There was applause, then an empty chair in a recording booth. You replay a line from a game and feel the space where a familiar laugh used to live. I learned Alexander Morton has died at 81, and that silence lands heavier than I expected.
I’m writing as someone who grew up with The Witcher 3 on my screen and Zoltan Chivay in my headphones. You probably met Morton the same way — through a character who sounded like he’d fallen out of an old pub and into a legend. CD Projekt Red confirmed his death; the industry lost one of its warmest, roughest voices.
On a Glasgow street, a young Alexander Morton first heard applause — then trained that sound into a career
Morton was born in Glasgow on March 24, 1945. He refined his craft at the Royal Central School for Speech and Drama from 1965 to 1968, then moved across theater, television, radio, and film with a steady, unshowy mastery.
I watched his career arc like tracking a comet: predictable in its return, surprising in its brightness. He co-founded the Raindog Theatre Company with Robert Carlyle and helped stage a Scots-language Macbeth, proving he could reinvent classics while keeping them raw.
Who voiced Zoltan Chivay in The Witcher 3?
You know the answer before you finish the question: Alexander Morton. He first voiced Zoltan in The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings in 2012 and returned for The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, giving the dwarf a texture that felt lived-in.
Outside a BBC studio, you can hear the breadth of Morton’s work — radio, TV, and a steady presence in genre fiction
He played Golly Mackenzie on Monarch of the Glen and turned up in series like Taggart and Second Sight. On radio he voiced the title role in a BBC adaptation of Bram Stoker’s Dracula and portrayed detective John Rebus for the BBC.
Those credits shaped the voice you hear when Zoltan cracks a joke or spits a warning; the same actor who calmed a radio audience could light a scene on fire the next day. His voice moved between mediums the way a weathered flag moves through a storm — familiar, telling you where the wind’s been.
How old was Alexander Morton when he died?
Morton died at age 81. CD Projekt Red confirmed the news; colleagues and fans have been sharing memories of his warmth and mischief in performance since the announcement.
Behind the curtain of a theater dressing room, Morton’s methods read like a craftsman’s notes
He wasn’t only a character actor; he built relationships that shaped Scottish theater and film. With Raindog Theatre alongside Robert Carlyle, Morton helped create work that honored dialect and local color without flattening it into cliché.
His career was a patchwork quilt of roles — TV character parts, radio leads, and videogame credits — each square stitched with the same care. You can trace a line from Heavenly Sword and Viking: Battle for Asgard back to his stage training and BBC radio discipline.
What other roles did Alexander Morton play?
Beyond Zoltan, Morton’s resume includes stage work with Raindog, TV roles like Golly Mackenzie, radio Dracula, and parts in titles such as Heavenly Sword and Viking: Battle for Asgard. Industry names connected to him include CD Projekt Red, Robert Carlyle, the BBC, and the Royal Central School for Speech and Drama.
At a screen-side late night, players remember Zoltan as both a friend and a foil
For many of us, Morton’s Zoltan was the one who carried a scene’s heart on a grin. He made the dwarf both troublemaker and anchor, a man whose loyalty could be raucous and tender in the same breath.
When I replay his lines, I hear texture: joy threaded with the wear of time. The performance will stand for years; great voice work ages like good whisky, gaining character people can taste at a distance.
Morton’s death raises a question about legacy and casting in big franchises: will CD Projekt Red bring Zoltan back in The Witcher 4, and if they do, who will be brave enough to step into a role Morton made his own?