The Story of John Bentley, the Voice of Barret in Final Fantasy VII Remake. Part One.
In part one of this two-part interview with voice actor John Bentley, John talks about the beginning of his gaming journey and his methodology for continuous progress in voice acting.
One of Us
As a kid growing up in the South Side of Chicago, John Bentley was a lot of things. He was a reader, thanks to his mom. He was a pint-sized inquisitor with bottomless curiosity. He was a dominant young athlete on any given parking lot. And he was the next big thing coming out of the neighborhood — a growing talent who represented the best of his community.
And then, one day, he became something new.
“I’ll never forget,” John describes with playful awe. “I remember walking through Sears holding my mom’s hand and I said, ‘Ooh! I want that!’”
It was an Atari 2600, beeping and booping on a demo television in all its cartridge-based glory. And like a cannon locked into the arm of a legendary freedom fighter, at that very moment, John Eric Bentley and video games were forever bound together.
“I didn’t think they would get it,” he shrugs as he describes his mother, a staunch educator, and his father, a hard-working man who didn’t quite get the technology. Video games were new and different — definitely a deviation from Bentley normalcy. “I was always told to read. Read, read, read, read, read.” And he did.
Henry Huggins. Hardy Boys. Nancy Drew. Gulliver’s Travels. Comic book after comic book. These weren’t just words on pages, these were John’s first forays into extraordinary stories and heroes. A precursor to the iconic characters he’d play later in life. But as that starry-eyed kid in Sears saw Pong for the first time, he feared one thing: that being in a family that loved reading would disqualify video games as appropriate entertainment.
Thankfully, in his small home right above Leon’s BarBQ on 78th and Cornell, there came a Christmas miracle.
“I lost it,” John shakes his head with a big grin, remembering. “I was running around in our one-bedroom apartment. Running around with the Atari box in my hand. My dad hooked it up and he laughed as he watched my face.”
That’s how John became a gamer. One of us, as they say.
He laughs again as he continues painting a warm picture of those early days and the quaintness of his childhood gaming routine.
A latchkey kid whose parents worked long hours, he’d grab French fries and a small drink for one dollar at Leon’s before heading upstairs. He’d hurry inside, set up his Atari, and just let the good times roll. Homework would be delayed as he got his snack on while saving the world in Space Invaders or escaping into any other pixelated escapade that he wanted. This was his time.
Even then, gaming was more than a hobby to him: it was an occasion to be savored. Something to be appreciated. Most importantly, it was a source of joy when the world was at its worst — a way to find happiness when happiness was in short supply.
“There are certain games that took me on adventures, and I didn’t have to worry about the world at the time,” John says. “When I came out of the game, the world didn’t seem so tough. Most gamers understand that. People who aren’t gamers, they don’t get it.”
This is why, even as a kid, John wore his “nerdom” like a badge of honor. If anything, he looked to excel at being a nerd just as he looked to excel at everything else he did. In his mind, if you’re going to be something, why not be the best version of it?
“People laughed at me because I was the only Black kid with big, Coke-bottle glasses who would be able to talk about video games and straight nerd out. And then I would kick your butt on the football field, or baseball field, or basketball court, or track. That was me coming up in a nutshell.”
This is just how John’s gaming journey started. From the Windy City to football at the University of Minnesota to starting his own family while building a decades-long career in acting and voice acting, that kid from Chicago has “come up” a lot since unwrapping his Atari. Yet, through it all, he’s still that same gamer who plays for nothing but the simple joy of it.
Oh, and he still has the glasses, too.
This is John Bentley, and this is his story.
