I think that’s what attracts me to this business, to begin with. Unlike Justin, I didn’t come from a kind of thespian background in this business. I had a ridiculously low voice at a young age and everyone told me I needed to be a radio announcer my whole life so eventually I just did that.

So, I guess, I really do love producing because I…I don’t necessarily love the stress of the schedule, but I do love trying to get things together and trying to assemble the best possible crew for things is really exciting to me and the opportunity to give people work is redeeming. It’s really a nice feeling.

I definitely did my research when this show began production essentially. Because you’re going week-to-week and the pace is so breakneck I feel like it’s important to have some sort of idea where things are headed. Whether that’s checking out a Wikipedia article or reading the entire manga. I try to. As of now, I’m sort of landing on do(ing) as much research as possible.

It sucks because it’s…you don’t feel like you’re part of the story in an episodic sense and so before every, on all the broadcast dub shows I’m actually allowed to go, or on the way to the session or in the car or right in the parking lot before I walk in I’m able to at least once listen to the episode I’m about to work on and that’s a really awesome luxury to have that because then the director doesn’t have to explain as much of what’s happening in the story. You really just get to focus on how to, you know, make your character sound as awesome as you can.

You know, if we’re all a company of actors, everyone is really good at being pretty instinctually right on. Even if you don’t know the context of where you’re character’s going, after you’ve worked on these shows long enough, even though I don’t speak Japanese, I feel like I can understand Japanese sentiment.

Even in cases where there are times when I know for a fact that there are some sounds that are loud when in Japanese culture, that are not meant to be, some sounds…it’s hard to explain this. Maybe you know what I’m talking about, but even though you don’t speak the language you understand how to interpret Japanese to get the read, that correct feeling. You know? Does that make sense?

Sometimes they don’t even have time. They just say we’ve got to get all these done. So I remember working on a game called Deus Ex: Invisible War and they were in such a rush to get my character’s lines finished that my session was basically, “I’d like the rocket launcher, but I don’t have enough money.” “I like the pistol, but I don’t have enough money.” “I like the crossbow, but I don’t have enough money.” “I’ll take the rocket launcher.” “I’ll take the crossbow.” You roll them out so quickly that sometimes you don’t even know.

There have been times where I have gone back and watched things that have happened in the game and thought, “Gosh if I had known that’s the distance between the characters! If had known that my character isn’t even looking at the other character I would have definitely read that differently.

So anime is kind of luxurious because you get to have headphones on. You get to hear the music, the sound effects, and you get to preview it in Japanese. Everything. You get to insert yourself into that world whereas video games you’re kind of at the mercy of how people interpret your lines.

Other voice actors I look up to…I guess cartoons that I watched as a kid. You know, Tom Kenney’s Spongebob I think is just crazy mad. Rob Paulsen doing his Yakko in Animaniacs is just out of control. I tend to look for people who share ranges similar to mine and that are doing incredible things with their voice and think, “Well, maybe I could do that if I really tried.”
And also Chris Sabat.