Even the actor behind Kingdom Hearts’ Sephiroth couldn’t beat the ultra-tough boss.

Anyone who has ever tried to 100% Kingdom Hearts knows about the vein-popping Sephiroth secret boss fight. You step into Hercules’ Colosseum, a horror-tinged version of One Winged Angel begins to play, and there he is, all Kingdom Heartsified with belts on his legs and an actual wing creeping through his leather coat, ready to deliver non-stop stabs while he’s protected by about ten health bars, give or take a few.

It’s gruelling, but don’t be disheartened if you struggled with the boss fight. Lance Bass, Sephiroth’s voice actor and former NSYNC band member - a sentence that’ll never stop astounding me - has also never beaten himself.

In a Reddit AMA about his upcoming TV special, one commenter asked about his surprising guest appearance in one of gaming’s infamously hard fights. “Yeah, I’m kinda badass as Sephiroth,” Bass wrote.

“No, I’ve never been able to kill my own character,” he continued. “He is so hard! But definitely one of the biggest surprises, when I tell people I voiced Sephiroth. In fact, I think a lot of people get upset, they get taken aback that I voiced Sephiroth. But God gives you a booming bass voice, and you gotta use it!”

Final Fantasy 7’s big baddie showed up again as an optional boss fight in Kingdom Hearts 2 with a different voice actor attached, and was completely omitted in the threequel. Other renditions of the iconic villain in Final Fantasy 7 Remake and Advent Children are also handled by different actors, but Bass can be satisfied knowing he was the first person to ever lend his “booming bass voice” to Sephiroth.

Another fun fact: Kingdom Hearts’ Sora is voiced by the Oscar-nominated “I see dead people” actor Haley Joel Osment.