BAFTA has officially revealed 2024’s BAFTA Breakthrough Cohort, which features 43 must-watch creatives working in films, games, and television from across the UK, US, and India. The Hollywood Handle got the chance to interview Jennifer English and Beth Park, two of this year’s BAFTA Breakthrough members, both of whom have contributed greatly to the gaming industry over the last year and who both worked with each other on 2023’s Game of the Year, Baldur’s Gate 3.
What Is The BAFTA Breakthrough?
BAFTA Breakthrough is the arts charity’s flagship talent initiative supported by Netflix, providing a
springboard to creatives spanning craft specialisms from costume design, production, casting, editing and
games design, to performance, directing, composing and cinematography.
Awarded to those in the midst, or on the cusp, of their breakthrough moment, the year-long initiative
includes one-to-one meetings and career guidance, full voting membership, access to BAFTA events and
screenings, as well as networking events, both in the UK and internationally.
This year’s Breakthrough UK cohort was selected by five specialist sub-committees comprising industry
figures from the world of film, television, craft and tech, unscripted and games with BAFTA and Netflix
representatives. In the US, a jury of leading cross-industry figures including producer Kerstin Emhoff and
actor John David Washington selected this year’s cohort. The Breakthrough India jury was chaired by film
producer and Breakthrough India ambassador Guneet Monga Kapoor, and also featured leading cross-
industry figures including Vice President of Content, Netflix India, Monika Shergill and filmmaker Sushmit
Ghosh.
BAFTA Breakthrough is celebrating its 11th anniversary this year. As an incubator for the industry’s future
change-makers, BAFTA Breakthrough nurtures and encourages peer-to-peer network building. The
programme also taps into BAFTA’s unique global academy of 12,500 creatives through curating a host of
one-to-one meetings with established practitioners. Over 1,500 meetings for Breakthroughs have been set
up to-date. These have included Cillian Murphy, Paul Rudd, Emma Thompson, Danny Boyle, Paul
Greengrass, Barry Jenkins, Martin McDonagh, Abi Morgan, Lesley Manville and Brad Pitt, among many
others.
BAFTA Breakthrough today counts 290 people among its alumni, including Ambika Mod, Bella Ramsey,
Rose Ayling-Ellis, George Robinson, Rina Yang, Paapa Essiedu, Josh O’Connor, Jessie Buckley, Vivian
Oparah and Letitia Wright. Many go on to build very successful careers in the screen arts, creating games,
TV shows and features that achieve national and international industry acclaim, including BAFTA
nominations and wins.
Here’s the full list of this year’s BAFTA Breakthrough cohort:
UK BREAKTHROUGHS (21):
- Alice Russell, Director – If the Streets Were on Fire
- Beth Park, Lead Performance Director – Black Myth: Wukong
- Clair Titley, Director – The Contestant
- Cobbie Yates, Costume Designer – Layla
- Daf James, Creator/Writer/Executive Producer/Musical Director – Lost Boys & Fairies
- Fred Hoffman, Art Director – Paper Trail
- Georgina Hurcombe, Creator/Producer/Director – Pop Paper City
- Harry Gilbert, Casting Director – G’wed
- Jennifer English, Performer – Baldur’s Gate 3
- Kyla Harris*, Lead Performer/Co-Creator/Co-Writer/Associate Producer – We Might Regret This
- Lauren Sequeira, Creator/Writer/Executive Producer – Domino Day
- Lee Getty*, Co-Creator/Co-Writer/Associate Producer – We Might Regret This
- Loran Dunn, Producer – Hoard
- Luna Carmoon, Writer/Director – Hoard
- Luned Tonderai, Series Director – Miriam: Death Of A Reality Star
- Mawaan Rizwan, Performer/Writer/Creator/Executive Producer – Juice
- Otto Baxter, Writer/Director/Performer – The Puppet Asylum
- Poulomi Basu, Creator/Director/Writer/Art Director – MAYA: The Birth of a Superhero
- Rochelle Newman, Producer – White Nanny Black Child
- Shahnaz Dulaimy, Editor – Top Boy
- Sophie Knowles, Lead Artist – Viewfinder
*applied as a team
US BREAKTHROUGHS (13):
- Angela Walker Patton**, Director – Daughters
- Elaine Gómez, Creative Director – Blink Land
- Erica Tremblay, Writer/Director – Fancy Dance
- Hanna Park, Editor – Bottoms
- Jih-E Peng, Cinematographer – Girls Will Be Girls
- Joy Ngiaw, Composer – WondLa
- Juliana Hoffpauir, Costume Designer – Hit Man
- Karrie Shirou Shao, Game Writer/Lead Designer – Pacific Drive
- Nafisa Kaptownwala, Casting Director – Dìdi
- Natalie Rae, Director – Daughters
- Nava Mau, Performer – Baby Reindeer
- Nicole He, Creative Director – The Crush House
- Sean Wang, Writer/Director – Dìdi
**applied as a team
INDIA BREAKTHROUGHS (9):
- Abhinav Chokhavatia, Game Producer – Down and Out
- Christo Tomy, Director – Curry and Cyanide: The Jolly Joseph Case
- Deepa Bhatia, Writer/Director/Producer – First Act
- Dhiman Karmakar, Sound Designer/Production Sound Mixer – Amar Singh Chamkila
- Jaydeep Sarkar, Showrunner/Series Director/Executive Producer – Rainbow Rishta
- Monisha Thyagarajan, Series Producer – The Hunt for Veerappan
- Neeraj Kumar, Producer/Lead Developer – Artifice: War Tactics
- Sindhu Sreenivasa Murthy, Writer/Director/Performer – Aachar & Co.
