” Just like his clone troopers, Baker has a mission himself — to stay true to the vision of the writers.

Image: Bit Reactor/Electronic Arts

Trick isn’t Baker’s only new clone in Zero Company. The other notable addition is CT-4646, the evil clone science officer working for the Empire who performed cruel experiments to improve the clones’ inhibitor chips. Baker found voicing CT-4646 interesting because “there are very few clones that are like that.” Most clones are admirable soldiers, but CT-4646 is the rare one who turned on his brothers. “He’s a creepy fellow,” Baker says.

To get in the evil clone’s mindset, Baker had to interrogate what he’s all about, his ultimate goals, and the sinister way he views his victims. “You’ve got to make sure that you’re specific enough in the mapping of who this guy is so that it makes sense with the story that you’re telling,” he explains.

Image: Bit Reactor/Electronic Arts

Baker has voiced clones for almost 20 years now across media. But whether he’s working on an animated series or a video game, he says that “ultimately, your job as an actor is the same.” Baker sets out to make sure his characters feel as realistic as possible, regardless of medium. Video games can be “a little more challenging” than animation, given the potential for branching paths and variations in storytelling (Zero Company even features character permadeath). Even so, his goal remains the same: to have the characters connect with the audience.

While it’s unlikely that the creepy CT-4646 becomes anyone’s favorite clone, Baker says the reception to Trick and Star Wars Zero Company overall has been “overwhelming.”

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“People want to go back into and live in this world, and to be with those who are trying to fight the heroic fight towards some kind of improvement of the world and of the galaxy,” he adds.

Though Baker is deeply entrenched in the larger Star Wars machine at this point, he has a workmanlike attitude toward voicing a multitude of characters in a galaxy far, far away. Or, perhaps, a “clone trooper-like” attitude is the better way to phrase it.

“I get in the drop ship, we fly off, we do our mission, they drop me off, and I’ll hang out at the cantina.”

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Star Wars Zero Company is out now on PlayStation 5, Windows PC, and Xbox Series X.