Arcane Crew Interview: It’s All About a Good Story - Part II

The League of Legends animated series Arcane wrapped up its first season roughly a week ago, and it still holds a 100% critics score on RottenTomatoes (with a 98% viewer score) and 9.3/10 over on IMDB, making it the highest-rated Netflix original series of all time.

We managed to talk to the cast and the creators of the show on different occasions, and in this part, we collected some of the interesting chats we had during the premier.

-------------- Red-Carpet Interview with the Cast -------------- 

Arcane crew (from left to right): Toks Olagundoye (voice of Mel), JB Blanc (voice of Vander), Kevin Alejandro (voice of Jayce), Ella Purnell (voice of Jinx), Hailee Steinfeld (voice of Vi), Mia Sinclair Jenness (voice of Powder), Jason Spisak (voice of Silco), Christian Linke (co-creator), Harry Lloyd (voice of Viktor), and Alex Yee (co-creator)

Q: Do you feel personally connected to your character? Have you played League of Legends? 

Ella Purnell (Voice of Jinx): I've never played League of Legends. I know it - I felt like everybody kind of knows it but I never personally played it. I feel deeply connected to my character. I feel very protective of her. She's known as the villain and she's the crazy one and she makes some very questionable decisions. I will admit that. What they've done with the writing here is so special in the sense that they've explained how she became Jinx. The character that all the fans of LoL know of, that's the final part. We're exploring how she got to that, how she came to be the way that she is. I also have a lot of empathy for her. I understand her and I love her and... She's funny, she makes me laugh. 

Kevin Alejandro (Voice of Jayce): You know what's it like to do a voice in a cartoon? Arcane was so different because I got to use my real voice. I didn't have to put on cartoon voice so to speak. With that, it became a reality for me, in a sense of truth. I like to think of myself as someone who leads from my heart and makes decisions for good reasons. That's what I loved about Jayce. He ventures off the beaten path. What he's done in the evolution of our human being is really seen through that person - you see him as this young, hungry scientist who wants to create something bigger, beyond himself, for the betterment of humanity - and he does it! And then it's put in the wrong hands. Then you see that that same human being with that same ambition to turn it upside down go: "Now, how can I save this?" From the moment he understands what it's being used for. He still has a decision to make from the heart. That's what I related to most about being Jayce. He is your hero; he is your human being. I love playing this character. I love being part of this franchise. It's amazing.

Harry Lloyd (Voice of Viktor): I have just started playing LoL, just out of interest and curiosity. When we were making it, I read a lot of fan fiction and I read a lot about the game. I was too scared to play. But recently I started playing and... I'm very bad (at it). But I can understand why it got so popular. 

Q: How do you feel about playing a new character in the series?

Jason Spisak (Voice of Silco): He's not a champion. But he is a power broker. So it'll be interesting when people watch the show. I'm hoping they fall in love with them the same way they fell in love with the champions. It'd be so cool if Riot would add him as a new champion. He could do some cool stuff behind the scenes.

Toks Olagundoye (Voice of Mel): Mel's sort of a wonderful person in charge of Piltover. She's fantastic, she's fierce, and she has a lot of depth and secrets to come. I would be honored if Mel became a new champion to the game.

Q: Did you get to work with the localization team on the Chinese dubbing of the original series? How was it?

Nicolo Laurent (Riot CEO): We worked on the full dubbing in, I don't remember how many languages, I think more than 20? 25? And China was actually one of the first ones we did, obviously, we have a lot of fans in China, so we wanted to really get it right.

Shauna Spenley (Riot Global President of Entertainment): We worked with our great partners at Tencent Video and we're so lucky, everything has been so perfect. Every partner we've had in China has been amazing to work with. I feel really fortunate because we're going to be launching the show all at once, which is really rare, to have it launch the same day everywhere, and China in particular (with a different cast and premiere). So happy!

Brandon Beck (Riot Co-founder): We find ourselves incredibly grateful for our partnership with Tencent. Our relationship dates to 2008 when they originally licensed the rights to publish League of Legends, and back when Riot was about 30 people and anything but a sure thing. And so, we've had a great partnership in many different areas, now launching many titles and with Arcane, it's just another step in the evolution of the partnership.