Metal Gear Solid is a series about mystery. Who are the Patriots? What’s become of the Philosophers’ Legacy? What did the Boss really get up to in WW2? What was that noise? Whose footprints are these?
But none of Kojima’s tricksy riddles measure up to the biggest mystery of all: Who on Earth is Suzetta Miñet, the actor credited with playing MGS3’s Eva—a motorcycling Bond girl with the serial numbers filed off—back in 2004? Players have been trying to puzzle it out for years, and yet Konami, Kojima, and Eva’s actor have kept schtum. Until today. Until less than an hour ago at time of writing, actually.
In the third part of Konami’s ongoing Metal Gear Solid Legacy series (put out to gin up enthusiasm for MGS Delta), David Hayter finally sat down with Eva’s voice actor as the studio finally pulled the lid off her identity. Turns out it was Jodi Benson this whole time, as in the voice actor who played Ariel in The Little Mermaid, Barbie in Toy Story, and Thumbelina (in Thumbelina).
Which, actually, isn’t much of a surprise. The thing about Eva is that she sounds uncannily like Ariel from The Little Mermaid, and fans have long theorised—pretty much to the point of it being accepted canon—that Benson has been Eva this whole time. Still, we never got proper confirmation until today, and Benson even explained why.
“The various projects that I am affiliated with in my career are sort of family-based, children-based,” explained Benson. “It was actually Kris Zimmerman Salter—our [voice] director—she kind of sat down with me and she was like ‘Maybe we need to change your name’.”
Eva, you see, is not a family-based or children-based character. She’s a femme fatale who spends the vast majority of the game with her chest out for no real reason beyond Kojima being Kojima, who murders a whole bunch of people, and who regularly suffers at the hands of the game’s main villain Colonel Volgin. Not someone who would blend seamlessly into Benson’s Disney-heavy career.
“So [Salter] asked me, ‘What was your dog’s name growing up?'” explained Benson, who said her dog went by the remarkably upmarket title “Suzette Monet.” Salter worked with that: “‘How about instead of Monet we’ll do Miñet?’ And I was like, ‘Sounds like a deal’,” said Benson.
And so Jodi Benson became Suzetta Miñet, although her real identity was a sort of semi-open secret. In the video, Benson regales Hayter and the Boss’ actress Lori Alan with the tale of a time a fan came up to her with a copy of the game to sign seven years ago. “Do you know my deep dark secret?” Benson asked the anonymous fan, “Shh! Keep it quiet!”
That’s not the only reveal in the 14-minute episode, either. Apparently, Lori Alan had never even seen her work in the game “Until recently,” which is pretty wild given that she plays a character as significant to the entire series as the Boss. Also, neither Benson nor Hayter had ever done a voice-acted love scene before. When it came time to record Snake and Eva getting hot and heavy, it turns out that it consisted entirely of Hayter and Benson sitting in a booth kissing their own hands passionately. It’s gotta be strange work, voice acting.