Serafinowicz lands elden ring role thanks to dark souls voice work – a hilarious accidental journey
Peter Serafinowicz has swapped the Star Wars galaxy for the bleak, beautiful world of Elden Ring, thanks to a bizarre and unexpectedly fruitful connection forged in the depths of Dark Souls. The comedian and actor, known for his distinctive voice work, stumbled into a pivotal role within FromSoftware’s epic, thanks to a chance encounter and a whole lot of enthusiastic persuasion.
From voice actor to cinematic soundscape
It all began with a shared obsession. Serafinowicz, a self-proclaimed Dark Souls devotee – he famously listed it as one of his ‘Five Brilliant Things’ in a recent interview with Russell Howard – discovered a mutual fandom with writer and director Alex Garland. The two bonded over their mutual appreciation for the game’s notoriously brutal difficulty, a sentiment Serafinowicz eloquently described as “teaching you that no obstacle is insurmountable.”
The connection sparked an initial conversation, and a surprisingly effective strategy involving a phone number and a healthy dose of persistence. Serafinowicz, apparently deploying a tactic he termed ‘bullying’ his way in, inquired about contributing sound effects for the male character’s death cries and pain grunts – a relatively small, but crucial, element of the Dark Souls experience. He’s now seen his distinctive vocal performance integrated into subsequent Elden Ring titles, a testament to FromSoftware’s appreciation for his particular brand of sonic artistry. “I just… I played this character in Dark Souls 2,” he explained, “and they asked me to provide the exertion noises for if you played as a male character. So all the, ‘when you die,’ which is often in these games. I play Elden Ring now and they’ve kept my sounds in all the subsequent games.”
The serendipitous meeting with Garland proved to be the catalyst for his inclusion in the upcoming movie adaptation. “Quite a few years ago we were in the same reception area, I was going for an audition,” Serafinowicz recounted. “He had some kind of meeting there. Didn’t know him, but he came over and introduced himself to me and was like, ‘You’re Peter Serafinowicz aren’t you?’ I said, ‘Yeah, you’re Alex Garland.’ ‘Yeah, I’m a big fan.’ He was like, ‘You like video games, don’t you?’ And I said, ‘Well, I like one video game.’ ‘It’s Dark Souls, right?’ And I said, ‘Yeah, yeah, yeah,’ because I’d talked about it a bit. And he said, ‘I’m just the biggest Dark Souls fan.’ And we were just enthusing about all these different aspects of this wonderful game, and we became friends based on this little interaction, right?”
The project, being overseen by Dark Souls creator Hidetaka Miyazaki and penned by George R.R. Martin, is reportedly a massive undertaking – a “kickass” A24 production with a budget exceeding $100 million. The cast, headed by Cailee Spaeny and Ben Whishaw, is undeniably impressive, but Serafinowicz's involvement adds a particularly intriguing layer to the narrative. As he put it, “I just can’t believe my luck. I just can’t believe that, that it’s like, wow, dude. Wow, man!”
The film, slated for release in March 2028, promises to capture the essence of FromSoftware’s challenging and rewarding gameplay, and Serafinowicz’s contribution – the haunting, visceral sounds of death – will undoubtedly resonate deeply with the legions of fans who’ve come to rely on them.