"I remember being a part of the fandom back in like, 2009," Allegra Clark, voice of Dragon Age: Inquisition's Josephine and long-time BioWare stan tells me. "When the games first came out, there was a Livejournal community called Swooping is Bad, I was a part of it. Getting to watch communities build around the game, and then getting to step into the role of helping to create the game was such an excellent experience, and being entrusted with a character like Josephine was an honour. Obviously, I think Inquisition is an amazing game. It's not like I'm on my fifth playthrough or anything... I've been playing it on my stream, and everyone was like, 'You have to romance Josephine!', and I was like, 'What if I romance someone else?' and they're like, 'No, you have to romance Josephine'. So I'm romancing Josephine, because I got bullied. I let my chat pick what I'm doing. But just knowing that people still have these relationships with these games, even after all these years, knowing people still really love watching someone play Dragon Age on Twitch is special."
As a huge Dragon Age fan, Clark knew exactly what she was signing up for with Inquisition, and fully understood the pressure of the role - especially since Josephine is a romance option. "I walked in knowing the weight of this thing that I was working on, not only because it was like, 'This is Dragon Age' - it's a huge property, it means so much to me, but also Josephine is going to mean a lot to a lot of people," she says. "Getting to be a part of that aspect of the storytelling was such a privilege for me. A companion won't make or break the entire story by any stretch of the imagination, but a companion can really enrich the experience, and that is a testament to BioWare's storytelling. They can create these characters who can make you feel either really spittingly enraged, like Solas for instance, or someone that you could latch on to so hard like an Alistair or something like that. People were just absolutely horrified by the idea that Alistair might not be coming back because Alistair was so important to them."
Initially, some people did not connect with Josephine this way. She's a very different character to typically eccentric and charismatic Dragon Age charmers like Zevran, Isabela, or Varric, while also being less open, cute, and vulnerable than Merrill, Alistair, Origins-era Leliana, and pre-terrorism Anders. She doesn't have that untouchable mystery like Fenris or Morrigan - she's less exciting, at least on the surface.
"I think a lot of people will see a character like Cullen's struggles with addiction, or Dorian's conflict with his father, the mask he puts on and the 'I'm Dorian, I'm just flamboyant and I don't care about anything!'," Clark says, highlighting how Josephine - Clark affectionately calls her 'Josie' throughout the interview - differs from the rest of the cast. "He doesn't necessarily show you the full depth of it until you get to know him better. Or [Iron] Bull actively having his beliefs challenged, and Cassandra as well having her beliefs challenged - a lot of characters actually have their beliefs challenged in a lot of ways. I remember seeing the criticism online of Josie, that she just didn't necessarily have a lot going for her. But in reality, it was all very small. She comes across at the War Table as warm, but ultimately business. It really isn't until you start chatting with her at Skyhold more that you start to see the person underneath the diplomatic veneer that she has to put on. At the end of the day, she is the face of the Inquisition. She and the Inquisitor are the faces of the Inquisition. The Inquisitor in terms of like, 'Oh, yes, I am the leader. I am running around doing the things!' but Josephine is the one who's constantly managing everything. Let me put it this way. The Inquisitor is the face of the Inquisition, and Josephine is the one who makes sure the face is looking great at all times. She's the PR person."
It was precisely because Josie was so different that Clark was attracted to her, both as an actress and a Dragon Age die-hard. "I always was just so in love with her character," she says. "She has this very prim precision that doesn't sacrifice warmth. I think what was really great about Josephine for me, what I loved about Josie, was the fact he was a Dragon Age character we hadn't seen yet, if that makes sense. Like, a) another Antivan, and yay, I love Antiva, but also this very sweet, caring person who you travelled with, who's a part of your inner circle, who is adamantly non-violent, and for whom violence is the very last resort. Violence should not have to be the answer. Rooting for [her], and getting to explore that with her as a character was very satisfying to play as an actor, but also as someone who had played all the games prior, because this is a perspective we haven't seen yet."
While Clark is American, she is trilingual, and pulled from experience learning Italian for Josephine, with her vocal mannerisms and accent modelled directly off Clark's professor. As for the rest of Josie though, Clark sees a lot of herself in the character. "I think there are definitely aspects of Josephine that are just drawn from me directly," she says. "Like Josie, I'm very much a family girl. That's a huge motivator for her, trying to make things better and wanting things to be better not just for her family, but for Thedas in general.
“I think it's so funny because the narrative has definitely changed between 2013, 2014 when I was working on the games and now, but trying to find ways to be unified - at this point that's a lot to ask for [it was around two weeks after the Capitol was invaded when Clark and I spoke], but back then, in a different political climate it was definitely something I very much felt. Why can't we all work together? Why can't we all find points of commonality? Why can't we all dedicate ourselves to a cause? I'm trying to make the world better very idealistically and she's definitely more of an idealist than I am. I think that Josie is definitely an idealist, finding points of commonality and ways for people to come together is literally her job."
Even before playing Josephine - and then getting bullied into romancing her over and over again - Clark's experience with the Dragon Age series means companions always held a special place in her heart. "The companion characters are always such a critical and important part of the games for me," she says. "You can have this really great story, but it's the people that you travel and explore with that can really help flesh out the experience, and it makes it all the warmer and better. You get to hear this person's opinion, you bring this person along this time, this person has this quip and what not. It's great that I'm getting to be part of that."
While Clark knew what to expect from Dragon Age itself, the world of gaming was a newer frontier. Though she had experience working in animation and dubbing, Inquisition was her 'big break' in games, though she has gone on to join the cast of Apex Legends, Fire Emblem: Three Houses, Genshin Impact, and Scarlet Nexus, amongst others. "BioWare is a great company to work with," Clark says. "I have only ever had fun with them. Both on Inquisition and [the] Trespasser [expansion], and then Mass Effect: Andromeda [Clark also plays Nakmor Kesh]. I just had a fantastic time working with them. Inquisition was basically my first video game, like my break into the industry. I did not have a slow and steady start, I just kind of showed up and was like 'I am in Inquisition. What am I doing here? What's up?' I felt very spoiled. BioWare games, they mess me up as a player, and they warm my heart as an actor. They also warm my heart as a player, but I sit there and I go like, 'You're emotional terrorists'."
As well as experiencing Mass Effect through her role in Andromeda as Nakmor Kesh, Clark is also a huge fan of playing BioWare's space opera. Her enthusiasm for the series is clear, especially when she talks about playing through Mass Effect 2's suicide mission over and over, constantly irritated by Jacob volunteering to go into the vents. "Jacob’s like, 'I'll do it!' and I'm like, 'You're not a tech boy. Stop it. I have a robot, I'm gonna send the robot in'. And then there's me holding the line at the end, making sure that statistically if I bring Grunt and Zaeed with me for the endgame, those are people with the highest armour who were going to keep my hold the line score up the most. There is actual math."
Like any true Mass Effect fan, Clark also admits to doing one worst run, deliberately making terrible decisions throughout the game in order to kill off everyone involved. Well, you have to try it at least once, don't you?