It is always amazing to have the opportunity to speak with incredible artists. Samantha Béart, known for their role in Baldur’s Gate 3 as Karlach, has given Bonus Action the chance to learn about their journey from lit student to actor, and what it takes to create, inspire, and challenge the creative world through their many amazing projects.
In this interview, Samantha Béart speaks with Bonus Action, breaking down their journey as an actor and what they hope to achieve as they continue working on upcoming projects like It Takes a Village Season 2, which just aired a teaser trailer on November 6, 2025.
Classically Trained & Ready to Make Waves
Laura Gray: Thank you so much for sitting down with us today! To get started, I wanted to give you the chance to introduce yourself and give us a preview of what you are currently working on and the things you are excited about for the rest of 2025!
Samantha Béart: “Thank you for the opportunity. It’s a long list. I’m an actor based in London, a classically trained actor, Shakespeare, particularly, but look, here I am today doing video games. It’s very cool. Yes, so Fading Echo (as One). (Another playtest is planned in the coming weeks so stay tuned on Instagram!) You can sign up. They’re very active on Instagram, so do check them out. That’s going to be a first-person adventure game with Laura and Matt from Critical Role. Jasmine Bhullar is writing and is going to be playing my mother, of course. Makes perfect sense.
There is also the beat ‘em up game called Absolum (as Cider), I’m one of four variable characters; it’s out on the ninth of October. They made Streets of Rage 4. So if that’s your thing, you’ll love this. And Bithell Games’ Tron Catalyst is out now, which I’m in, too.“
Laura Gray: Acting is a difficult and demanding career. You have an extensive background in gaming and radio drama, and classical work. What got you started as an actor, and was it something you always wanted to do?
Samantha Béart: “I love stories. I wasn’t from a family that went to the theater; we were more TV and film people. I was also incredibly shy. So I was sent to singing, acting, and dance classes as a kid, and I was repelled from acting. I didn’t enjoy it at all because it involved getting up in front of people and them watching me speak, which is as an eight-year-old, didn’t really grab me.
But as I got older, I always had my nose in a book. I was doing an English degree, and I went to a lot of Shakespeare. I’m very lucky, living in London. There’s a lot of that on. It’s affordable. And from there I went, “Okay, it’s hitting me in a different place, and I would quite like to do that.” And for me, acting as an introvert is a very safe place for me to explore some very difficult emotions that maybe aren’t acceptable for me to explore in public or among family. I had a very restrictive background. It was a Catholic family, and anger was allowed, but that was it. So you can see why I needed that catharsis. And here I am, and the most famous character I’ve played is quite angry.
I graduated from drama school, and they said they couldn’t tell where I was from. And if they thought they were being super helpful, they would ask me to pass for different ethnicities and races, which is not cool. So you’ll notice that I tend to do quite well in media where you don’t see my face. So there we are. I’m not a voice actor. I’m an actor.
Baldur’s Gate 3 had over 260 hours of mocap. I like to mention that not just because of the hours, but because of the workload and the humans, whole departments of mocap and cinematics that then worked with our mocap data as well. I think it’s really important to note. What ties it all up in a neat bow is that classical training – which is based on maybe mainly French and Italian styles, the Commedia dell’arte, the School of Le Coq in France – very physical, big, theatrical acting; it really fed Baldur’s Gate 3.The movement directors we had came from that same tradition. So we had a lot of shorthand between us, and it was super cool. So it all came into one. We’re being filmed, but we’re being filmed line by line. The other person isn’t in the room. You haven’t got costumes and props, so it’s black box theater. It was a real mix of everything in the toolbox. It was a very satisfying job, really.“
Laura Gray: Of all the work you have done as an actor, what was your favorite production to be a part of and why?
Samantha Béart: “Oh, gosh. I have to split it into two. I was in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. The fifth book was adapted in 2005, 2006. And then we took that on the road as a live theater experience in 2012 and 2013. So there I am with the original actors, with an audience who loves everything that’s coming out of our mouths, in costume, with guests who were the voice of the book. We had some really cool people come in and do that as one-offs. And that was just a glorious start to everything.
And then that stopped because we went back to “we can’t really tell where you’re from.” And because I’ve been in the radio, that’s why I got the role in the live show. It was just a loyalty thing, I suppose. But I guess if a casting director had cast it, I wouldn’t have been in it.
And then I want to say Silence by Moira Buffini, which is a medieval road trip that takes place in the millennium, 999 AD, where I played Lord Silence. He’s a Viking Lord from the north of England. He’s about 14 years old when the play starts, he’s married off for dynastic reasons to the Princess of France, and finds out on his wedding night that he’s actually a girl. It goes on from there.
