Very Voice Actors – Nolan North

“The nearest thing the games industry has to a bona fide leading man.”

These are the words The Guardian used to describe today’s featured voice actor: Nolan North.

These words ring very true to this performer’s career. Nolan has made his mark across an unbelievable amount of big title video game series playing a colorful variety of characters and taking on the role of many franchises’ leading men. It seems a developer in need of an “everyday man” jumps right to North. His semi gravel based smooth talking demeanor fits the full hearted, wise-cracking brave hero that seem to crowd the video game market today.

In each of these titles, North plays the leading man:

 

That’s correct! Drake, Desmond, The Prince, Deadpool, and Will from Darkvoid are all voiced by him!

But if that’s not enough for a Nolan fix then you can find him in the Arkham Batman games as The Penguin, the shifty stranger David in The Last of Us, the robot Sigma in Ratchet and Clank, Dr. N. Gin in recent Crash Bandicoot games, Captain Martin Walker in Call of Duty Spec Ops: The Line, and Rocket Raccoon in the Disney Infinity game.

Need more? He’s provided a huge amount of side character voices like the Orcs and Elves in recent Lord of the Rings games, people in the Halo franchise including marines, robots in Portal 2 like Space Core, characters in Team Fortress 2, and roles in Metal Gear Solid 4 (notably the narrator).

Like most great voice actors, however, his talent doesn’t stay in one genre. He’s done plenty of work in tv series like the new TMNT show as Kraang and various side characters, John Jameson and The Green Goblin in The Ultimate Spiderman, Smokescreen in Transformers Prime, Clark Kent/Superboy in Young Justice, Cyclops in Wolverine and the X-men, and many credits for Sanjay and Craig.

Nolan started out in journalism with a baseball scholarship when he attended the University of North Carolina, oddly enough. After a year working as journalist in New Jersey, he packed up his things and moved to New York to work on an acting/stand-up career. Sometime after that he made his way to L.A. where he got his first credited role on the show General Hospital. While he worked on this show he managed to nab a few video game voice over roles. These jobs persuaded him to pursue voice acting for the majority of his career after the end of Hospital’s run.

North dedicates more time to his voice work than most voice actors do. Several of his roles on games were extremely hands-on and required North’s direct involvement through most of production. For instance, his commitment to each Uncharted game lasted anywhere from 16-18 months. Involved with casting, dialogue recording, and motion capture acting, his job wasn’t the basic 4 hour or so session cartoons and other video games generally consist of. It’s a very precise job that involves the voice, the movement, and even ad-libbing.

Put in an acoustically treated area, North (and other actors) suit up in the dot covered costumes and act out each and every cut scene and motion for the animators to reference and work around. Things like punching bags represent where a log will be animated in the video game’s level. Cameras and microphones surround him as he steps over the punching bag/log speaking the lines that are being recorded in real time and will be used in the actual video game’s final product. Filming for these games usually takes about a year with 1-2 scenes filmed per week. So aside from his voice chops, his physical timing and posture have to be on point.

Even improv makes its way into North’s steady work. He says that while the cut scenes in the Uncharted games rarely use ad-libbing, the moments in the actual game play are filled with their on-the-spot dialogue. Not a performer’s skill goes to waste in North’s gigs.

One thing seems to pop up in North’s commentaries and interviews: He’s very grateful to be involved in this booming video game industry that people are finally starting to appreciate for the technology and effort that goes into it.

NEXT EDITION’S FEATURED VOICE ACTOR: Known for his role as Ben 10, a kid with 10 characters, this voice actor certainly has a lot more than that under his belt. It’s Yuri Lowenthal!

Very Voice Actors – Bill Scott

Many cartoon loving people, myself included, have a very soft spot for the Jay Ward cartoon series like Rocky and Bullwinkle and Mr. Peabody and Sherman. Their cultured humor, irregular pacing, and simplistic yet endearing artwork drew us in as children and kept us transfixed as adults. There’s grown an almost familial love in our hearts as we feel twangs of innocence and good times when we see and hear the voices of our favorite characters like Rocket J. Squirrel, Dudley Do-Right, that narrator of Fractured Fairy Tales, and of course the great magic-trick performing, bad advice giving Bullwinkle.

Bill Scott is the man who gave voice to some of the biggest names in the Jay Ward archives. He has the names Dudley Do-Right, Mr. Peabody, George of the Jungle, Super Chicken, AND Bullwinkle surrounding his title.

Ironically, for a man who’s well known for his pipes, Bill was born with tuberculosis and struggled with it as a child. His parents moved from New Jersey to the arid climate of Denver, Colorado. This did indeed help the young boy’s infirmity!

