Sean Astinmade a name for himself across multiple generations for acting in massive films and television shows, fromthe 80s stapleThe Gooniesall the way to the throwback sci-fi horror hit seriesStranger Things. Voice acting, however, may be his main focus from now on. While at Fan Expo in San Francisco for a panel hosted by Collider’sArezou Amin, the beloved actor was asked whether he preferred filming in live-action or doing voice-over work. Although he responded “I would never want to answer that question totally straight because you don’t want to jinx the gods,” he admitted he had a special affinity for bringing life to animated characters.
Astin’s animated resume has yet to matchthe titanic live-action titles he’s appeared in, but he’s picked up some bigger projects over the years that have helped the actor fall in love with the medium. “But what I’ll say is, after having done, I’ve done a lot of voice-over stuff that was, I was Oso,Special Agent Oso, did like two years of that for Disney, I did the five years of the (Teenage Mutant NInja)Turtles, I did, I’ve done a bunch of stuff,” he said. “I got to be Shazam, ‘Shazam!’ in the LEGOShazam!, and that was amazing.” These projects weren’t just enjoyable for Astin, but also convenient to act in:
“Most of those shows record in Burbank. I live in Calabasas. To get from my house in Calabasas, you take the 101 Freeway, past the 405, past the right you take the 134, and you get off there, and there’s this kind of enclave, Soundworks. There’s a bunch of different studios. It’s the time. I won’t say the only time. I did a Netflix show,No Good Nick, that was a kid’s show like a sitcom at Netflix. That was like a factory job. But the voice-over stuff is like factory stuff in the best sense. It’s reliable, it’s convenient, it’s comfortable.”
Astin Loves the Process of Bringing Animated Characters to Life
Part of Astin’s love for voice-over work also comes from his appreciation of the teams behind each project. The landscape for animation is a rough one - companies are quick to see the medium as expendable andAI is a looming threat.HBOMax, for example, has been especially harsh toward such projects,removing droves of seriesandcanceling promising animated productionswithout batting an eye to take a tax write-off. Not to mention, individual animators can oftenwork under grueling hours and conditionsthat are unsustainable. Astin saw the dedication of everyone involved first-hand when he stepped into the booth and attested to their elation to actually see their creations get far enough to receive a voice:
“You come in and there’s a kind of, I don’t know. There’s the whole flow of interacting with the engineers and the creative people and by the time you’re doing your work, it’s like they’re so happy that they’re out of a kind of conceptual stage, and now they’re in this performance mode and it’s coming to life quote unquote for them. For us, it’s coming to life because it’s like, look what they did on [unsure] with these incredible illustrations or the if we’re doing, to picture, you can see what they’ve… I mean, I think of it like a monkey in a rocket ship. They built the whole thing, they designed it, they engineered it, they got everyone there, they loaded it up, they got it paid for whatever, then we showed up to sit in it, we do the voice for an hour and everyone’s like ‘oh you were so great as Raphael!’ I’m like ‘Yeah, I was one of a thousand people who did that one,’ whatever.”
Voice acting also feels like a natural progression for Astin after his landmark role inThe Lord of the Ringstrilogy. As Samwise Gamgee, he learned a ton about exploring his voice while preparing toimmerse himself in Middle Earth. He said accompanyingElijah Woodon his adventure to destroy the one ring opened no shortage of doors for him in the voice-acting world that he’s eager to explore in the future:
“But that, the normalcy of it, but just knowing like, learning your voice which we trained for in New Zealand forLord of the Rings. We literally spent a month of like an hour a day or more having sessions with dialect coaches studying breathing, studying you know, how your lip,s and your tongue, and your teeth and where your air sits and like, I couldn’t get a voice-over job before I didLord of the Rings. AfterLord of the Rings, I work regularly in the voice-over world and it’s a direct result of that coaching that I got. So I would never answer that question straight and say definitely voice, but you’re able to tell like I love it.”
Astin is still a busy man withThe Man in the White Vanamong his upcoming projects, but he alsohas a new voice-over role on the horizon that he can’t divulge just yet. “My calendar says I’m working on, I just did… oh, I don’t know if I’m allowed to say.” Following some badgering from the audience, he teased, “This is what it means to be an adult. Do you want the ice cream, the satisfaction in the moment, or do you want to have to do the exercise later when you’re talking to the lawyer about why you… There is a series coming up… what can I teach you? Nope, sorry. Anyhow. The voice stuff is amazing and I love doing it.”
See Astin in theaters this week withHoliday Twist, a new Christmas romantic comedy co-starringKelly Stablesfor whichwe exclusively shared the first trailer. Get a look at the film below and stay tuned here at Collider for more coverage from Fan Expo in San Francisco.
