Matthew Mercer
Mercer in May 2023
Born	Matthew Christopher Miller Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, U.S.
Occupations	Voice actor game designer[1][2] chief creative officer[3]
Years active	2004–present
Spouse	Marisha Ray ​ (m. 2017)​

Matthew Christopher Miller, better known asMatthew Mercer, is an American voice actor and game designer. He has provided voice work for cartoons, animations, video games, and English dubs of anime.

In anime, Mercer voicesLevi Ackerman inAttack on Titan,Kiritsugu Emiya inFate/Zero,Jotaro Kujo inJoJo's Bizarre Adventure,Tony Stark / Iron Man inIron Man: Rise of Technovore andAvengers Confidential: Black Widow and Punisher, Aikurō Mikisugi inKill la Kill,Kanji Tatsumi during the second half ofPersona 4: The Animation, the second voice of Yamato inNaruto,Trafalgar Law in theFunimation dub ofOne Piece, Hit inDragon Ball Super, Seijirou Kikuoka inSword Art Online, Falco inCyberpunk: Edgerunners, andLeorio inHunter x Hunter.

In video games, Mercer has voicedLeon S. Kennedy inResident Evil 6,Ganondorf inThe Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom,Kurtis Stryker inMortal Kombat 9,Chrom and Ryoma inFire Emblem, Jack Cooper inTitanfall 2, Espio the Chameleon inSonic the Hedgehog,Deadshot inInjustice 2,Cole Cassidy (formerly Jesse McCree) inOverwatch,Yusuke Kitagawa inPersona 5, MacCready inFallout 4, Midas and Syd inFortnite: Battle Royale andFortnite: Save the World respectively, Edér Teylecg and Aloth Corfiser inPillars of Eternity, Ex inPuyo Puyo Tetris, Gangplank and Kindred's Wolf inLeague of Legends, Walter inShin Megami Tensei IV, Ira inKingdom Hearts,Goro Majima inYakuza: Like a Dragon,Vincent Valentine fromFinal Fantasy VII Rebirth, Albert Genette inAce Combat 5 andVecna inDead by Daylight.

In addition to his voice acting work, Mercer has developed and served as theDungeon Master for theDungeons & Dragons web seriesCritical Role since it premiered in 2015.^[4] He is also a game designer^[1][2] and thechief creative officer ofCritical Role Productions.^[3]

Matthew Christopher Miller was born inPalm Beach Gardens, Florida. He is primarily ofScottish descent.^[5] His family moved toLos Angeles when he was eight years old.^[5] He attendedAgoura High School inAgoura Hills, California.^[6] He has a brother who is a musician under thestage name Dave Heatwave. He spoke with astutter when he was young, leading his father (who also stuttered) to recruit aspeech therapist who managed to reduce the effects to the point that only certain words trigger it.^[5] He adopted "Mercer" (which members of his family had used in the past) as his stage surname because his birth name was too similar to someone already represented bySAG-AFTRA.^[5] He had a stint as a member ofThe Groundlings.^[6]

Mercer's family advised him against moving into theatre as a career, and so he initially considered working in animation. He was dissuaded by advice from professional animators about the working conditions in that field however, and joined the games industry instead. In his early career he worked as a QA tester and later associate producer on a number ofEdutainment titles developed bySound Source Interactive andTDK Mediactive. After "friends of his father got him some odd jobs in voiceover", Mercer decided to pursue the profession, and resigned from his game development job.^[7][8]

Mercer began his voice acting career performing Englishwalla and additional characters in several Japanese anime, and has since also worked in cartoons, video games, and radio commercials. He has been a guest at conventions around the world, hosting at events such asAnime Expo andAnime Matsuri. His work has expanded to a multitude of roles in cartoons, video games and radio commercials. He directed and produced theweb seriesThere Will Be Brawl,^[9] based on theSuper Smash Bros. video game series, where he provided the voices for bothMeta Knight andKirby, and portrayed the role ofGanondorf. He also acted in several shows from theGeek & Sundry andNerdist networks and produced the web seriesFear News with the Last Girl forFEARnet which was a 2010Webby Awards Honoree for the Experimental & Weird category.^[10]

In 2016, Mercer served as theDungeon Master forForce Grey: Giant Hunters, which ran for 2 seasons.^[11] In 2017, he was the Dungeon Master for the Nerdist showCelebriD&D, which puts D&D-playing celebrities into a small, mini-campaign where they are paired with role-players.^[12] He has also been a player in otheractual play web series such asDimension 20 andL.A. by Night.^[13][14]

