We interviewed Alexandra Boyd, known in the gaming community as the voice of Elaine Marley off of the amazing Monkey Island series.

For those who are impatient, here are some salient points, otherwise, read on for the transcript.  Episode 49 of the UFO Gamers podcast will be the interview in its entirety!

"I'm a bit bossy.
She kind of looks like a younger, slimmer version of me!
I have auditioned for a Lara Croft-type character.
And if you all keep buying the game I guess they'll... they'll do more!
This is like Star Wars coming back around again fifteen years later.
Not dogs, pugs.
Oh, it's just rain!
About 50p?"

UFO: Good morning, Alexandra Boyd, how're you?
Alexandra Boyd: I'm good. Good, yeah.

How was the gallery?
It wasn't a gallery it was more of an exhibition of jewelery and fashion accesory... wholesalers. Because I have a lot of downtime and I don't like it I've started a jewelery party business so I take, you know, necklaces and bangles and things to, um, like a party. My friends, they invite their girlfriends, then they have some wine, they look at the jewelery and they buy it. That's the thing I do when I'm not working which is perfect because I just make an appointment. If I'm working I don't make party appointments, and if I'm not I go "Hey, do you want to have a party?"

That sounds like terribly good fun.
Well, it's better than some of the day jobs I've had I tell you.

Welcome to UFO!
Oh, thank you so much!  Nice to be here.

I'm LorD, and this is Saber.
Hello, Saber.  Is that your given name, Saber? Or is that your gaming name?

Uh, no. More like a gaming name, actually, it has turned into a nickname.
Yeah, I figured as much. Well that's what you always ask actors: is that your real name or your stage name?

Oh! And Alexandra Boyd is... ?
My real name.  And usually the only reason that actors change their name is because there's already another actor in the screen actor's guild or equity with the same name. It's like your business tag, you know, you don't want the same working name as somebody else.

Like David Tennant?
Is that not his name? I'm sure he's an example of somebody. You put your mother's maiden name or you put a second christian name in there, that's why there are so many actors with three names.

Could you get sued over using the same name as some other person?
It wouldn't be a lawsuit, it would just be like... The union. If you're working in the union you have to register your name as your working name and they'll say "no, no, there's already somebody using that name you're going to have to pick another one." They wouldn't let two people work under the same name.  Because it gets very confusing with residuals and taxes and stuff like that. Like I said it is your business name. You're using your given name as your business tag aswell.

So it's sort of like 'Alexandra Boyd, PLC.'
Well, not quite, but yeah. Maybe just INC at the moment or LTD. (laugh)

Okay, so, let's talk Monkey Island then!
Okay, go on then.

Obviously, you do the voice of Elaine Marley. And... do you think anything like Elaine Marley?
I think I'm quite outspoken. I think I say what I think. I'm a bit bossy.  (laugh) There's not much acting required there.

Do you also wear enormous earrings?
Sometimes. I think the most significant thing is that I have red hair like she does.  That was the thing that tickled me. When you first come in to audition for something they give you a drawing of the character, usually. And I was like "oh, that's cute! She kind of looks like a younger, slimmer version of me! I'll take it!" But she has red hair, yeah.

She is a kickarse character, but I was so distraught deeply when the fourth Monkey Island game came out and she wasn't British anymore. And she wasn't you!
Well, no she wasn't! But the thing is, from my side of it, I didn't know that there had been another Monkey Island made and that they used somebody else. I found out... You wouldn't, you know, if you don't do the job it just passes you by. Then I would, every so often, I would dip into a fansite or whatever and go: What? Darragh!". He was the director at the time. He didn't use me again and there's all sorts of... you know, millions of reasons why producers or directors use different actors.

So was there a sort-of red-faced kind of like: "oh, yeah, we, uh, we went for someone else I'm afraid."
(laugh)  No, no... not really. I just thought that was amusing. And then everybody was sort of a little miffed. It's one thing to pick an actress with the same accent, about the same age, the voice is similar enough not to... But to make her so obviously a different person that they... you know. But then they came back to me! So it all worked itself out in the end.

Well I'm glad that they did come back to you and I  think, would you not make a great Lara Croft?
(laugh)  I have auditioned for a Lara Croft-type character. It was quite a long time ago and they were explaining to me: "She's very athletic and she's sort of Eurasian and she's sort of like this..." And I said: "Well, you mean like an Australian Lara Croft?" And the director who was British and the woman in her late 30-ies, she's like "Who?" And the sound engineer went, I could hear him in the booth going: "she is like a really big character, you know." "Oh! Oh! Yes, yes! Like an Australian Lara Croft! Exactly!" I think I've got a bit of an Emma Thompson character in my voice sometimes so, you know, I think Lara Croft or anything Emma Thompson would do in that sort of very empathic way!