- Varun Grover, Writer/Director – All India Rank
Interview W/ Jennifer English
Bio: Since graduating from the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire, Jennifer English has become a recognisable figure within the gaming industry and beyond for her acting talents. From featuring gaming titles like Divinity: Original Sin II, Acclaimed Empire, and BAFTA award-winning Elden Ring, to acting in The Old Vic, the Arcola and repertory seasons at Theatre by the Lake, Jennifer has become a familiar voice and face throughout a multitude of industries.
For the last four years, Jennifer has taken her voice and mocap talents to the critically acclaimed Baldur’s Gate III, where she brings the character Shadowheart to life. The game has won multiple awards and if the first video game to win all major game of the year awards (Golden Joysticks, BAFTAs, Game Developers Choice, DICE, and The Game Awards), and a recent poll by BAFTA named Jennifer’s character Shadowheart the 10th most iconic video game characters of all time.
Christopher Mills (THH): My first question for you is how does it feel to be a part of this year’s lineup for the BAFTA breakthrough?
Jennifer English: Oh, it’s what an honour. What an honour. Like, this year’s line-up is so strong, and, yeah, I was not expecting to be chosen. So, I’m so grateful. I feel like I’m on the right track in life. How brilliant.
Christopher Mills (THH): How do your family and friends feel about this achievement for you?
Jennifer English: So I’ve been really tight-lipped because we were told not to tell anyone, but my girlfriend saw the email when it came in and woke me up at 7.30 in the morning, despite, I think we’d just flown into America, so we were so jet-lagged, but she woke me up screaming. She is very proud of me and it’s like one of the greatest achievements of my life.
Christopher Mills (THH): It is a huge lifetime achievement. Honestly, congratulations.
Jennifer English: Thank you so much.
Christopher Mills (THH): My second question for you is, what was most fundamental to achieving the breadth of nuance you did with Shadow Hearts’ emotional journey?
Jennifer English: I mean, we were really lucky that not only did we have four and a half years to make this game, so four and a half years of exploration and time, but also she had brilliant writing and brilliant direction, and I mainly worked with Aliona Baranova and Beth Park, they were kind of the core Shadowheart team. We worked very hard to make her as nuanced and layered as possible, along with John Corcoran, who wrote her, but I think I was lucky in that I resonated a lot with Shadowheart and shared a lot with her.
I mean, I’ve not had a goddess, you know, kind of dictating my life for me but I feel like I have a lot of parallels with her journey and so I put a lot of myself into her, which, you know, feels very vulnerable to do and sometimes it’s easier to put a distance between your characters and I just didn’t with her at all. I just gave myself to it and it just meant that it was a very rewarding and a very difficult journey but, rewarding nonetheless. I’m very proud of what we’ve achieved, and completely blown away with how she’s been received.
Christopher Mills (THH): I’m sure the fans can agree that you’ve done a stunning job at portraying Shadowheart. You mentioned that it took four years, that’s blood sweat and tears poured into this work. How did it feel when it won Game of the Year last year?
Jennifer English: I mean, like we were elated and just so proud of Larian and everyone who’s worked on this game because it’s not just the actors, I know we’re the kind of public-facing ones, but we did so little in comparison to the rest of the team who put their souls into it. I mean, we all put ourselves into it, but they really did put blood, sweat, and tears into this. So it’s just a testament to how much passion and care went into this very beautiful game. Like fucking yeah.
