Who Is the Voice of Ava on 'Mental Samurai'?

The Fox game show Mental Samurai is as interesting as it sounds. Having been on the air since 2019, it keeps both viewers and contestants on their toes because of its fast pace with $100K on the line. It calls itself "the ultimate obstacle course for the mind," and it definitely lives up to that name by challenging people physically and mentally.

Even though Rob Lowe is the host, he's not the only familiar part of Mental Samurai. There's another voice that fans of the show have come to love. Ava the robot runs the game behind the scenes, according to a clip with Rob and robotics company BEC GmbH, but fans want to know who gives the robot its voice. Here's what we know about what's going on behind the scenes.

According to the Mental Samurai IMDb page, Ava is voiced by actress Natalie Peyser although it says she only worked on the show in 2019. Despite this, she's the only person listed as voicing the robot, and it doesn't sound as if the voice has changed between seasons. Plus, it says she's the person behind the voice in the bio of her Instagram. Other than this, Natalie is known for other projects like Underwater, Smash, and Magic City.

This isn't the first time Natalie's voice has taken center stage. She's worked on other things like the video game Exos Heroes and has done voice-over work for different brands including Subaru, Rice Krispies, Pfizer, and more. Even though her Instagram is private, she does include pictures on her website that show her doing some voice-over work.

If Rob is the face of the show, Ava, or at least the person who controls her, is the mastermind behind the scenes making Mental Samurai that much more compelling to watch. She's the robot in the center of the stage with a capsule at the end of her arm that the contestants sit in. She moves them from each set of questions and shakes them up a little bit to make the questions that much more difficult to answer.

Surely, there's someone working Ava who is making sure that contestants aren't hurt, and that the arm is moved at just the right time and stops in the right place. But this person is never named. In the interview with Rob, the actor also says that everything is run by Ava. He says that she picks the questions and "whips you around in the capsule." But there's more to her than that.

Another part of that video features staff from BEC GmbH, the robotics company that created Ava. They say that Ava is an industrial machine that is certified to work for entertainment. Because of this, she was made with all kinds of different elements like movement, but also lighting, and the lever contestants pull to lock in their answers.

You can watch Mental Samurai on Fox at 9 p.m. EST and on Hulu.