You have played Monkey Island but you didn't do very well.
Well 'cause I'm not, you know, it's not my thing. I got very fed up of keeping bumping, coming into the same room again and not being smart enough to work out the way. And plus when I got turned into a statue, a gold statue, I really lost interest.   Well, if it's not about me, you know. If it's not about Elaine why would, you know, do I really care what those silly pirates get up to!  (laugh) But I'm in it a bit more in these more recent games ...but I'm sure they're completey far too advanced for me to get involved in. I spend enough time on my computer as it is, I don't need to be playing games.

So you're not much of a gamer then.
No, sorry.

That is sad. But, you know, it's all good because you've got another... we've got five episodes of the new Monkey Island game. Have you any idea how far through recording the dialogue for that you are?
I think I've done three at the moment. It's hard to tell because they literally just send me the lines, I don't even get the other guy's lines. But I think three, I think three.

And how do you record it? Do you do it at home, do you go into like a studio somewhere...
No, they book a studio in London because when I was in LA ten years ago, can you believe it, that long ago, I  was in Los Angeles so I would just go through a studio in Los Angeles and they... LucasArts at the time were based in San Francisco, so they would meet me there and we'd do it face to face so to speak. But now that I'm in London it doesn't make a difference at all, they just have to be in their office at 8 in the morning and I get an appointment at 4 in the afternoon because of the time difference at a studio in North London and we just record it. You know, we're there on Skype so we can talk to each other, I have the lines in front of me that they've emailed over, they talk into my headphones and tell me how they'd like me to say... you know, to give certain direction. They have an engineer in the studio here who records everything and takes notes of the takes they like, and then they just email them all over in an MP3.

That's pretty cool. But it does shatter the illusion slightly, you know, you've never met Dominic Armato who plays Guybrush.
Isn't that weird?!  Every animated feature, every animated cartoon I have done or game you never... so rarely... once, I was in the same room as another actor in the scene with me. But it's just... I don't know how it works because every other type of acting I do I, you react to the other actor. You know, when you're doing a movie or a play they're right there so you make choices on how you do the lines based on the scene you're doing together. But I think the way they get over that in these animated pieces is that they have you read the lines three times in a row and so I'll read the line three times but differently every time, so that gives them a wide range of readings to use. And if I'm not getting it at all they say: "No, no. What we want you to do is be more like this here." or "What just happened is Guybrush has said this and he's acted like that so what you're really... you're kind of annoyed at him, but can you be not so annoyed?" They just sort of tweak it into where they need it to be.

But it is believeable, I mean, the end product is definitely believeable the way they string it together.
Yeah, yeah. That's in their interest to make it so.

People would think that it impacts on the outcome, you know. But it doesn't really... come through. You don't really feel it.
No! But all those movies that you see the Pixar animation or the Walt Disney features, those big name stars, they're not all there at the same time. It's kind of too expensive as well to get everybody's schedules. That's why people like doing animations because you can sort of stick it into your availability as well.

So probably then two more episodes to go, as it's a five episode 'saga', the Tales of Monkey Island.
And if you all keep buying the game I guess they'll... they'll do more!

Well, Guybrush was one of childhood heroes. So meeting you, Ms Boyd, it's like meeting the girlfriend of one of my childhood heroes.
Oh! Well, there you go, you see! I think, you know, when you've grown up with something and also there was that huge ten-year gap so you were all just playing the same games over and over and over again, were you?

Yeah, pretty much.
So this must just be... This is like Star Wars coming back around again fifteen years later.

Yeah, but with improved graphics!
Yes! I see that for sure.

And you're favourite voice actors back again.
Yes! Finally!

How about other projects? Like, any movies in development right now?
Not in development, I did a movie with John Travolta last year in Paris. That was fabulous. It's called From Paris with Love.

Did you meet him?
Yes, I did! Of course, yes. For me it was quite exciting because I started my career as a dancer and at the time he had Saturday Night Fever and Grease were huge. So I was like "oh, my hero!" But he was quite quiet and concentrated. The movie stars that I've worked with they're always... they're rarely just like the person they... you perceive them to be in their work. They're always very concentrated. It was a Sunday so maybe everyone was just a little bit like "eugh, we have to come in on a Sunday" I was expecting him to be a bit more fun and he wasn't. But I don't that against him he is just doing his job. Why should he mess around and have a joke and a laugh with me.

