Thursday, June 16, 2005

The voice actor's plight

I'm a big fan of Futurama, and really appreciate the amazing voice talent that goes into it, so I read with interest the recent piece from actor, voice actor and all-around geek (that's a compliment) Wil Wheaton. It gave me a new perspective on the plight of voice actors in general.

With that still fresh in my mind, I was surprised and pleased when I saw that this week's The Onion AV Club had an interview with Billy West, who voices Philip J. Fry and a plethora of other major characters on my favourite animated show. A very cool read touching, among other things, on the second-class citizen status of voice actors.

I recommend you take a read of both if you're at all into watching animation. It gives you a different perspective on mass-market animated features like Shrek that use "real" Hollywood actors versus really inventive animated shows that use real voice actors: ones who create a voice for their role, instead of showing up and reading lines in their regular everyday voice. Did Donkey sound like it was anyone other than Eddie Murphy?

No comments: