VoiceActing Tagged Articles at Cinematical

It wasn't until fairly recently that voice acting in video games was done by either no-name actors trying to pay the bills or B- and C-list actors who were, well, also trying to pay the bills. The Command and Conquer games began employing a mixed bag of actors in its 1999 iteration, Command and Conquer: Tiberian Sun, when they managed to snag Luke Skywalker's big daddy James Earl Jones, but otherwise continued casting random character actors like Udo Kier and Barry Corbin in future games like Command and Conquer: Red Alert 2.

Grand Theft Auto III changed the game, literally, with its roster of recognizable names and voices like Joe Pantoliano, Michael Madsen, Michael Rapaport, Debi Mazar, and Kyle MacLachlan all playing parts in the free-for-all crime cape that make Rockstar Games just that. With GTA III's massive sales and buzz (particularly from angry parents), the scene was set for Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, which boasted an over-the-top cast particularly appealing to its target audience: Dennis Hopper, Danny Trejo, Gary Busey, Lee Majors, Debbie Harry, Ray Liotta, Tom Sizemore, and Jenna Jameson, just to name a few.

Quick! Who played the title role in WALL-E? If you answered "Ben Burtt," chances are you're either a hard-core geek or someone who stayed for the credits and thought, "Who the heck is Ben Burtt?" Burtt, well known to Star Wars and Spielberg fans for his superb work as a sound designer -- he's won two Oscars and received two Special Achievement Awards from the Academy -- picked up his first credit as an actor for providing WALL-E with a voice. And he drives home the point that cartoons, or "animated films" if you prefer, don't need celebrity voices anymore.

Once upon a time, Robin Williams agreed to voice the part of Genie in Disney's Aladdin. Disney decided to capitalize on his stardom and advertised his supporting role heavily, probably the first time a celebrity voice was used to sell an animated film. Aladdin became the biggest hit of the year. This was the tipping point. Millions of adults, notably those without children who hadn't been convinced by the previous year's Beauty and the Beast, decided that cartoons were not just for kids anymore.

The rest is history. Celebrity voices became the norm, and if one celebrity helped bring in the box office bucks, three or five or seven must be even better, and voice casts soon became filled with celebs both major and minor. Celebs had another advantage: they could give interviews and go on talk shows to promote the movie. Inevitably they'd say, "I wanted to do something my kids could see."