Do you like to mess around and have a joke and a laugh in between takes?
Yes, I do actually! Movies are such long days. You've got so much space between set-ups and takes and everything that once you do get to know everybody that's kind of how you keep sane. It's, you know, chatting and telling anecdotes. I did spend lots of time with John's body double and stunt double and he does stunt work with John but he also played a character. He played my bodyguard, my security guy. You know, it was great talking to him 'cause he has done a lot of movies with John. It was fun. I play a VIP chief of delegation that has flown in from the States to Paris and John Travolta is such a renegade, what's the word... He's like a top security CIA agent, you know, bringing down this terrorist in the embassy that I'm going to. And all I register is that my motorcade has been delayed from the airport and I'm so pissed off by the time I get there that I'm like [adopts a surprising American accent] "I want the guy that's responsible for this to be fired!" and of course it's him and I don't realize that he has just basically saved my life. That's my character, a small but significant role.

Absolutely. Doing crazy American accents, then!
Well I lived in America for 17 years so I'm often called upon to be the American. I just did an episode of New Tricks that's in this latest series. It was on a couple of weeks ago and I played... Well it's not quite sure, I was a bit of a red herring, but they're investigating a UFO crash in and around this American air force base here in the UK, and I was an American character that could have been a government informant. The episode is called The Truth is Out There it's on iPlayer. It's out on iPlayer at the moment. But I'm also, you know, I can do lots of accents and I'm often asked to do the American one because I just lived there for so long, it's very easy for me.

I have a quick fire round of questions.
Oh, go on then.

Brown bread or white bread?
Brown.

Red wine or white wine?
Red.

Glasses or contacts?
Contacts.

Cup or mug?
Mug.

Coke or Pepsi?
Hate both.

Summer or winter?
Winter.

Christmas or birthday?
Oooh, Christmas is always a nightmare. Birthday just means you're getting older. Birthday.

Night in or night out?
Night out.

Cinema or theatre?
Cinema, I'm afraid.

That's alright. We're not posh. Cats or dogs?
Dogs. Pugs! Not dogs, pugs.

Budgies or goldfish?
I wouldn't have either.

Eat out or order in?
Eat out.

Chinese or Indian?
Indian.

TV or DVD?
Um, TV actually. I don't like watching movies on my telly, I like being in the cinema.

Ah, ok. 'See above' kind of thing. Left or right handed?
Right.

LorD or Saber?
Aaaaah, for goodness sake! Pass!

Lionel Ritchie or Lionel Blair?
Lionel Ritchie probably.

Tea or coffee?
Tea.

Bourbon or custard cream?
Bourbon.

One lump or two?
None, zero.

Okay, and that's it! That's all I've got for you there.
That's like that quiz at the end of the actor's studio. Have you ever seen that?  No? It's all right. It's very silly and fun. You've just like broken down my personality now from that quiz.

Yeah, we'll get the results in some time next week.
Oh brilliant, get back to me on that.

We'll decide if you're a psychopath or something like that.
Yeah yeah, ok.  (laugh)

What was filming Titanic like, if you remember?
If I remember? I would never forget! I was on the movie for two months. I was hired by James Cameron to play one of the first class passengers. He hired lots of principal actors rather than using extras to do small, little, lead-in... you know, lead-in lines to the scenes he has written. So I did a lot of that, I did a lot of tea party scenes. I did a lot of, you know, walking past and asking for a cup of tea from the steward after the ice berg has struck and all that kind of stuff. And come to the final screening all my lines have been cut. Everything I have ever said on camera was gone.

Rubbish!
Yeah, and I was like "Rubbish!", righ? And I had like the best time, you know. When you're on a movie that size there's no pressure on you at all to perform. The sets were just amazing, the costumes were just amazing. You call it NAR - No acting required. You just show up and be because everything is set up for you. And so I had this amazing two months, you know. Also, bear in mind we expect the movie to be a huge flop. They have gone way over budget. Nobody has ever spent $200m on a movie before. There's just no way that this was going to fly. It's going to sink! Ha ha! So, you know, you wait the perfuctory amount of time for them to release the movie and it's just went ballistic, you know.

It went off.
All my lines have been cut. In the end, what I did, I don't know if you've seen my showereel on my website, but I cut together all my lines -- all my scenes, excuse me, there are no lines -- and I was like "Oh! You missed it, didn't you?" So I rewind and then I talk you through: "I'm up there, top left hand corner. I'm here, I'm there. Oh! That's it." I have got so much, I've had so many meetings and got work. I got my job on Coronation Street, I asked the casting director "How did you find me?" 'cause I had this very small little agent here in agent, he mostly carried american actors and, you know, not northern working-class Coronation Street actors . I said, "How did you find me?". She said: "That sequence of Titanic on your showreel made me laugh so hard I said 'I've got to meet this woman!'. Everything in my business when you get me in the room, when you get in the room you're able to sell yourself. Getting the meeting is 90% of the job, right? And I know thank James Cameron for cutting my lines because it gives me such a weird angle, you know, the smallest part in the biggest movie of all time! And I've dined out on Leonardio DiCaprio and Kate Winslet stories for, you know, 12 years.

