Blast Magazine interviews Josh Keaton on voice acting, what it’s like to voice Spidey, favorite role, being a gamer and comic book fan, and his aspirations for the future:
Q: So you’ve been working on the voice of Peter Parker in The Spectacular Spider-Man — what’s is it like to be the voice of one of the most popular comic book heroes?
A: It’s awesome. Speaking as a geeky comic book reader and gamer, its something I’ve always wanted to do, and I’m glad it turned out this way. It’s daunting, because I know how popular (Spider-Man) is, so I wanted to put forth something I as a fan would want to watch
Q: Do you have to get in character, or do you prepare before going into the studio?
A: Yes, we get scripts a few days in advance, but now that I’ve got to see how the show is put together, I can visualize how it’s going to be (while in the studio). I kind of go back to how I was in high school. I was a total dork and couldn’t get a date-but I was also a child actor … so I guess I have experience with that double life.
Blast’s article also includes 8 publicity photos of Josh. Click here to continue reading the interview.
Elsewhere, Comic Book Resources chats with horror fan favorite Robert Englund (aka “Freddy Kruger”) who is performing the voice of The Vulture in the second season of The Spectacular Spider-Man. Englund discusses the show, voice acting, Spider-Man’s legacy, and his childhood-favorite comics. And here’s an excerpt explaining how he came to work on the series:
I’ve been doing voice-overs off and on for a while. I started with the narration for the John Milius cult surfing film, “Big Wednesday.” I did the narration for that and even before that I did the first IMAX film, “To Fly.” Then there was a period where I was just acting and a couple of years ago I started doing some animation work and it was really fun. I did “The Batman” and I played The Riddler. I did some crazy [show] called “Super Robot Monkey Team Hyperforce Go!” which is apparently this huge hit in Japan. Actually someone told me that they even have a gift shop at Disneyland in Florida. So obviously there is a cool t-shirt somewhere that I need to be wearing.
Then some of the people that I had worked with on, I believe “The Batman,” recommended me and called me in for “The Spectacular Spider-Man.” I’m doing the continuing role of the Vulture on that which is a lot of fun. It’s kind of tricky because my first show was practically all exclamations and screaming so it took me a while to kind of find the voice for him. I didn’t want him to sound like The Riddler and I didn’t want to sound like some of the other characters that had been done on “Spider-Man.”
Sometimes it’s like you have to take what’s left. I’ve done a couple of war movies, like a Vietnam War movie or a WWII movie, and sometimes the scripts aren’t that good. A lot of the soldiers’ roles, their characters are pretty similar so you sort of have to come up with something to differentiate you. Sometimes it’s not really in the writing. Sometimes its just as simple as getting the coolest flight jacket out of wardrobe to make you look different, so sometimes your vocal choices are determined by what’s left, what hasn’t been taken by the other actors.
Previous news: 7.02.2009 — CBR Interviews Josh Keaton