2007:  My agent: “you booked the video game, you record tomorrow.” 

Great!  But, “...what video game?”

“You auditioned for a video game….didn’t you?”  

“I had two or three video game auditions, but a long time ago.”

She said, “this game is called FROZEN.” 

“Huh. Maybe I auditioned for that. But a long time ago.”

She told me where to be and when.

I dug out my daybook and leafed back, trying to find a videogame audition, any videogame audition. Nothing. So I checked the daybook for the previous year (2006) And there it was. My audition for FROZEN had been EXACTLY to- the-DAY one year before I would be recording.

The next day I traveled downtown to Rockstar Games and was greeted by a young woman. I mentioned that I’d auditioned 365 days ago and… “is this normal timing for you guys?” 

She said “oh, no.” She told me that they had had a staff meeting a couple of days earlier to discuss the progress of the game. Somebody asked, “when is the guy recording Kenny Petrovic?”

Everyone was shocked. She asked, “what do you mean? He recorded months ago.”  But the guy said ‘nope.’ So they went over the records and found that the guy (me) had auditioned a year ago, they decided to hire him (me), and… forgot to tell him (me) or schedule him (me) to record.

They hurriedly called my agent and got things moving.

I asked what the game was, since I knew that FROZEN was an alias. She said, “It’s GRAND THEFT AUTO IV.”  I know zilch about video games, but even I recognized that title.

She deposited me in a recording studio where I met the director of the game. He handed me my script. Not really a script, though. Just random lines of Kenny Petrovic. No other characters, no directions. Just bare lines.

What I learned immediately (and what was continually reinforced) was what they DIDN’T want: subtlety. No, no. The director told me over and over, “louder. Louder.”  He was only happy when I was literally yelling into the microphone. If I could find anything suggesting a particular stress or emphasis, I was welcome to try to bring that about, as long as I was yelling.

I was in the booth 2 ½ hours that day, yelling. I’ve always had a strong, resilient voice but by the end of that day, the ol’ cords were fried.

They called me back for further recording three more times over the next weeks. Each visit was shorter than the one before. First, about an hour. Second, about 20 minutes. And finally, really short. On that last occasion I recorded exactly one short line. 

GRAND THEFT AUTO IV was not a biggie in my career. It did bring some interesting sidelights along with it though. For one, I was paid more than I expected. I calculated what I should earn for one full day, one half-day, and two one-hour sessions. When the check arrived it was for about a third more than I’d figured. No complaints.

Also, this job probably impressed my son Jesse more than anything I did. He was sort of a gamer at the time and thought this was pretty cool. One day he called me from his mom’s house and asked if I wanted to see myself in the game. Well, sure. So I toddled over and he showed me Kenny Petrovic in action. I also got to hear myself yelling my brains out. Sorta cool. For thirty seconds, anyway. 

I thanked Jesse and started to leave. He said, “if you want to stick around a couple of minutes while I play the game, I’m about to kill you.”

Nah, that’s okay.

Jesse also insisted that I add the gig to my resume. He was certain that anyone would be fascinated by it. I added it to the bottom of my resume and waited for the avalanche of interest.

That credit was on my resume for the last 7 years I worked. It was handed to dozens, maybe hundreds of people I auditioned for. And in those 7 years, NOT ONE PERSON ever asked about it.