Hello, Escapist denizens. I know the topic title sounds redundant and overused, but what do I know. I'm curious as to find out which individuals in the field of voice acting you find to inspire/immerse/humor/sadden/etc you. To be blunt, who is your favorite voice actor, or actors, and/or actress, or actresses? It can be in Japanese anime, video games, animated movies (US and other countries), or even internet series. Or hell, even commercials.

I'll start:

I enjoy Crispin Freeman, Vic Mignogna(sp?), Andy McAvin, Chris Patton, Steve Blum, and Scott McNeill (just a few that I can remember) for actors. I enjoy Tiffany Grant, Monica Rial, Hilary Haag, Kira Vincent Davis, Brianne Sidal, Lisa Ann Beley (and others which I can't think of off the top of my head) for actresses.

Anyone who know how to act goes into my book.

first and foremost Mel Blanc he's the king and no one can even come close to him

tho these guys come a close second

Danny Castellaneta
Harry Shearer
Hank Azaria
Nancy Cartwright
Seth MacFarlane
Seth Green
Phil LaMarr
Billy West
Tara Strong

most anime voice actors just use their normal voice and don't change it at all, so not sure how they can really be all that talented

David Hayter, snake is voiced awsomely. MGS has pretty good voice acting actualy.

Johnny Depp in The Corpse Bride but no one can denounce his talent.

The guy who played Jack Skellington.

Quan's voice (English dub) in The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumia. He captures sarcasm better than any voice actor i have heard for anime. He capturs the character really well when dubbed anime is terrible a lot of the time.

I never find voice actors quite as good as live actors but that is just my opinion.

cleverlymadeup:
first and foremost Mel Blanc he's the king and no one can even come close to him

What about Frank Welker?

Jennifer Hale, who's voice can be found in more games/cartoons than I can count.

Kileakula:
Jennifer Hale, who's voice can be found in more games/cartoons than I can count.

The thing is with Jennifer Hale, is that it's always the same voice, at least it was until Mass Effect. Don't get me wrong, she's a very good voice actress, but she lacks the versatility of someone like Phil LaMarr or the aforementioned Frank Welker

I can't believe I didn't think of Mel Blanc...wow, screw me. I'm glad cleverlymadeup did. And Frank Welker, too. Also Peter Cullen, since we're on a bit of a Transformers beat.

Interesting responses. Thanks, folks. Anyone else want to add their thoughts and favorites?

Tony Jay, odds are if you've played a video game with decent voice talent, you've heard him.
Patrick Stewart is pretty good too.

Tony Jay was brilliant, gave such gravitas to his roles. He'll be sorely missed.

Tony Jay also offered his distinct, awesome voice to Virgil, the bird-like sage from Mighty Max, and that green-suited fellow from that show Bruno the Kid (I don't remember if that's what it was called; Bruce Willis lent his voice for the titular, bespectacled youth Bruno).

nilcypher:
The thing is with Jennifer Hale, is that it's always the same voice, at least it was until Mass Effect. Don't get me wrong, she's a very good voice actress, but she lacks the versatility of someone like Phil LaMarr or the aforementioned Frank Welker

yeah that's like most voice actors, it's just them reading the part and not changing their voice in the slightest, i know a few times Phil just uses his normal voice but not all the time cause i've caught him using the same voice a few times

nilcypher:

What about Frank Welker?

yeah forgot about him, sad that Micheal Bay didn't use his voice for megatron in the transformers movie, the ONLY reason Peter Cullen got the part was cause Bay thought he was the best fit for the voice, he'd never seen anything on the transformers.

so it was just pure luck he got it and had nothing to do with the fans

I remember playing Champions of Norrath, some of my favorite voice actors (not just in that game, but in others as well.) were the bad guy, and the male cleric.

Of course, how could I forget the voice of Payne in Max Payne 1. According to IMDB James McCaffrey is Max in both games, but I seem to remember the first game sounding distinctly better.

Um, for comedy, however, I liked the combination of Bill Farmer and Nick Jameson in "Sam and Max hit the road".

Phil LaMarr definitely has a stock of voices that he uses, but if you compare Samurai Jack to Skelter from Vampire: Bloodlines, you can't deny he has talent.

With regard to the Transformers movie, I read that the reason Bay didn't use Frank Welker is that it didn't fit the new concept for Megatron. To be fair, Hugo Weaving did a pretty good job.

