New Details Surrounding Ryan Drummond’s 2010 Reaudition for Sonic Revealed

by Stritix July 22, 2023 0 comments

Recently, we made a post to our social media as part of our standard daily posts feature to clarify a few details surrounding Ryan Drummond’s 2010 reaudition for Sonic. Drummond reauditioned for the role of Sonic for the 2010 recast and won the audition, stating he received a formal offer from SEGA of America. Drummond clarified the offer included a request to leave his union, so he rejected the offer as a result.

Retroplayer- Many fans online believe that you are still the best Sonic voice yet, and would love to see you return to the franchise. Is returning to voice Sonic you might ever be interested in doing again?

Ryan- In a heartbeat! I never wanted to leave! But as most of you know, we were all let go by Sega and replaced for reasons too vast to go into right now. There was a glimmer of hope a while back when Generations was being cast. Sega asked me to come to LA and “re-audition” for the role of Sonic because they were doing the same thing to Jason and that cast that they did to us years before. So I went and they were very pleased to have me back and they actually said they were going to have me back and it was going to be this great reunion. Then when the actual offer came to my agent, it was a complete joke. They asked me to leave my union (which is how I make a living), do all kinds of work for no compensation, etc. It was a real slap in the face. I really don’t see it ever happening. Sega is a huge corporation with zillions of dollars and they don’t see any need to change the way they do things. There’s a lot more detail I can’t go into because of legal reasons, but let’s just say that I wish I’d been voicing Sonic all this time, I would return in a heartbeat, but if Sega ever decides to hire me again the devil’s making sno-cones. It’s cool though, I would love to be Sonic again, but I have plenty of VO work without Sega.

Ryan Drummond interviewed by Retroplayer. Interview preserved by Sonic Retro.

We made our social post to clarify Drummond reauditioned for the primary role of Sonic as opposed to a one-off appearance as a third playable Dreamcast Sonic character for Sonic Generations, which is incorrect information being detailed across various Sonic pages. Sonic Generations simply led the recast at the time. Sonic Free Riders would’ve been Drummond’s first title.

Kevin Eva, who is a former SEGA of Europe community manager, responded to our post revealing new details regarding the talent selection process at the time, including Drummond going up against Roger Craig Smith, along with other voice talent.

I’ve talked briefly about this process before, but this is news to me. I suspect that was entirely SOA-politics/US contracts related.

Ryan DID indeed audition, his was notable as he actually provided two readings. One in a more regular voice and one pitched up to sound younger.

We weren’t told people’s names initially. When we heard it, I told the SOE group ‘this guy’s actually trying to sound like Sonic’ which the previous 2 or 3 really hadn’t.

I asked who it was: when they said “Ryan Drummond”. I laughed hard and had to explain to them why.

The judging was based purely on suitability not previous roles on our side. SOE hadn’t looked up anyone’s past roles or anything like that. It was who sounded best for Sonic going forward. And after hearing Roger, the SOE side unanimously (I think) decided he was our pick

For clarity – and just in case anyone thinks otherwise – I’m not in any way disputing what Ryan’s saying here. America may well have indeed told him that.

Kevin Eva, former SEGA of Europe community manager, reveals new details surrounding the 2010 Sonic recast.

We now know SEGA of Europe chose Roger Craig Smith over Ryan Drummond for the role of Sonic. It’s possible there were communication issues between the two branches. It’s also possible SEGA of America gave Drummond an offer without SEGA of Europe’s knowledge. There is still a lot unknown, so it’s difficult to gauge what happened exactly.

Either way, these new details help bring more light to the situation. Hopefully more details will be revealed in time.