Kira Buckland went from being president of her college’s anime club to an established name in the voice acting industry, and I was lucky enough to schedule a quick interview with her for June. Fire Emblem fans will know her as the voice of Princess Eirika Renais in Fire Emblem Heroes. Other notable credits of hers include 2B in NieR: Automata, Julis-Alexia von Riessfeld in The Asterisk War, Bloody Marie in Skullgirl, the Avatar in Xenoblade Chronicles X, and Artemia Venus in Bravely Default and its sequel.

1. Did you have to audition for the role of Eirika? How much did you know about her character going into the voice acting process? Did you know that she was such an iconic heroine within the Fire Emblem Series?

Kira Buckland I know I auditioned for several characters, and I honestly can’t remember whether Eirika was one of them or if I auditioned for someone else and then they cast me as Eirika based off of that audition (it was quite some time ago!) I was definitely aware of the Fire Emblem series beforehand so I knew what it was (though for the audition, they kept a lot of it under wraps because the game hadn’t been announced yet.) I had no idea which characters would be launch characters and which ones would be added later, so when the game first came out I was hoping she’d be in it but she wasn’t yet—thankfully, she was added fairly soon after!

2. Do you relate to Eirika at all? Was there a favorite line or set of lines you got to record for her?

Kira Buckland Since there isn’t a whole lot of voiced dialogue in Heroes, I feel like I didn’t get to explore her personality the way I would have in say, a full game, but I really loved playing her so I hope I get the chance to voice her in something with more dialogue in the future! I enjoy the “Now, it’s my turn!” battle line she has, and then her idle lines where she’s just talking about her brother. She seems very likeable overall, like someone you’d want to sit down and have tea with.

3. What was it like going from a huge fan and connoisseur of anime and video games to an accomplished and successful voice actress? Do you have any advice for fellow superfans who hope to follow in your footsteps?

Kira Buckland I still wouldn’t consider myself as “accomplished and successful” as I’d like to be, but a lot of it in my case was perseverance. I first decided I wanted to become a voice actress at age 16, and I’m 29 now, so I’ve been doing this for a long time (starting out as a hobby, of course.) The best advice anyone ever gave me when I was first starting out was “learn to act”, because voice acting is less about how you sound vocally, and more about how well you can embody the character’s personality through the way you perform the lines. I would also recommend doing it as a hobby on various online sites to get the feel for it and see if it’s something you like doing. That’s how a lot of us practiced early on.

4. Have you ever cosplayed as one of your characters before? If you HAD to go to a con as someone you’ve voiced recently, who would you show up as and why?