This week has been jam-packed with game anniversaries: Stardew Valley turned 10, Pokémon turned 30, and The Legend of Zelda turned 40 — though nobody would blame you if you missed that last one. Zelda’s anniversary earlier this week was met with little fanfare; no new games or remakes were announced, nor any news on the upcoming live-action movie. All we got were some miniature weapon replicas, and even those are only available in select stores in Japan.
Since Nintendo is apparently too busy celebrating Pokémon, IGN has taken up the mantle of honoring the legendary Zelda franchise through an interview with Zelda’s voice actress, Patricia Summersett.
Summersett is a lifelong fan of the Zelda series and has been the voice of Princess Zelda for a decade. She starred in both Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom, plus the spinoffs Age of Calamity and Age of Imprisonment.
Inside the Casting for Princess Zelda
When asked about the auditioning process, Summersett says that she had no idea she was going for the role of Princess Zelda: “The best way to describe it was as a bleached script, which is when you have a certain amount of information about what the archetypes of the character are, the general world — for example, that it looks like an RPG fantasy — but you have no idea what the actual roles are going to be or what the game is. And there would’ve been no way of predicting that it was Zelda because she didn’t have a voice before. I just would never have assumed that was the game that I was auditioning for.”
Summersett also explains that Zelda’s British accent wasn’t a note from Nintendo, but a choice inspired by Summersett’s schooling in London and Zelda’s royalty status. “It’s a little more comfortable to say this is a Hylian accent versus just a particular version of a UK accent,” she says.
Thoughts on the Live-Action Movie
About the upcoming live-action Zelda adaptation, Summersett says, “Obviously Bo Bragason is going to kill it, she’s going to be amazing. I’m happy to have contributed in any way, without knowing where it’s all headed, other than the fact that it’s now been 10 years. I’m just floored by the fact I’ve been involved in this franchise for a quarter of it.”
“Obviously [the movie] is going to be a large collaboration between people who are new to the series and those deeply schooled in the series. [I think] you’re going to see a strong Zelda. I’m sure you’re going to see a powerful lead character in Zelda. And Link I have no idea, is he going to speak? They certainly haven’t alluded to the fact that he does, yet.”
So, Are Link and Zelda Officially Dating? (No)
Previously, Summersett shared her personal thoughts on the nature of Link and Zelda’s relationship, which were then misconstrued in a popular article. “I have all sorts of personal theories about what [their relationship] might be, but I think there’s something beautiful in the way that it’s left ambiguous, it’s left in a kind of — if there are romantic undertones, it’s left in an unrequited state. There’s obviously a deep friendship and a protectorship between the two of them. It’s a gorgeous relationship and it continues to evolve and be left open in so many iterations of this.
“And what that means for me, as somebody who represents the character at things like conventions, is that anybody can come up to me with their version of what they think Link and Zelda are. And a lot of it comes in the form of coupleship — people proposing to each other and getting engaged with Zelda as a theme, or they feel like it’s something that they want to just celebrate with family or friends. It can mean kind of anything, and I love that it lives in that space.”
Summersett is a Bigger Legend of Zelda Fan than You
When asked about her favorite Zelda games, she says, “I am partial to Breath of the Wild, but Ocarina of Time is really the ground zero of what the series means for me. And then maybe I’d say the original, though I was a child watching other people play that. And then I really liked Twilight Princess as well, just the art style of that one. So those are probably the top three.”
“I see a lot of cosplay from Twilight Princess at conventions, and I also write in Twilight Princess Hylian, so I feel a little more connected to that game when I’m writing that in notes to people.”
You read that right — Summersett can write in Twilight Princess Hylian! “It’s something I did early on when I was recording [Breath of the Wild] and I was just starting to look through [series companion book] Hyrule Historia at the different versions of the languages from all the previous games. Obviously, Breath of the Wild wasn’t out yet, so I didn’t know what would be in that game. But I saw Twilight Princess Hylian and it’s so beautiful. I thought I could probably learn those characters, which is essentially just the alphabet, and started practicing that over coffee. So now I can kind of write fluently and use it all the time.”