Tony Jay (R.I.P.)

Jim Cummings (Go for the eyes, Boo, go for the eyes!)

Keith David (Was great as Spawn, Goliath in Gargoyles, Vhailor in PS:T and though I wasn't fond of the Arbiter in Halo, he was still good as the voice. And Decker in Fallout!)

Michael Dorn (I am Weasel!! And Marcus in Fallout 2)

Earl Boen (Montaron in Baldur's Gate, LeChuck in Escape and Curse from/of Monkey Island)

Kevin Michael Richardson (I hear him a lot in cartoons, always the big guy, and he is in real life too I guess, first heard him as Pyro in Sacrifice)

Tim Curry (Again, Sacrifice as Stratos, only game I've heard him in...)

Paul Eiding (Once more, Sacrifice! As Eldred, he's also Max Tennyson in Ben 10)

nilcypher:
Phil LaMarr definitely has a stock of voices that he uses, but if you compare Samurai Jack to Skelter from Vampire: Bloodlines, you can't deny he has talent.

oh he is, i don't blame him for using his normal voice a couple times, even the best ones do, i know that the Simpson's actors do it

most of the ppl that are on the Matt Groening stuff have a lot of vocal talent, there is only one person on each show that does only one voice Yeardley Smith and Katey Sagal

it's why i never get autographs of voice actors at conventions i go to, cause they aren't that talented, they just use the same voice over and over

nilcypher:

With regard to the Transformers movie, I read that the reason Bay didn't use Frank Welker is that it didn't fit the new concept for Megatron. To be fair, Hugo Weaving did a pretty good job.

no he just didn't like the voice is all cause Frank's voice had aged and changed so much, Peter getting the voice was pure luck. yeah Hugo did do a good job, not faulting him, i'm placing blame on Michael Bay

Paul Eiding is also Colonel Campbell from the Metal Gear Solid games

cleverlymadeup:

nilcypher:
Phil LaMarr definitely has a stock of voices that he uses, but if you compare Samurai Jack to Skelter from Vampire: Bloodlines, you can't deny he has talent.

oh he is, i don't blame him for using his normal voice a couple times, even the best ones do, i know that the Simpson's actors do it

most of the ppl that are on the Matt Groening stuff have a lot of vocal talent, there is only one person on each show that does only one voice Yeardley Smith and Katey Sagal

it's why i never get autographs of voice actors at conventions i go to, cause they aren't that talented, they just use the same voice over and over

While a wide range of vocalisations isn't a bad thing, is it not better to have one or two that they can do -well- rather that a whole lot that just don't sound good?

i totally forgot about Mark "don't call me Luke" Hamill, since leaving acting cause of being type cast, he went into voice acting and does a ton of voices

cleverlymadeup:
i totally forgot about Mark "don't call me Luke" Hamill, since leaving acting cause of being type cast, he went into voice acting and does a ton of voices

Ahh! Same...hmm, he played the Joker in a number of Batman related media didn't he? Thought he was pretty good in the Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker.

GothmogII:

While a wide range of vocalisations isn't a bad thing, is it not better to have one or two that they can do -well- rather that a whole lot that just don't sound good?

I agree with you there. If it's a choice of quantity over quality, I'll take quality every time, but if I can have both, I'll take it.

GothmogII:

Ahh! Same...hmm, he played the Joker in a number of Batman related media didn't he? Thought he was pretty good in the Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker.

yes he was the joker in batman/superman/justice league and he was also the trickster (in the tv show the Flash and the animated version) and Solomon Grundy

he's actually a big huge comic book geek, he showed up to the Flash tv show and knew more about the characters and their histories than the writers did, they took pointers from him

David Hayter (Solid Snake, Arsene Lupin in The Castle of Caligostro)
Michael Rosenbaum (The Flash in JLU)
Mark Hammil (Many, Many Characters)
Adam West (More than you think...)
All of the Simpsons Voice Actors

Brett Weaver. If the character synopsis on a VA job application says "Raving lunatic", Brett's the man for the job. He scored the role of Kamina in Gurren Lagann before ADV lost it to Bandai.

Blayze:
Brett Weaver. If the character synopsis on a VA job application says "Raving lunatic", Brett's the man for the job. He scored the role of Kamina in Gurren Lagann before ADV lost it to Bandai.