Mercer is the Dungeon Master of the web seriesCritical Role,^[4] which launched on Geek & Sundry in 2015, where he leads several other voice actors through aDungeons & Dragons campaign.^[15][16] Critical Role was both the Webby Winner and the People's Voice Winner in the "Games (Video Series & Channels)" category at the 2019 Webby Awards;^[3] the show was also both a Finalist and the Audience Honor Winner in the "Games" category at the 2019Shorty Awards.^[17] Luke Winkie, in ahuman-interest story forSlate, called Mercer "an expert improviser" and "a maestro with the dice in his hands, weaving interlocking plot lines and complex thematic threads out of thin air" with "the innate ability to make aDungeons & Dragons campaign feel like a tightly wound limited drama".^[18] Winkie commented that "it can be downright intimidating to watch Mercer when he's at the peak of his powers. As a career voice actor, he possesses all of the subtle performance intangibles that saturate his storytelling with life: the timing, the verve, the language flourishes".^[18]

After becoming hugely successful, theCritical Role cast left the Geek & Sundry network in early 2019 and set up their own production company,Critical Role Productions;^{[19][20][21][22]} Mercer is the company'schief creative officer.^[3] Soon after, they aimed to raise $750,000 onKickstarter to create an animated series of their first campaign, but ended up raising over $11 million.^[23] In November 2019,Amazon Prime Video announced that they had acquired the streaming rights to this animated series, now titledThe Legend of Vox Machina;^[24][25] Mercer reprised his role as Sylas Briarwood and other characters.^[26][27]

In October 2020, Mercer became the creative advisor for the Critical Role board and card gameimprint calledDarrington Press.^[28] From June to August 2021, Mercer appeared onExandria Unlimited, a spinoff ofCritical Role, as a player.^[29][30][31] In March 2022, he reprised his role in the two part specialExandria Unlimited: Kymal.^[32][33]

Hayley McCullough, for theAmerican Journalism, commented that "Mercer is well-known for his homebrew mechanics, character classes, and feats".^[34] Mercer's work as Dungeon Master has led to the development of threecampaign setting books being published about his world ofExandria. The first is theCritical Role: Tal'Dorei Campaign Setting (2017) published throughGreen Ronin Publishing.^[1] The second is theExplorer's Guide to Wildemount (2020) published throughWizards of the Coast, thus making Exandria an officialDungeons & Dragons campaign setting.^[2][35] The third isTal'Dorei Campaign Setting Reborn (2022), a revised and expanded edition of theTal'Dorei Campaign Setting, which was published by Darrington Press, the publishing label created by Critical Role Productions.^[36]Tal'Dorei Campaign Setting Reborn was nominated for the 2022ENNIE Awards in the "Best Setting" category.^[37]

On March 15, 2022, a new adventure module titledCritical Role: Call of the Netherdeep (2022), with Mercer, James Haeck andChris Perkins as lead designers, was released. It is the second collaboration book between Wizards of the Coast and Critical Role Productions.^[38][39] Mercer was then a consultant on the upcomingDungeon Master's Guide (2024) for therevised 5th Edition ofDungeons & Dragons.^[40]

Mercer began dating voice actress andCritical Role co-starMarisha Ray in 2011, and they were engaged in 2016 before marrying on October 21, 2017.^[41] The video of his proposal became popular among fans as it involved an entireescape room game he secretly created with theCritical Role cast as a surprise for Ray.^[42] They live inLos Angeles and have a pet corgi named Omar.^[43]

Mercer said in 2017 that, while he isheterosexual, he has also been attracted to men in the past and experiencedhomophobia while growing up as a boy who liked to experiment with an androgynous appearance.^[44] He explained that he tries his best in storytelling to also represent the experiences of closeLGBT family and friends.^[44] As an activist, he works with variousLGBT rights charities likeOutRight Action International.^[45] In 2018, he revealed that he suffers frombody dysmorphic disorder and has always struggled with his physical appearance.^[5]

• Critical Role: Tal'Dorei Campaign Setting (writer,Green Ronin Publishing, 2017)^[1]
• Explorer's Guide to Wildemount (writer,Wizards of the Coast, 2020)^[35]
• Doom Eternal Assault on Armaros Station (writer,Critical Role Productions, 2020)^[178]
• Tal'Dorei Campaign Setting Reborn (writer,Darrington Press, 2022)^[179]
• Critical Role: Call of the Netherdeep (writer, Wizards of the Coast, 2022)^[38]

Wikimedia Commons has media related toMatthew Mercer.

• Matthew Mercer onTwitter
• Matthew Mercer convention appearances on AnimeCons.com
• Matthew Mercer atAnime News Network's encyclopedia
• Matthew Mercer atIMDb

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