{"id":8415,"date":"2016-02-17T12:00:05","date_gmt":"2016-02-17T17:00:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.videogamedj.com\/?p=8415"},"modified":"2016-02-07T20:49:10","modified_gmt":"2016-02-08T01:49:10","slug":"12-days-of-magfest-ellen-mclain-portal-and-portal-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gamechops.com\/vgdj\/12-days-of-magfest-ellen-mclain-portal-and-portal-2\/","title":{"rendered":"12 Days of MAGFest: Ellen McLain (Portal and Portal 2)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Of all the video game bad guys I\u2019ve faced&#8211;the Bowsers, the face-huggers, the Giygases, it\u2019s the passive-aggressive homicidal A.I. GLaDOS from Portal and Portal 2 that still gets to me. The final scene haunted my dreams for months after I beat the first Portal. Even just hearing her make fun of me in Poker Night 2 throws off my whole game.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/BhXpat2xZgE\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>None of this is a complaint; I love GLaDOS. Who doesn\u2019t? Some of the most iconic moments Portal were provided by her haunting singing in \u201cStill Alive\u201d and the Turret Opera. But back in 2004, Valve didn\u2019t originally set out to create such a memorable character. They thought they were bringing in veteran actress Ellen McLain for some quick voiceover work.<\/p>\n<p>But with her decades of opera and live theater experience, Ellen made the AI into an integral part of the Portal world, not to mention a role that would win her multiple awards. Ellen encouraged them to develop GLaDOS\u2019 simmering lunacy, as well as her ways of messing with the player\u2019s head. She says her favorite line in the game is, \u201cKilling you and giving you good advice are not mutually exclusive.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Valve didn\u2019t know didn\u2019t know she could sing at first but when the team found out she is a trained soprano, the hustled to find a way to fit a song into Portal. Ellen has also played the voice of totalitarianism as Combine Overwatch in Half-Life 2 and the AI voice of Pacific Rim\u2019s mecha Gipsy Danger.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Portal 2 Turret Opera\" width=\"474\" height=\"267\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/_kPyGvqNn4Y?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Ellen and her husband, fellow voice actor John Patrick Laurie love making the rounds at conventions, where they\u2019ve been known to sing GLaDOS&#8217; signature song with him on banjo\u00a0when asked. They say they love conventions and festivals because they are \u201ctreated like grandparents.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>She told Vice Motherboard in 2015, \u201cI would play GLADoS forever.\u201d<br \/>\nIt seems like Valve would love that. Ellen-as-GLaDOS is even the offical Valve voicemail. Ellen will be one of the many guests at MAGFest, so make sure you stop by. If you\u2019re lucky, maybe you\u2019ll get to hear GLaDOS herself sing \u201cStill Alive.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Portal - &#039;Still Alive&#039;\" width=\"474\" height=\"356\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/Y6ljFaKRTrI?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Of all the video game bad guys I\u2019ve faced&#8211;the Bowsers, the face-huggers, the Giygases, it\u2019s the passive-aggressive homicidal A.I. GLaDOS from Portal and Portal 2 that still gets to me. The final scene haunted my dreams for months after I beat the first Portal. Even just hearing her make fun of me in Poker Night &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/gamechops.com\/vgdj\/12-days-of-magfest-ellen-mclain-portal-and-portal-2\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">12 Days of MAGFest: Ellen McLain (Portal and Portal 2)<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":204,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4229,33,77,327],"tags":[4882,4888,4887,1056,4883,332,4884,4886,60,4885,468],"class_list":["post-8415","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-festivals","category-game-music-vgm","category-gaming","category-videos","tag-ellen-mclain","tag-game-sountrack","tag-glados","tag-magfest","tag-magfest-2016","tag-portal","tag-portal-2","tag-valve","tag-video-games","tag-voice-acting","tag-youtube"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gamechops.com\/vgdj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8415","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gamechops.com\/vgdj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gamechops.com\/vgdj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gamechops.com\/vgdj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/204"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gamechops.com\/vgdj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8415"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/gamechops.com\/vgdj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8415\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8423,"href":"https:\/\/gamechops.com\/vgdj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8415\/revisions\/8423"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gamechops.com\/vgdj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8415"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gamechops.com\/vgdj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8415"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gamechops.com\/vgdj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8415"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}