Dragon Age developer cast Farscape star as Morrigan after hearing her beat poet rendition of noughties rap banger
Dragon Age fan favourite character Morrigan found her voice after Farscape and Stargate SG-1 actress Claudia Black sent in a demo tape containing a surprising recording.
Medieval poetry? Fantasy literature? No, it was Black giving a beat poet rendition of Smack That by Akon (feat. Eminem).
Writing on Bluesky, Dragon Age creator David Gaider today revealed that BioWare had previously wanted Morrigan to be a teenager. There were also plans for the character to be Middle Eastern, though this fell through when legendary actress Shoreh Aghdashloo was no longer available to voice Morrigan’s mum Flemeth.
As plans changed around him, Gaider recalls being given Black’s recording and instantly becoming a fan. The rest is history.
As a reminder, here are (some of) the lyrics to Smack That by Akon (feat. Eminem).
“I lost my goddamn mind,” Gaider wrote. “Yes, I still have the recording. No, you cannot have it.
“Naturally, we jumped on that immediately. As I recall, this was met with resistance from higher up – they had this image of Morrigan as young, like 18 years old (no idea where this came from) and complained that Claudia sounded ‘too old’.
 
																			