While his prolific voice over career is something to marvel, his writing and artistic career is just as (if not more) extensive and impressive. He discovered his fascination with animation growing up with Felix The Cat. His first job as an artist came to him when he was just a kid. He was payed to paint pictures of characters from the then-recent Disney movie Fantastia live in front of customers and passersby for a downtown department store.

After graduating college he went on teach at a high school for a year, saying later the experience was “traumatic”. He soon decided to enlist in the army and was stationed in the U.S. Army’s “First Motion Picture Unit” where he served under Lt. Ronald Reagan! The First Motion Picture Unit was a powerhouse creator of army films (largely propaganda), and was the first military unit made up of people from the entertainment industry.

When he finished his time with the unit he moved on to several big name writing jobs. He did work for Warner Bros., wrote for the largely popular puppet show Time For Beany, and worked on many projects for “United Productions of America” including the adaptation of Dr. Seuss’s Gerald McBoing-Boing.

Following this path of success he began writing for Jay Ward studios where he was eventually asked to help in the creation of “An adventure story about a moose and a squirrel.” When Ward discovered Bill’s vocal abilities he personally asked him to be the voice of the blundering pun-telling moose in their new series.

While he added onto his work for Jay Ward with voices for Mr. Peabody and Dudley, he continued his writing career. General Mills, a huge sponsor of Rocky and Bullwinkle, had a plethora of ads for Bill to write. He even branched out to on-camera work as well, appearing in The Duck Factory starring Jim Carrey and showcasing other voice talents like Don Messick and Frank Welker.

Bill Scott greatly appreciated the legendary characters he was so privileged to give life to. “I grew up with you!” He says, quoting many he’s met. He acknowledges what a bizarre and rewarding job it is to say: I’m Bullwinkle Moose.

“Why wouldn’t you be proud to say that?”

NEXT EDITION’S FEATURED VOICE ACTOR: First name Michael, last name Rotch…wait that’s not right…First name Hank, last name Azaria. IS THERE A HANK AZARIA IN THE HOUSE???

Very Voice Actors – June Foray

June Foray is one of those legendary legends. A legend of legends.

She’s one of the founding fathers mothers of animation voice acting. A quick a glance at her IMDB will show you her cartoon credits date back to the early forties! Her work goes back even earlier than that, however. Her voice was first aired on a local radio drama when she was just 12 years old. Originally doing radio voice work in and around Springfield, Massachusetts, her home town, she and her family eventually moved to Los Angeles. Her voice credits only grew as she eventually got work on The Jimmy Durante Show and the Lux Radio Theatre.

It’s comical to note the point at which June started working toward her acting career. Her parents were very artistic. Her mother was both a pianist and a singer and pushed June into piano and dance classes. June hated the piano so much that she recalls being overly-thankful when she accidentally broke her fingers at a baseball game. After the ordeal she finally said to her mother ‘I don’t want to play the piano! What I really want to do is act!’ Her parents immediately began sending her to top-notch acting teachers.

So what makes June a legend? Is it her many awards and acclaims through the years including Annie’s for her work on The Garfield show and Tweety and Sylvester Mysteries and the Hollywood Star made in her name? Is it her dedication toward the recognition, appreciation, and growth of the animation industry as a member of ASIFA-Hollywood (a group devoted to promoting the art of film animation)? Perhaps it’s her countless iconic roles as some of the world’s most beloved cartoon characters? How about her undying passion for voice over? Did you know she’s 97 years old…AND STILL WORKING?

Or is it a bit of all of that?

No.

It’s A LOT of all of that!

It’s very difficult to excessively express the talent and importance of June Foray in the world of entertainment.

If there’s any second guessing her relevance, just check out the images below to get a taste of the endless voice credits:

 

                

     

 

Crazy right??? I bet you wouldn’t have guessed that the well known voice of Rocky the flying squirrel was also the classic Talking Tina of the Twilight Zone or nearly every kid from the Rankin Bass Frosty the Snowman or the Granny from Mulan or Cindy Lou Who from the classic How The Grinch Stole Christmas! Her credits don’t stop there! She did voices for two animated characters in Who Framed Roger Rabbit including the weasel “Wheezy”. She was the popular Fortune Teller character from the original Scooby-Doo series. She was the mother, the evil cobra, and the wife bird from Chuck Jone’s Rikki Tikki Tavi.

Want me to go on? Oh I could. I could go on all day!

June brought to her characters a vigor and life that existed no where near mere silly voices. They had energy and complexity. They had life and they had truth.

If you’d like to hear all about a legend’s life directly from her own words, pick up a copy of her autobiography: “Did You Grow Up with Me, Too?” You’ll see deeper into all the corners of your childhood.

NEXT WEEK’S FEATURED VOICE ACTOR: Straight out of Dimension X it’s….Krang- I mean, Pat Fraley!