Lara Croft’s Inaugural Voice Actor Shelley Blond Recalls First Time She Saw ‘Tomb Raider’ Character: ‘I Thought She Was Very Sexy and Very Ballsy’

Shelley Blond, the first voice of Lara Croft, says she immediately saw the character as “very sexy and very ballsy” when she was sent a rough picture before auditioning. Her account looks back at the creation of a character who helped make Tomb Raider a global hit and remains a major figure in games and screen adaptations three decades later.

Blond landed the role in 1995, when she was a new voice actor and it was only her second professional job. She auditioned by recording lines on a cassette recorder and mailing them in, then repeated them on a conference call; the team wanted a delivery like a female James Bond or Indiana Jones. The game’s creators were unsure how an adult-focused game would perform, and Blond says none of them expected Lara to become globally iconic.