Christopher Mills (THH): It’s hundreds of hours long, people have been doing numerous playthroughs going back in, discovering new things that they haven’t discovered for the first time. It’s probably one of the biggest games to ever come out, just in terms of its grand scale. I think even some people have used Baldur’s Gate 3 as a stepping point to say like, this is what they want to see other games do as well.For Example, a Lord of the Rings game that plays like Baldur’s Gate and it’s interesting to see just how this game has inspired so many people through its story and its gameplay, and the little things that the developers have hidden inside it. It’s honestly amazing to see.
Jennifer English: I think the most I’ve ever heard, we had a fan come up to us and said that they had played, I think 4,500 hours, and they still think they haven’t seen all of the game. That’s insane.
Christopher Mills (THH): I’ve not spent that much time on any video game but honestly it shows you how much people care and love people have for this game. My next question for you was was there any trick to finding the perfect balance of humour and heart?
Jennifer English: We did a lot of playing in the studio. So there would be some lines that we would give a few versions that would be more flippant and with Shadowheart joking around and then others where she really meant what she said. We did so much playing and creating and bouncing ideas around and that was the beauty of having so long on this game is that we had the time to do that. As I said before, I think, I put so much of myself into her, and part of that was her humour and all my humour (laughs) and I think, that kind of was in the writing, but also was also in the direction as well. Our process into that, which was just it was just throwing and playing and exploring.
It was it was really wonderful to do that and I think that’s the beauty of a lot of these characters, especially with Shadowheart there’s that real balance of like, levity, and the depth of her and how emotional and how painful things get for her. There’s also this lighter side and I think if we didn’t have that, it would be very one note. You’d probably feel quite bored of her after a while. So it was a very intentional choice on my part and on the director’s part to, give her as much range as we could because that’s life you know, you can be crying one minute and laughing the next. I certainly do that and I think I did that this morning.
Christopher Mills (THH): You go through a wave of emotions in such a short span of time. My final question for you, is did you ever expect Baldur’s Gate 3 to get as big as it did?
Jennifer English: Absolutely no idea. When it released on Early Access, there was this really lovely little reaction, and I think I got a couple hundred more followers, and that was really exciting and some people were talking about it on Reddit, and I was just like, oh, it’s going to be like that. It might be a little bit more, but It’ll probably stay about the same because that’s what happens with a lot of games that are released. I did Elden Ring, which was a huge game, and admittedly, I was a smaller part in that, but even though the game’s reaction has been huge, and it’s won all of the awards, that didn’t change my life in any way, and most games that you do, don’t, or most projects that one does don’t.
So yeah, I had no clue whatsoever and I’m really glad I didn’t know, because I think I would have added so much pressure onto myself and that wouldn’t have served the character, that wouldn’t have served the story. We just got to focus in our little studio in South London, on honouring that character and exploring that character. So yeah, I think if I’d been thinking about its legacy and reaction, I wouldn’t have done as good a job.
Christopher Mills (THH): I just want to say congratulations on all the hard work that you put in. Congratulations once again on being part of the BAFTA breakthrough for this year. Hoping whatever you’re working on next is just as great as Baldur’s Gate 3, Elden Ring, and all your previous work, and hopefully, it can win Game of the Year again.
Jennifer English: Expedition 33. It’s coming up next year. So, Fingers crossed.
Interview W/ Beth Park
Bio: Since joining the industry in 2019, Beth has worked on some huge titles, and has quickly risen from a freelance director to being the Senior Voice Director at her studio, Pitstop Productions. She casted and directed the dialogue performances for Baldur’s Gate III, among many other titles that are yet to be released.
In her role she has been able to oversee projects and provide the wider creative direction for the games performances, guiding the temporary directors who come and go sporadically on projects. Among the titles which have been released, she has been Lead Director on Harmony: The Fall of Reverie, The Miasma Chronicles, Ghostbusters: Rise of the Ghost Lord and Eiyuden Chronicals: Hundred Heroes. Beth is also a filmmaker, her two short films have qualified for BAFTA and Oscar Qualifying festivals and her feature film is being developed by Hangtime Films. She is a working mum based in Croydon.
Christopher Mills (THH): How does it feel to be a part of this year’s line-up for the BAFTA Breakthrough?
Beth Park: I feel so proud of myself. Yeah, it’s been, you know, lots of years of hard work, and then all these things have come out and to have that recognition from BAFTA, you know, the God standard in our country, you know, worldwide, to have this kind of like giant finger being like, it’s you, you were the winner. It’s just so nice. I do feel like the work that I’ve done and the other people who’ve worked on all of the games that you’ve got demonstrated there, does deserve that recognition. So I do feel kind of like, yeah, we deserve it.
Christopher Mills (THH): It’s 100% deserved and I feel like even with you being part of this breakthrough, it’s not only just you but technically everyone you’ve worked with, because it’s always a team collaborative when it comes to making video games and just art in general.
