Voice Actors, how does the developer choose them?

[Beerfish]

How do you go about chosing voice actors for games? Do the developers have an idea of who they might like to play certain characters and go after them (How did the voice actors for PST get chosen?) Do you contact agents who represent voice actors? Do you sit around a table and say....hmmm I bet David Warner would make a great Irenicus! Just curious.

[Schazzwozzer]

Humorous little anecdote (and this is like thirdhand or so): I understand that when the Bioware guys were writing down descriptions for the characters' voices in KotOR, for the character of Master Vrook, they described him as sounding like Ed Asner. Well, the Lucasarts sound guy actually lived next to Ed Asner. When Bioware gets the voice recordings, they're very surprised by how much Master Vrook sounds like Ed Asner. Sure enough, it was actually Ed Asner's voice. Fun, crazy stuff, I say.