Stefanie Joosten was born in Roermond, Limburg, in the southeastern Netherlands. She attended the Bisschoppelijk College Broekhin in Roermond, where she followed a bilingual (Dutch and English) course. After growing up obsessed with otaku culture, Joosten decided to study Japanese language and culture at Leiden University.[3] In 2009, she went to Kyoto for a year as part of an exchange program.[1] It was after this experience that she decided she would move to Tokyo after earning her degree back in the Netherlands.[2]
Career
While in Japan, Joosten came into contact with several modeling agencies that happened to specifically seek Western models. She started doing modeling jobs in 2011. After doing numerous small acting roles and commercials,[2] she got a call from a mystery agent who was looking for models to help with an undisclosed video game. Joosten, who had been into Japanese games since childhood,[2] became suspicious when she recognized one of the people during the auditions. She later found out this was the famous video game developer Hideo Kojima, giving her an idea of what she had auditioned for. She was chosen as both the visual and voice model for Quiet, a central female character in the Metal Gear game Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain.[1] Joosten also sang the song "Quiet's Theme" from the game's original soundtrack.
In early 2019, Joosten joined the cast of Spacelords as Sööma.[6] In 2021, she joined the cast of Wanted: Dead, appeared on the soundtrack for the game and also contributed to the project as the lead cinematic director.[7]
Joosten released her debut album, Singing to the Sky, in 2022.[citation needed] It was helmed by Giorgio Moroder as the executive producer, and features songs written by Moroder, Pete Bellotte, and Tom Whitlock.[8] It was the first time in 40 years that Moroder put his name on a record by an emerging artist.[citation needed]Matt Sorum and Kenny Wayne Shepherd made guest appearances on the record.[9][unreliable source]Uncut's Piers Martin praised the songs cowritten by Moroder, but said that "tellingly, the rest of the material is more generic".[8]