"If I can remember?" Are you kidding? It was such a laugh. It was great. And I made friends on it that are friends for life. My friend Rochelle who played the countess of Rothes. I auditioned for that part initially and she looked just like a photograph of the countess of Rothes so they gave the part to her. But James Cameron had seen my audition tape, he said: "Get Alexandra a part, because I want people like that in this 1912 scenario." I felt great in a corset. It gave me a profile, penny black. So I got the job. And so Rochelle, one of my best friends... My friend Peter White, he was actually cut completely. He was there for six months. He played the wireless operator of the Carpathia which was the boat ten miles away, they all went to sleep and they didn't... He was there for six months, he had two lines in a scene, and he was wet weather covere, so they had him hanging around there in case it rained and they had to go indoors. So he did his two lines, went home, came to the screening -- cut, completely. Not even seen nor heard. He said, you know, "I'd give back all the money to still be in the movie." And he and his wife are two of my best friends here in London. So it really was one of those life-changing jobs, you know, because of the people I met and the experience I've had and then I end up with this, you know, two minute sequence that I make fun of myself in that has got me work. It got me work.

You should be eternaly grateful for ending up on the cutting room floor.
Yes, not always a bad thing! Not always. It's all that sort-of turn a tragedy into opportunity.

Can you do a handstand?
I can, yes.  I still have athletic ability, yeah.

See, you're there for Lara Croft, I'm telling you!
Ah, well, bring it on.

If an elephant's ear is three times bigger than a rabbit's ear, and the president can kill a fly in public, how much does bubblegum cost?
About 50p?

Well, yeah, I think you're about right there. Depends if you get it from a petrol station because it's always about a quid there.
Yeah, I haven't bought bubblegum for a while. I'm showing my age.  I like being my age. You wait till you're my age, you'll look back and go 'mmm, mmm'.

Yeah, probably. "What was I wearing?" as well, that's another thing isn't it.
Yes, yes.  They're trying to bring them back, which is a shame you know, I'm ashamed of myself the first time around. I'm not going to do that again.

Have you ever been to the Carribbean?
I have, I've been to Jamaica.  Well, it was before I was Elaine so you can look at it as early research.

Jamaica's a strange country, though, isn't it. You stay in a hotel and you don't really see anyone else that sort of outside of the compound kind of thing.
Yeah, I think that's true for a lot of resorts. [something]. Atlantis, is it called Atlantis? That huge, huge resort that has the biggest aquarium in the world and people just go there and never leave the compound, as you said, it just seems to me like a shame that you never experiance the culture of the island itself.

You do kind of wonder where your tourist money goes as well. Whether it goes to the people or whether it's just sort of sucked into these resorts, but, hey-ho.
I mean, I stayed in a hotel in Jamaica but we did get out, you know. We took trips and stuff.

So how was that? I don't know, I've never been to Jamaica. I'm too scared.
It was lovely. I don't enjoy hot tropical weather if I'm on it. I lived in Florida for three years and humidity did me in. It was the weather that had me leavein the end. I just, I like seasons. Hence my answer: winter over summer.

Absolutely. But living in LA though, same kind of thing surely.
Yes it was, lack of seasons and very sunny and warm most of the time. It can get just as cloying as wet and drizzly all the time. A lot of people go and they embrace it but I just, you know, one of the reasons I came back to England after 17 years was my enormous, sort of, home sickness for my own country and for London and for, you know, the lifestyle which I... I don't mind the rain at all. People get annoyed at me, I'm like "oh, it's just rain!".

It is, actually. You just dry it off.
Yes, and it sounds nice.

I went to LA, I drove across America last year, and came to LA...
Ended up in Los Angeles.

Yes. I started in New York which I love, I love New York to bits, ending up in LA. It is kind of hot and sunny and everything and it's kind of grotty as well. And then you kind of think of London. I don't know, I just prefer London over LA. Any time.
Me too.

So, Alexandra Boyd, thank you very much.
You're so welcome, it was very lovely chatting with you.

Thank you.
And send me the results!

Yes, sure. You're flying the British flag, really, in Monkey Island, I feel.
Yes.

It's a huge franchise and it's just good to have a British person in there.
Yes, there you go. There you go. Well I think I'm back in it, say, for the duration. So there's nothing to worry about.

I hope so. And I hope Tales of Monkey Island does incredibly well and you get commisioned for another 15 games.
From your lips to God's ears!  (laugh)

Thank you very much.
All right, take care. Have a lovely day.