Clair Obscur: Expedition 33's Monoco actor reveals that Ben Starr "was wrong" about the game's launch

Rich Keeble, the actor who plays Monoco in Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, is the latest guest in our Arcade Hang interview series. And in the chat, he reveals that his co-star Ben Starr was staggeringly incorrect in predicting how well the game's launch would go down.

You can watch our conversation over on YouTube — where we get into the origins of the Monoco role, Keeble's reaction to the game's success, and a whole lot more — or you can read on for some choice quotes.

Recalling how the role of Monoco was first described to him, Keeble tells us, “It just said 'rich, deep, booming' for the voice, and it did show a little image of him, which, I couldn't really work out what was going on, to be honest.

Having done booming voices before, Keeble got to work. He remembers, "They did tell me a bit about him in the audition, and the script just seemed to be quite funny, so I just did it fairly deadpan and throwaway."

"But when I booked it, they gave a lot more information," Keeble notes. This included "his loyalty with Verso" and even "a little backstory that we didn't explore in the games."

Speaking of Verso (the mysterious antihero and Monoco's bestie, played by Final Fantasy legend Ben Starr), Keeble recalls feeling his winning influence fairly early on in proceedings.

"When we were doing the [recording] sessions, that scene I did where we meet Monoco, [with the famous line] "There will be a lot of fighting", Ben had already recorded his lines, and that really helped, I think, set the tone, because it was just, 'Okay, we're doing this'.

"I remember thinking, 'Oh yeah, we're doing this properly'. You know, that's me sucking up to Ben there, but because he was really good and really kind of truthful, understated, but it felt quite funny, but not trying too hard. I think that set the tone quite early on."

And what happened next after the recording was finished? "I started to get a bit nervous before the game came out," Keeble recalls, "when they were posting all the trailers that were getting loads of views, and I just saw the sort of the Twitter follower account of the game going up and up and up. I did start to get a bit nervous.

"And I did reach out to Ben, just to have a coffee and talk about it. And yeah, about a week or two before the game came out, he was like, 'Look, I think the game's gonna do well. Lightning doesn't strike twice. I don't think it's gonna be a Baldur’s Gate 3-type, you know, Metacritic 80-something. You know, I think it'll do well, but I'm just managing your expectations.

"And we laughed about that recently, he was just like, 'Yeah, I was wrong'. It's just become this thing. It's like a movement, isn't it? I've just seen so many people leaning into the cosplay and everything, and it's been wonderful."

What has this been like for Keeble to see the game’s Starr-disproving success, from its 92 on Metacritic to the stacks of Game Awards and Golden Joysticks on the mantlepiece of developer Sandfall Interactive?

"Well, it's quite surreal really," says Keeble. "I still can't quite believe it. I mean, when I was at the Golden Joysticks, that was the first of the big five, wasn't it? And I hadn't actually been invited. I managed to get on a table. I should say thank you to Amy and JJ at the Future Game Show.

"So I was squeezed in on a table with a handwritten place name, and I think it was Sam Béart who turned to me and said, 'Rich, I don't wanna patronise you, but when you win Game of the Year, you have to get up on that stage'. And I was just like, 'Well, let’s see how we go, shall we?'

"But, you know, we'd won every category that passed. I was messaging my wife going, 'Won another one, won another one'. I still didn't really think it was a dead cert. And of course, afterwards, everyone said, 'Well, of course, you're gonna win'. I didn't know. You know, there's a lot of other good games there. You know, we were up against Kingdom Come [Deliverance II] and Silksong and various other games.

"But yeah, it seems to have carried on to The Game Awards as well. You know, I went there and I couldn't believe that we were necessarily going to win. I mean, obviously, they started it off with a performance of the music. But I still was quite genuinely aghast when we did win.

"And here we are, going up to BAFTA. It still hasn't quite sunk in, I don't think. But the game's been out nearly a year, and I still can't quite get my head around it, really, that people are still excited about it.

"It's great. It's a wonderful thing, and I'm still excited about it. But, you know, I can't believe how lucky I got, really."

Of course, it was a great performance from Keeble, rather than luck, that put him at the centre of this smash hit success story.

And with the game being the most-nominated title at this Friday’s BAFTA Games Awards, there could be more celebrations to come!

If you’re hungry for more Keeble content, stay tuned for extra excerpts from this interview over the next few weeks, and make sure you've subscribed to the Radio Times Gaming YouTube channel.

See more Arcade Hang interviews on YouTube:

• Devora Wilde talks Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 future
• Neil Newbon talks Dungeons & Dragons & Dramas
• Karlach actor Samantha Béart talks Baldur's Gate 3 and more
• House of the Dragon star Abubakar Salim chats Dead Take
• Glenn Moore, Sarah Keyworth and Pierre Novellie talk Button Boys podcast

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