It’s just this beautiful piece about religion, power, queerness, and how little things have changed in a thousand years. It’s a beautiful piece of theater, and it’s not often put on, but it’s a six-hander. It’s got lots of little duologues all the way through. So it’s great audition material as well, it’s so much fun to do.“
Laura Gray: Karlach is such a powerful character with a heartbreaking storyline. What did you do to find that character in yourself? Are there traits you specifically gave Karlach that come from your own experiences?
Samantha Béart: “As an actor, I’m a collaborative storyteller. So I’m going to be interpreting someone else’s writing. So rather than improvising or really having that offline relationship with the writers, it was in the room, “what would Karlach do under these circumstances?”
It’s the usual thing of who, what, why, where, and when. But it has to serve the text. I’m not as hot-headed, believe it or not. Crazy. I tend to think things through. She dashes through, which makes sense as a Barbarian. I started with the text, then it was the physicality, and then the voice came out last, really, as a result of everything. And as I said, we had lots of people keeping us honest. “I have a big red button for injustice, as I think a lot of us do, except Karlach can do something about it. Vigilante justice is legal in Faerûn. So that was a place I quite liked living in.“
Laura Gray: What is your favorite part of Baldur’s Gate 3? Why did that moment stick with you?
Samantha Béart: “Killing Gortash for what should be obvious reasons. Yes. I think it’s so smart, even outside of games, just narrative. If you think of comic books, particularly, our hero gets his chance, it’s always a he. He gets his chance for revenge, and everyone goes, “Don’t do it. It’ll change you!” But they’ve killed all the henchmen. That’s fine. That’s fine. That hasn’t changed him. But killing the guy who has ruined his life will change him. So he doesn’t.
He does the right thing, and he takes him to prison. But in this case, Karlach gets revenge. Astarion gets revenge. Dame Aylin gets revenge. And that doesn’t end up as great as they think it’s going to be. And I think that’s just a wonderful thing to explore, not for the reasons that you think, but that, in particular, Karlach actually gets no closure. What she wants is closure rather than revenge. Revenge is going to feel great because he totally deserves it. But she’ll never know why it happened. And I think it was a really smart piece of writing. It felt very real. If you want to go back to Shakespeare, it’s Iago at the end of Othello, isn’t it? That’s his one bit of power at the end. He’s like, “By the way, I’m never going to tell you why I did this.“
Laura Gray: If you could pick one other character besides Tav for Karlach to grow close to throughout the story, who would it be?
Samantha Béart: “For an Evil run, it’s going to be Minthara, obviously. Emma Gregory’s performance, you need to play as the Origin Karlach to get this. Her performance is insane when it gets to the end. And there are certain choices to be made or not made. Yeah, she decides to take over that driving wheel, and she’s going to make sure Karlach gets justice. And it’s really beautiful.
On a good run, Wyll Ravengard, obviously. There’s so much good dialogue between them for that specific pairing. And I think you could play either of them as Origin to get that, to get those deep conversations because she feels she owes him so much. She says quite a lot in the game that she wouldn’t have spared herself in his shoes. She wouldn’t have been able to do it. And he’s just very brave and on the hero’s journey. That’s it. She’s more outlaw if we’re going to talk, I feel, we’re going to talk archetypes. She’s trying to be the hero, but she’s very full of vengeance and, as I said, hot-headed. His judgment seems to be a lot better, apart from the one where he decided to become a warlock. That’s pretty terrible.“
Laura Gray: You’ve done a lot of work with Doctor Who and Torchwood! Who is your favorite Doctor and why?
Samantha Béart: “I’ve worked with most of them now. I think Sylvester McCoy, just because he is exactly who you think he is. He had the spoons out and everything in the recording studio. He was absolutely delightful. Very sweet guy. Very sweet guy. I really enjoyed working with him. He was my fave.”
Laura Gray: What is one thing you learned about D&D that you did not know before recording?
Samantha Béart: “I feel like I learned a lot of weird things about D&D. I would say, having played it before recording, I played in a very blind fashion. My character only knows the Sword Coast or whatever, because the DM would be like, “Yeah, don’t need to know.” And then we’d be transported to another plane, and I’d be like, “Does my character know what it is? Or is it just me that’s totally ignorant?“
What I really loved about doing Baldur’s Gate 3, it’s a real whistle stop of all the planes of existence within D&D. I think there’s even a little bit where you go to Chult, or you at least see the dinosaurs and shut the dimension gate. It refers to everything, and it was really nice to know where everything fits in and the universe – the pantheon – how they all relate to each other.“
Laura Gray: If you could have any BG3 monster as a pet in real life, what would it be and why?
Samantha Béart: “Can I say an owlbear cub? Because that is my answer.“
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