Who Is Matt Mercer Exactly?
Even if you don’t think you’re familiar with the work of Matthew Mercer… you’re familiar with the work of Matthew Mercer.
Whether you enjoy Dungeons and Dragons, watch anime, or play video games, if you even travel on just the outskirts of nerd culture, you’ve probably encountered Matthew Mercer’s work. He’s brought many of our favorite characters to life as a voice actor, played D&D so well that it kickstarted an entire media empire, and has inspired countless people to jump into the hobby for themselves. But who is Matt Mercer, how did he become one of the biggest names in nerd culture, and where do you definitely know his voice from?
Early Life & Career
Born Matthew Christopher Miller in Palm Beach Gardens, FL, Mercer moved to Los Angeles, CA when he was eight. When he was young he spoke with a stutter but worked with a speech therapist to reduce the effects for the most part. When he joined the SAG-AFTRA actor’s union, he adopted the name “Mercer” as opposed to Miller since his birth name was too similar to somebody already represented by the union.
Mercer started his voice acting career by voicing additional voices and walla—or the background murmur meant to represent crowds—in several anime, cartoons, and video games and appearing on radio commercials. But he quickly found more and more roles, quickly growing to become one of the most prevalent voice actors in the industry by the early 2010s.
“Roleplaying games are just an organic, improvised space for storytelling”
– Matthew Mercer
In 2015 Matthew Mercer, along turned his friends and fellow D&D players, turned their personal campaign into a public one when they launched the web series Critical Role on Geek and Sundry as well as forming Critical Role Productions LLC, where Mercer acts as chief creative officer.
READ MORE: ‘Critical Role’: Everything You Wanted To Know But Were Too Afraid To Ask
Critical Role
Critical Role is a weekly streaming web series featuring professional voice actors and friends as they play Dungeons and Dragons for a live audience. They use their professional skills for voice acting and improv to work through a story in a high fantasy setting. And as a group unravel the mysteries of their world fight monsters, and occasionally save the entire world. As DM (or dungeon master), Mercer acts as the DM or dungeon master, telling the game’s story and keeping all of the players on track.
By 2019 Critical Role transitioned from a show hosted on Geek & Sundry to being hosted entirely produced by their own company with episodes streaming primarily on YouTube and Twitch. In 2022 the first adventure of Critical Role made it to animation with The Legend of Vox Machina.
Not only does Mercer act as DM, he also voices all of the non-player and side characters. In the animated series, a full cast of voice acting talent was hired, so while the main cast of adventurers continued to be voiced by their original actors, Mercer played relatively few NPCs in animation. However, he still did portray quite a few.
Critical Role has thousands of hours of backlog and is still ongoing as a streaming game. And the animated show has seen two successful seasons with more in the works. Additionally, the popularity of Critical Role gave Mercer and his team the opportunity to influence the worlds of D&D by publishing setting and game books. Explorer’s Guide to Wildemount and Call of the Netherdeep are both written by Matthew Mercer and published by Wizards of the Coast for official Dungeons & Dragons use.
Who Has Matthew Mercer Voiced?
Even if you haven’t watched Critical Role, there is still a good chance that you are familiar with Matthew Mercer’s work. He has a long and successful voice acting career with a credits sheet so long that scrolling through all of it can take some serious time.
Some of his most well-known voice-acting credits include:
Levi Ackerman; Attack on Titan
Trafalgar Law; One Piece
Seijirou Kikuoka; Sword Art Online
Prince Demande; Sailor Moon
Leorio Paladiknight; Hunter x Hunter
Silver Fullbuster; Fairy Tail
Jotaro Kujo; JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure
Yamato; Naruto & Boruto
Kagaya Ubuyashiki; Demon Slayer
Yusuke Kitagawa; Persona 5
God; Fruits Basket
Falco; Cyberpunk Edgerunners
Tygra; ThunderCats (2011-12)
Superman and Two-Face; DC Super Friends
Leon S. Kennedy; Resident Evil franchise
Gueira; Promare
Chrom; Fire Emblem Engage
Goro Majima; Yakuza: Like a Dragon
Vincent Valentine; Final Fantasy VII Rebirth
Cole Cassidy; Overwatch
Does Matthew Mercer Have a Speech Impediment?
When he was young Mercer had a stutter. He has since worked with a speech therapist to control it. In a 2021 interview with Steve Blum, Mercer said,
“It never really goes away entirely, but I’ve conquered it for the most part. There [were] a lot of years of speech therapy when I was growing up. My father also had a stutter growing up, [which] led to a lot of bullying and a lot of really challenging experiences for him. When he discovered that I also was developing a stutter he helped me out as much as he could – in the ways that he wasn’t helped.
We figured out that my brain was moving too quick from my mouth’s ability to keep up, especially when I got excited. Anyone who watches Critical Role will see there are still times where I get excited and start blurring and slurring!“
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Who Does Matthew Mercer Voice in Overwatch?
Mercer voices the character Cole Cassidy. This character was previously called ‘Jesse McCree’ after a developer at Blizzard. But his name was later changed when the developer was fired for inappropriate behavior.
Happy adventuring!
