INTERVIEW: Troy Baker Turns Cyberpunk in James Cox’s Grand Theft AI

Troy Baker has taken his vocal talents to another level, diving headlong into something he has been ‘stumbling towards inexorably since the beginning.’ The iconic voice actor who has played phenomenal characters in games like The Last of Us, inFamous, BioShock, Far Cry, and Metal Gear Solid has now tackled a ten-hour-long audiobook.

Enter James Cox, award-winning film director and screenwriter, and his debut novel, Grand Theft AI. This alternate-future, sci-fi epic tells a cyberpunk tale that’s effectively kickstarting a universe – one that is scarily possible and intensely immersive.

With all this in mind, I sat down exclusively with Troy Baker and James Cox to learn all about Grand Theft AI and what went into creating it.

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‘Cooking For a Long Time’

If you’d rather jump into the video interview, you can do so below:

James Cox’s career stretches back to the 1990s, and following a string of director and producer roles across a mix of film, television, and music video projects, he has turned to an all-new medium, penning his first novel. In James’ words, the seeds of the story in Grand Theft AI were planted with the creation of the two lead characters, Baz Covane and Ria Rose.

I had the names Baz and Ria before I had any idea about the etymology of it.

I did a lot of true crime stuff, and there was a lot of energy and passion devoted to condemned souls, so to speak. This was the idea of a vibrant love story where you have two damaged, lost souls who come together and are each other’s catalyst to heal and survive.

Grand Theft AI is the culmination of several years of fostering an interest in AI and developing technology. This cyberpunk story takes our potential future and weaves in elements that are just believable enough to be real, such as brain implants that leave users constantly connected to a global network, and the phasing out of traditional currency in favour of cryptocurrency.

It transcends being a simple story about the wonders – and dangers – of technology. It’s a harrowing, emotional journey, along which the reader will come to connect with a host of unique characters. James explained it started life as a script but the prose ‘came out fast and furious’, and before he knew it, he:

…had this character in my heart who had just gone through unspeakable trauma and it just started building outwards and then it just exploded one night.

The origin of Grand Theft AI was explained further by Troy Baker, who portrays every character in Grand Theft AI authentically and memorably in the audiobook:

This is a story that has been cooking inside James for a long time, and to be able to have it come together and coalesce and culminate in a time right now where this is the conversation, I think it’s not even opportune, it’s like fortuitous – it’s fate.

He also aligned nicely on the topic of Grand Theft AI presenting a very possible representation of our future:

It’s not grounded, it’s believable.

I don’t want grounded. My life is grounded, I want to read about somebody else’s experience that is somehow remarkable, which is why I’m reading about it or experiencing it or watching it or playing it. But the thing is, it’s not about being grounded, it’s about being believable, and I believed all of it. I believed the way that the world worked and I believed the characters inside of it.

Fans of games like Cyberpunk 2077, Ghostrunner, Deus Ex, Detroit: Become Human, and Death Stranding will fall in love with Grand Theft AI.

Becoming Baz

I’ve already connected deeply to the character of Baz Covane, the lead in Grand Theft AI. While it was James Cox who created the character and his tragic backstory, it was Troy Baker who brought him to life with a remarkable performance over the ten hours of the audiobook.

I was curious to understand Troy’s perspective and to see if there was a character he’d played previously that he’d compare to Baz Covane.

I don’t know if I could compare him (Baz) to anybody else, and at the same time, I could find the commonality.

For me, I can look and see how this character is so very similar to the tragedy and the triumph and the accomplishments and the tribulations of every character I’ve ever played, but also I feel like every character in this is incredibly unique because of the world that they’re living in and the way that they say it.

Troy explained how he had a deep appreciation for solid storytelling, expressing some concerns he had about picking up his first contract for an audiobook. As he jumped into the booth, he found himself falling in love with the prose and explained how it all unravelled from there:

I was reading as I was going because I wanted to try and at least capture the experience of someone reading this.

There were many times when we got to the end of the chapter and I was like, ‘Wait, what?!’

We’d get some stumbles because of that, but for me, we burned through this book, man. Tthe story is so compelling and to me the characters are real. I didn’t have to do much. This wasn’t, ‘How do you bring these characters to life?’ Like, they’re alive, they’re real.

The Next Step

Speaking about the future of Grand Theft AI, James surprised me with the revelation that a sequel is already written and pending publishing:

I finished it the week my daughter was born, and that was also when we got our pub date for the first book, so it was a lot of lives being born in so many different ways.

I’m assuming sometime next year it’ll hit the stands. It’s all about guys like you and the readers — getting this book to a place where the sequel is salivated for, and then it’s time to bring it out.

I then asked the obvious question and queried whether Troy Baker would be returning, to which he said:

I would love to.

I’m honoured to have been a part of it, but I’m also super grateful that I found a partner that I want to do a bunch of stuff with. Like, that to me is the best part – it’s finding a fellow storyteller that I want to tell more stories with.

I couldn’t be sitting on a call with a gaming legend like Troy Baker and not comment on Grand Theft AI going live-action or receiving a videogame tie-in:

People automatically ask how you’d adapt this as a movie, but me being someone who loves games, I’m always thinking in terms of how would I adapt this into a game.

As I’m reading it, this is a story that I want to play, so who knows, maybe there’s something there.

Grand Theft AI is a phenomenal debut novel, and it was a pleasure to be pulled into the audiobook that exists as a flawless collaboration between James Cox and Troy Baker. I’m excited to see this universe blossom, and if there ever is a live-action adaptation or a videogame tie-in, I’ll be first in line to receive it.

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