Interview with Donna Burke (Silent Hill Paradise)

Date published: 2015.02.21
Source: Silent Hill Paradise

Donna Burke is an Australian singer, voice actress and highly successful business woman. Currently living in Tokyo, Burke not only runs a successful sound production company and talent agency but also has a number of albums under her belt. Not to mention a long list of voice work that is more than highly impressive. 

She has worked on games such as Shenmue, Metal Gear Solid, Final Fantasy and Silent Hill. I wanted to find out a bit more about Burke and her time working on Silent Hill as well as future projects and more.

As Angela Orosco is my all time favorite Silent Hill character, this really was an honor to be able to speak to the voice behind her.

Check out the interview below:

You originate from Perth, Australia but currently live in Tokyo. Did you manage to find your feet well due to the cultural difference or did you settle right in? 

When I came it was just for 2 years and I didn’t think I would be here for long. After 3 years I realized I didn’t want to leave so started studying Japanese but I was never very good at it :( I love living in Tokyo as it is a vibrant, safe and interesting contrast to my home town of Perth, Western Australia. 

What do you love most about Japan? 

The food, the seasons, skiing, mountains, the culture of politeness, the food!

You’ve managed to work with some big names so far, including voice work on Metal Gear Solid, Silent Hill, Final Fantasy and more! What would you say was the most enjoyable to work with and why?

I really loved working on Silent Hill 2 and 3 as it was an acting job that stretched me.. I enjoyed working with a new company from Taiwan called Rayark on a song for their new game Implosion..but I have to say working with Akihiro Honda, Ludvig Forsell and without doubt Hideo Kojima and his team including Sean Eyestone (who also directed me for some voice acting on MGSV). Akirhiro Honda was always cheerful and upbeat - I love non moody people especially at work! Hideo Kojima is also cheerful, full of good humour and yet exact in what he wants. It’s so nice to have a pleasant working atmosphere - whether it’s in a bank, mechanic shop or studio doing voice acting or singing. The people make the work more enjoyable. I could shovel shit all day if my co workers were good people.

Within Silent Hill you voiced Angela Orosco and Claudia Wolf. Out of the two which one appealed to you the most? 

Definitely Claudia - she was amazing!

As we all know Angela has had a rather tragic past, did you find it difficult at all voicing such a sad character? 

Yes, because I didn’t actually know her past when I was acting - it was all hinted at - I never had the whole story spelled out - it was all done scene by scene.

Overall how long did it take to record both Angela and Claudia? Was the recordings set over a period of time or was it recorded all in one go?

This was pre-google calendar but the motion capture took about 5 days each and 1 day of recording the voices. I’m especially proud of my zombie voices in SH3!

Would you like to return to Silent Hill again in the future if the opportunity arose? If so what kind of character would you love to work with? 

Yes and honestly anything - I’ve done a young American girl, manic British psycho villain, now I’m doing a robot voice for Metal Gear Solid V.. I’m sure next up is ..a middle aged man, with small feet..er who has a stutter and is from Fiji??!! Bring it on!

Silent Hill aside, you have released a number of albums, do you have plans for any future releases? 

I do.. I plan to release some tracks this year followed by an album.

You and your husband Bill set up your very own Talent Agency called Dagmusic, How did this come about? And what has been the most rewarding thing about Dagmusic so far? 

There are many things that are rewarding about running a company - it’s very challenging even if it’s a small, boutique agency like mine. Number one is seeing my staff grow and mature. Second is being able to create products like music for games-not just provide talent. Recently Dagmusic did the voice casting and I wrote the lyrics and sang the theme song for Implosion which comes out in April. 

It’s fantastic to be part of the production of something. I’m proud that the vocals for Sins of the Father wore recorded at Capital Records in LA and also at Dagmusic!

And finally you’ve had a hugely impressive career which can only get better and better, out of everything so far that you have achieved what would you say you are the most proud of? 

Sins of the Father is a truly epic song. I remember in 2010 Akihiro told me after I had sung Heavens Divide at an event for Konami that Hideo Kojima wanted me to sing the next song and it would be even better.  We started doing demos in October 2012, then in May 2013 I flew to LA to record the vocals for the E3 trailer and it still is yet to be released which is very exciting knowing how much the fans and also people who don’t even know the game will love it.

I’m working on some exciting things now that the fans will LOVE but..alas, I can’t mention them yet!

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Find out more about Implosion and Dagmusic by clicking the links. You can also keep up to date with Donna Burke via her Facebook Page.