Damnation! He's PERFECT for Kamina, how could they lose it!

Though he has a knack for playing inspiring characters who

*SPOILER*

Bite it early ala. Guy Daigogi!

nilcypher:

Kileakula:
Jennifer Hale, who's voice can be found in more games/cartoons than I can count.

The thing is with Jennifer Hale, is that it's always the same voice, at least it was until Mass Effect. Don't get me wrong, she's a very good voice actress, but she lacks the versatility of someone like Phil LaMarr or the aforementioned Frank Welker

http://youtube.com/watch?v=vuaD6cC5RpA

I think she's got a pretty versatile voice to be honest.

There's alot of good names up already...

I'd add John DiMaggio (Bender, Marcus Fenix, etcetera) and Mike Patton (specifically because the voice of The Darkness was both creepy and hilarious)

ChurchV50:
Mike Patton (specifically because the voice of The Darkness was both creepy and hilarious)

uhhh no Mike is not a voice actor, he's got some good vocal range and can makes some odd noises but he's a musician, more along the lines of scat for his vocal work. he's also the voice of the creatures in I am Legend

he's only done 3 vocal things, the darkness, the mean sphere in portal and the voice of the creatures in I am Legend

Gotta love Reuben Langdon, Daniel Southworth and Johnny Young Bosch because they brought Devil May Cry to life and without them it wouldn't be as awesome as it is now. I just love when they do their taunts. The only problem I have with Johnny is that he's voicing lelouch in code geass and his voice is just too high when doing zero's voice. Need a more darker and manly voice for him.

Yuri Lowenthal is pretty good too especially with the Prince of Persia series, but some of the animes he does just suck.

Steve Downes.

Damnation! He's PERFECT for Kamina, how could they lose it!

Heh. I sent Bandai an email after I learned of the news. I believe some of my exact words were "Will Brett Weaver (The Man) still be voicing Kamina (THE MAN)?"

And I can't believe I forgot Grey DeLisle. Yes, *that* Grey DeLisle. Viconia, Brianna, Nassana, Nalia, Raelis Shai (And a voice in Sacrifice, although I haven't found which one yet. Guess I'll just have to play that most excellent game again...).

Jim Cummings of course ("We follow the path that surely leads to glory! Boo is proud to be here, I can tell!") and Ron "Motherfucking Fallout" Perlman. But who else? Who else indeed, but...

David Warner, that's who! Who is he, I hear you ask? Only the voice of Jonoleth Irenicus from Baldur's Gate 2. Why, you ask?

"Must I be interrupted at every turn? Enough of this!"

"I cannot be caged. I cannot be controlled. Understand this as you die, ever pathetic, ever fools."

"I... I do not remember your love, Ellesime. I have tried to. I have tried to recreate it, to spark it anew in my memory. But it is gone... a hollow, dead thing. For years, I clung to the memory of it. Then the memory of the memory. And then nothing. The Seldarine took that from me, too. I look upon you and I feel nothing. I remember nothing but you turning your back on me, along with all the others. Once my thirst for power was everything. And now I hunger only for revenge. And... I... Will... HAVE IT!!"

my top 4 :)

i'll start with the guys:
- Johnny Depp; Jared Leto; Daniel Craig; Christian Bale;

as for the girls:
- Natalie Portman; Ellen Page; Angelina Jolie; Uma Thurman;

Monnica Belucci. Prince of Persia Anyone?
And whomever it was that did the voie of Gordon Freeman. (See what I did there? :3 )

Richard Moll... you may know him as "Bull" from Night Court, but he's as brilliant in his role as Harvey Dent as Hamill was as the Joker... and he's done other stuff too.

David Scully came to my attention via Halo, but now that I've heard some of his other stuff I'm impressed with his range. (Producers, hire this man. Seriously.)

Dammit, I had a third I wanted to mention but it's gone. Accursed telephone, cease your ringing...

-- Steve

Most of my favorite voice actors because I prefer to watch anime with subtitles rather than dubs.

Mitsuke Saiga - voices young men and butch girls. *happy sigh* She's been in freakin' eeeeeverything.

Mamoru Miyano - probably best known as the voice of Light Yagami in "Deathnote" (which you should watch, yeah you, the guy who doesn't like anime, you should watch it.)

Kazuya Nakai - voiced Mugen in Samurai Champloo. He's getting more work these days, which is good.