The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom expands on the story building first seen in the 2017 hit Breath of the Wild with even more cinematic cutscenes and many of the main characters (excluding the protagonist Link) now have even more dialogue.
Speaking to Axios recently about her return to the role of Princess Zelda, the English voice of the character and American Canadian VA Patricia Summersett revealed how she drew from an “amalgam of different inspirations” for Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom.
According to the source, she was influenced by “Daenerys Targaryen” (played by Emilia Clarke) in Game of Thrones and took “a little bit” of inspiration from Emma Watson’s Hermione Granger role in Harry Potter and also Mia Farrow (specifically from her role in The Last Unicorn).
As mentioned, this is Summersett’s third outing as Princess Zelda – including the spin-off Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity. And although she’s been part of Link’s journey for some time now, she notes how she’s never actually met the series’ producer Eiji Aonuma.
She also only found out about Tears of the Kingdom when Nintendo ran the initial “first look” teaser in 2019 – mentioning how it’s “normal” for voice actors to find out like this, and developers need to have a “certain amount” of the game created before they bring in talent to record dialogue.