Thierry Mercier

Some voices you never forget, and Thierry Mercier's is one of them. Born in Paris in 1961, that deep, slightly gravelly, instantly recognizable voice accompanied decades of movies, TV series, cartoons and video games. An actor but also a singer and musician, Thierry Mercier established himself over the years as one of the great signatures of French dubbing, the kind you identify without even looking at the screen. He passed away in August 2023, at 62, leaving behind a vocal legacy that still echoes in the memory of several generations of viewers.

His career is, first of all, one of remarkable longevity and a rare ability to move from one register to another. He was the regular French voice of Lee Tergesen, making his mark on the series Oz, and one of the French voices of Vin Diesel, whose sheer power he matched perfectly. But his playground didn't stop there: video games owe him a few characters who became cult favorites, like Dominic "Dom" Santiago in the Gears of War saga and Torn in Jak and Daxter, not to mention his forays into animation, where he voiced Goku in Dragon Ball GT and Alibert in Wakfu. A wide palette, from the action hero colossus to gentler characters, always carried by the warm, deep timbre his colleagues loved so much.

For Stargate fans, Thierry Mercier will forever be the voice of Teal'c. He is the one who gave the Jaffa warrior played by Christopher Judge all his gravity, dignity and calm in French, throughout Stargate SG-1 and then in Stargate Atlantis. It's hard to imagine the character any other way: his measured diction and commanding vocal presence fit this warrior of few words and great loyalty perfectly. By voicing Teal'c all those years, he did far more than translate lines; he brought a hero to life in the hearts of French-speaking audiences, and that is also why we want to pay tribute to him here.