You’re standing on a balcony in North Oak, the neon haze of Night City blurring into a bruised purple sunset. Your character, V, sighs—a raspy, world-weary sound that carries the weight of a dying mercenary. If you’re playing the female version of the protagonist in Cyberpunk 2077, that sigh didn't come from a computer. It came from Cherami Leigh.
Honestly, it’s hard to overstate how much Leigh’s performance defines the game. While Keanu Reeves got the billboards and the "breathtaking" memes, it was the female V voice actor who had to ground the entire emotional arc of a 100-hour RPG. She didn’t just read lines. She lived them.
The Voice Behind the Mercenary
Cherami Leigh isn’t exactly a newcomer. If you’ve watched anime or played a major video game in the last two decades, you’ve heard her. She’s been Lucy in Fairy Tail, Asuna in Sword Art Online, and the no-nonsense Makoto Niijima in Persona 5. But V was different.
V is a character with a ticking clock in her head. Playing that requires a specific kind of desperation mixed with "don't-mess-with-me" grit. Leigh has talked in interviews about the grueling process of recording for Cyberpunk. We’re talking thousands of lines of dialogue, recorded over years, often without knowing exactly how the final scene would look.
Why her V hits differently
Most players who have tried both the male and female paths in Cyberpunk 2077 tend to agree on one thing: the emotional range is vastly different. Gavin Drea (the male V) does a fantastic job with the "street kid" swagger, but Leigh brings a certain vulnerability to the table. When V is talking to Johnny Silverhand about the fear of disappearing, her voice cracks in a way that feels uncomfortably real.
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- The Nuance: She balances the "tough-as-nails merc" persona with a person who is genuinely terrified of dying.
- The Chemistry: Her back-and-forth with Keanu Reeves feels like a genuine, evolving relationship rather than just two actors reading at each other.
- The Range: From the high-octane screams of a firefight to the whispered intimacy of the game’s romance subplots, she covers every inch of the human experience.
More Than Just One Role
If you think Cyberpunk was her peak, you’ve got some catching up to do. Leigh’s resume is basically a "Best Of" list for the gaming industry. She was A2 in NieR: Automata, a role that required a cold, detached intensity. She was Gaige the Mechromancer in Borderlands, which is about as far from V as you can get—high energy, chaotic, and loud.
It’s kind of wild to think about the vocal chords required for this career. One day she’s voicing a bubbly pop-star type in an anime, and the next she’s recording death rattles for a gritty sci-fi epic.
A Texan Start
Leigh actually started out as a child actor in Texas. She was on Walker, Texas Ranger! Imagine going from Chuck Norris’s set to the cybernetic streets of 2077. She also spent a decade as a DJ for Radio Disney, which might explain how she has such incredible control over her pitch and tone.
What Most People Get Wrong About Voice Acting
There’s this misconception that voice acting is just "talking into a mic." For a game like Cyberpunk 2077, it’s essentially a marathon. Leigh had to record lines for every possible choice the player could make.
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Think about that.
Every dialogue tree, every "shut up, Johnny" or "tell me more" option had to be performed with the exact same emotional context as the lines surrounding it, even if they were recorded months apart. It’s a massive feat of memory and character consistency.
Recognition and the "Phantom Liberty" Glow-Up
When the Phantom Liberty expansion dropped, fans were once again floored by Leigh’s performance. The stakes were higher, the writing was tighter, and she somehow found another gear for V’s desperation. She even snagged a BAFTA nomination for her work as V, which is a big deal in an industry that sometimes overlooks the "acting" part of voice acting.
She's often compared to Jennifer Hale’s "FemShep" from Mass Effect. It’s a fair comparison. Both actors took a blank-slate protagonist and gave them a soul so distinct that many fans can’t imagine playing the game any other way.
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Actionable Insights for Fans and Aspiring VAs
If you’re obsessed with her work or looking to get into the booth yourself, here’s the reality of the craft:
- Listen to the silence. Notice how Leigh uses breaths and pauses. It’s not just the words; it’s the air between them that makes V feel human.
- Diversity of roles. If you want to see her range, jump from Cyberpunk to Kotaro Lives Alone on Netflix. She plays a four-year-old boy. The contrast is mind-blowing.
- The "Demo" isn't everything. Leigh’s career was built on decades of small roles and commercial work. There’s no such thing as an overnight success in this booth.
To really appreciate the female V voice actor, you have to play the "Sinnerman" questline or the final rooftop scene. That's where the technical skill ends and the art begins. She didn't just voice a character; she gave players a reason to care if V lived or died.
To dive deeper into the world of Night City, you might want to check out the Cyberpunk: No Coincidence audiobook, which Cherami Leigh also narrated, bringing her iconic voice back to the setting in a completely different format.