Brian Bloom

Brian Bloom’s Unlikely Path from Daytime TV to Gaming Icon

Few careers have taken as sharp and as successful a pivot as Brian Bloom’s. At 14, he appeared opposite Robert De Niro and James Woods in Sergio Leone’s Once Upon a Time in America – a formidable screen debut that led directly to the role of Dusty Donovan on the long-running soap opera As the World Turns. By 15, he had become the youngest winner of a Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Young Leading Man, a record that stood for years. Most actors at that juncture would have doubled down on Hollywood. Bloom did the opposite: he quietly repositioned himself, transitioning out of the soap world and into a career that would eventually plant him at the center of some of gaming’s most defining franchises.

The transition was not immediate. Through the late 1980s and 1990s, Bloom worked steadily across television and film, appearing in Melrose Place, Oz, and CSI: Miami, and landing a co-writing credit on the 2010 A-Team reboot alongside director Joe Carnahan. He also played the film’s antagonist, Pike – a rare instance of an actor co-writing his own villain role in a major studio picture. That combination of writing ability and performance instinct would prove to be his greatest asset in the gaming industry.

Varric Tethras and the Dragon Age Legacy

The character of Varric Tethras in BioWare’s Dragon Age II (2011) represented a genuine creative breakthrough in how video games construct companion characters. Bloom’s interpretation – dry, sardonic, and quietly warm beneath the bravado – gave Varric a texture that made him one of the most discussed and beloved NPCs in the franchise’s history. He reprised the role across Dragon Age: Inquisition and returned for Dragon Age: The Veilguard in 2024, making Varric one of the few characters to anchor multiple mainline entries in a major RPG series. The consistency of that performance across more than a decade reflects something beyond technical craft: it is an understanding of the character’s interior life that holds up under scrutiny as the world around him changes.

Wolfenstein and the Weight of B.J. Blazkowicz

MachineGames’ Wolfenstein reboot in 2014 asked Bloom to carry something considerably heavier than a typical action game protagonist. B.J. Blazkowicz, as written for The New Order, is a man undone by history and rebuilt by rage – and Bloom’s performance brought a melancholy to the character that distinguished the series from genre peers. His work continued through Wolfenstein: The Old Blood and Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus (2017), for which he received a nomination for Best Performance from the Game Awards. Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3 later cast him as Blazkowicz again, extending the character’s reach into the crossover space.

Call of Duty and the Writer-Performer Model

Bloom’s relationship with the Call of Duty franchise is the most commercially significant chapter of his voice career, and the most unusual in its structure. Having contributed voice work across multiple entries, he co-wrote Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare (2016), in which he also starred as Captain Nick Reyes – the game’s central character, modeled on his likeness. The narrative work earned him a WGA nomination for Outstanding Achievement in Video Game Writing. He subsequently served as head writer on Call of Duty: Modern Warfare (2019), the franchise’s highest-grossing entry, and co-wrote Modern Warfare III (2023). The architecture of that involvement – where the voice actor is also the primary author of the fiction – remains largely without precedent in the medium’s mainstream.

Captain America and the Marvel Dimension

Running parallel to his work in BioWare and Activision titles, Bloom has voiced Steve Rogers across a sustained stretch of Marvel properties. Starting with The Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes animated series (2010-2012), he carried the role through Marvel vs. Capcom 3, Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3: The Black Order, Marvel Midnight Suns, and most recently Marvel Cosmic Invasion (2025). The breadth of that Marvel output – spanning animation, fighting games, RPGs, and tactical titles – makes him one of the most consistently cast voices in the character’s animated history.