Maybe its just me who finds entertaining these interviews with some of the voice actors from The Lion King.
I especially found interesting Nathan Lane’s interview about the dark parts of this movie which I always found unnecessary to the story (Disney seems transfixed in its movie stories with killing parents ((Bambi, Nemo, Lion King)).
But the acting stories I think are fun.
James Earl Jones didn’t think of himself as a voice actor when he voiced the character of Darth Vadar in the Star Wars movies.
He considered himself special effects…that’s all. Except that because of his voice over performance, Jones WAS Darth Vader in a way now costume or visual effect ever could be.
It seems he made $7,000 for his work on the first movie. Just my opinion but I’m guessing he made ooodles more for the sequels.
Courtesy of Doreen Mulman on Facebook, a saw a video featuring interviews with voice talent discussing the challenges of voice actor parts in animation going to celebrity actors and how that impacts their careers.
As I noted recently, sometimes animated movies get picked on for picking celebrities to voice characters primarily because they are marketable celebrities (MJ Lallo offers one funny example). In other cases (I would cite “Toy Story” and “Cars” as two examples) the celebrities chosen to voice are clearly great actors whose transition to voice acting was seamless and superb.
As usual, Pat Fraley offers some really salient insight into the benefits of celebrities working in voice over.
While I applaud the producers desire to tell the story, a little effort properly checking the spelling of the featured actors’ names for the lower third graphics would have gone a long way to making this effort that much more credible.
Sometimes Hollywood actors get crap from non-Hollywood voice actors (of course not me, because I never give anyone crap) about why they were cast as the voices in an animated film.
Well, the voices in the Toy Story series for me have always made me forget who the “big names” were behind the voices. That’s a compliment – that’s how its supposed to be.
And now, watching them exercise their craft in these two videos from Toy Story 3, you may more fully understand why their performances are so amazingly good.
Toy Story 3 comes out tomorrow. The voice actor who plays Andy, the owner of all the toys like ‘Woody’ and ‘Buzz Lightyear’ has provide the character’s voice in all 3 films.
He started when he was 7, the next movie was made when he was in his teens and now, in his mid-twenties, he’s voiced Andy for the 3rd time.
Here’s an interesting interview with voice actor John Morris.
Moderator John Florian with panelists Peter K. O'Connell, Trish Basanyi, David Kaplan & Doug Turkel
Though I publicly warned him that this might be a bad idea and privately promised he could drop me from his panel at any time in favor of someone who could actually offer some valuable content, John Florian of Voice Over Xtra insists he still wants me to speak at VOICE 2010 in L.A. with him, Doug Turkel, Trish Basanyi, and David Kaplan.
John will also unveil the results of his extensive recent industry survey on how voice actors use the Internet at the beginning of this presentation as well.
Our panel on Friday, June 4th at 11 a.m. is entitled “Voice Actors & The Internet”. I am to talk about voice over marketing and the internet…and I’m supposed to cover that in 10 minutes. Factoring in the raucous ovations I’ll get from the crowd just for being there 😉 , that will leave me with 5 minutes. No sweat.
Point here is if ya ain’t yet made yer reservations for this shindig, the only one of its kind for our industry, you really should come and I mean that seriously, not just because I am a presenter. For networking, education and even business opportunities, you need to attend. You are really missing out, I think, if you don’t come. To register, click here.