Beth Park: Definitely, I’d agree with that because, you know, even at Pitstop, the company where I work, you know, there’s multiple directors. There’s a whole team who are kind of organizing the casting project, managing the whole thing. It’s a huge production line and then I kind of get to stand at the front with my gold badge, but it is it’s definitely a team effort.
Christopher Mills (THH): My next question for you is, what was your process for finding the perfect voice for a role? Do you have auditions with a sound in mind or does the voice find you in a sense?
Beth Park: It depends on the game. It depends if we’re doing motion capture or just voice, for example with Baldur’s Gate 3 it was motion capture so it was really kind of to do with the overall character. The presence that the actor has, maybe they’d audition for a goblin or something and then I saw that audition I was like wait a minute I’m not seeing a goblin but I am seeing something else. I’m seeing Tiefling but if it’s just a voice-only audition, it’s to do with how much humanity they bring to the character because it’s not just a voice.
I don’t like it when people just put on a voice because there’s so much underneath that it’s really about. You can literally hear when someone is imagining something, their voice sounds completely different and if it’s just a voice with no imagination behind it, then, you know, they don’t get through. If I can hear that like, they’re in that world, for example, in Black Myth: Wukong, when they take a breath, I can hear where they’re breathing, like before they speak, if that makes sense. So yeah, it’s literally just about imagination, and being in the world.
Christopher Mills (THH): You mentioned Black Myth: Wukong, I actually had a question that I wanted to ask, What is it like working on video games, where it’s dubbing? So with Black Myth: Wukong, English is obviously not the original language, and the same goes for Metaphor: ReFantazio. What’s it like working on games like that?
Beth Park: Sometimes you want to, kind of do something different with the character and so you kind of have to filter what you’ve heard, to what you believe should be the right direction for it, for you to kind of direct the actor. I mean, for example, with both of those games, we had quite a lot of visual information from the developers, like with Black Myth: Wukong, we had almost complete cutscenes. So they were incredibly inspiring for the actors, we could literally just be like, watch this, and they would be amazed. They don’t need to kind of pretend as much when it’s right there in front of them, the music’s playing, and we’d have timed subtitles for them to match the timing to.
Similarly, with Metaphor, ReFantazio, although we didn’t have quite finished visuals, there were a lot of really inspiring visuals for the character. It gives you so much guidance when a game is coming to you much more complete. In some other games, if you’re recording it in English first, loads of other stuff aren’t finished yet. So you don’t have that information. You’re kind of in the dark and you’re thinking, I’m hoping that what the writer has told me about this character is accurate. Occasionally you’ll do a game where you’re like, oh, that is not how I was expecting them to look. The voice doesn’t feel right now.
Christopher Mills (THH): I mean, having just started Metaphor recently, the English dubbing is some of the best that I’ve heard in these video games. I think in general, Atlus is really good with just English dubbing in general, like they get the right people on the job. You’re on Metaphor. You made sure that everyone is as expressive because I think an issue sometimes with English dubbing, specifically with anime is sometimes emotion doesn’t translate as well. In Metaphor, I haven’t heard the original voice but to me, it sounds like the emotion translates perfectly.
Beth Park: I think there’s kind of a history with anime voices where you know you can just kind of do an anime voice and it does the job, it’s okay, no one’s really questioning anything. In our culture people don’t necessarily speak in that way and it’s hard to connect with like an anime voice, we definitely try to go for like just a more darker human and softer tone of voice for that.
Christopher Mills (THH): My next question for you is over the past year you’ve worked on all these games behind me Baldur’s Gate, Black Myth: Wukong, Space Marine 2, Metaphor ReFantazio, how does that feel to work on such big games?
Beth Park: It’s crazy because you know so much hard work, so many years of work, because Baldur’s Gate 3 we started back in 2019, and so all of those things have taken me like to now, and so much of it was like, you know, my physical time and effort and energy going into it in the room with the actors. Whereas now, like, it’s all just digital, it’s like that energy’s kind of all gone into the games, and they’re out there doing their thing, and other people are, you know, enjoying them in their own homes, and that’s quite strange. It’s like one door’s kind of closed because the playtime of making all of those games is over. It’s like new doors are opening, and you know getting this recognition is a lovely kind of final part to being involved in all of those games.
Christopher Mills (THH): I wanted to ask is there anything upcoming that people should expect from you in the next year or so?
Beth Park: I’m working on directing film as well, so I’ve got two short films that I’ve made, Fish Wife, which you can watch on YouTube, and Wild Animal, which is in the festival circuit at the moment, and yeah, I’m developing a feature film, so that’s what to look out for from me, a folk horror feature film.
