Travis Willingham



If authority needs to kick some ass, it needs a proper charismatic voice to do so.

Enter Travis Willingham.

Travis Willingham is one of the more recent voice actors, originally starting out as Col. Roy Mustang in the 2003 anime adaptation of Fullmetal Alchemist. After that, he started getting pigeonholed into voicing characters that are either badasses or have a high rank or status, be it military or some other thing (not to mention a few characters Playing with Fire). He is somewhat memetically popular thanks to his infamous "tiny miniskirts" decree and the fact that "HE LOVES DOGS!" (and he actually does like cute things -- not hard to believe considering his recent role as Mori-senpai). Like Vic Mignogna and Aaron Dismuke's Risembool Rangers, his loyal Miniskirt Army follows him from con to con. He is among the few voice actors to also get many live-action roles.

In 2005, he become famous for his non-anime activities when he took on Monica Rial in a tequila shot contest after an AWA con. Needless to say, the result was hilarious and has come to be known as The Travis Willingham Tequila Story. Multiple versions were told; one by Vic Mignogna, one by Monica Rial, and one by the man himself.

Recently he has begun doing dubbing for many California-based works, as have many other FUNimation voice actors such as Troy Baker and Laura Bailey. And now, he's even living there. He's married to Laura Bailey as of 2011, and thus he's now officially a family man.

Anime Roles

 * Roy Mustang in Fullmetal Alchemist and Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood
 * Portgas D. (Tr)Ace in FUN Piece
 * Andreas Dalton in Code Geass
 * Takashi "Mori" Morinozuka in Ouran High School Host Club
 * Ginko in Mushishi
 * Love Aikawa, Ashido, Charlotte Chulhorne, and Findorr Calius in Bleach
 * Kokuto in Bleach Soul Resurrección. He'll likely reprise the role for Movie 4.
 * The King of Gods in SHUFFLE!! (with Vic Mignogna as the King of Demons)
 * Tougou in School Rumble.
 * Kanda Yu in D.Gray-man
 * The Badass monk Takigawa in Ghost Hunt
 * The Incredible Hulk, Human Torch, Piledriver and Skurge the Executioner in The Superhero Squad Show
 * Free in Soul Eater
 * Iggy in Ergo Proxy
 * Christof Sievernich in Monster
 * Toga Yagari in Vampire Knight
 * Amagiri in Darker than Black
 * Kojuro Katakura in Sengoku Basara
 * Jugo and Zetsu in Naruto
 * Antonio Lopez from Tiger and Bunny

Video Game Roles

 * Guile in Street Fighter IV
 * Sideswipe in Transformers: War for Cybertron (also Hot Rod in the DS version)
 * Knuckles the Echidna and Storm the Albatross in Sonic the Hedgehog (2010-current)
 * Theodore in Persona 3
 * Relius Clover in Blaz Blue
 * Evan Bernard in Time Crisis 4
 * Gabriel Cunningham in Trauma Team
 * Cell in Dragon Ball: Raging Blast, Raging Blast 2, and Tenkaichi Tag Team (replacing Dameon Clarke)
 * Was set to continue voicing Cell in Dragon Ball Kai, but Dameon Clarke (Cell's original voice actor), opted to rejoin the project.
 * Dan Marshall in Binary Domain
 * Yodai Higashizawa in The World Ends With You
 * Tadashi Nikaido in Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Survivor Overclocked
 * Johnny Ariga in Catherine
 * Bacchus D-79 in Star Ocean: The Last Hope
 * Xu Huang and Zhou Tai in Dynasty Warriors 7

Other Roles

 * Surprisingly enough, one of the four young punks at the bar in the live action film Secondhand Lions. Surprising because instead of portraying an authority figure, he plays a rebellious youth with a lot of disdain towards authority.
 * Also the source of one of his favorite stories to tell at conventions, as the director assumed Travis was a stuntman (given the fact that he's tall and quite buff), which resulted in Robert Duvall actually hitting him during the fight scene. After learning that Travis is a regular actor, Duvall apologized profusely and gave him some money to make up for it.

Tropes associated with Travis Willingham

 * Ascended Fanboy: Though he got into it pretty late, he was a massive fan of Dragonball Z and therefore jumped at the chance to voice an anime character. ANY anime character.
 * Authority Equals Asskicking: With Roy Mustang and among others.
 * Badass: A lot of character he voices fit into this.
 * Badass Baritone: A good factor as to why his vocal performances are so effective for this type of character.
 * Celebrity Resemblance: Vocal example; he sounds very similar to Dan Green. Probably at least part of the reason why he took over Dan Green's roles of Knuckles and Storm in the Sonic series.
 * His voice is also very often confused with Patrick Seitz.
 * Friendly Rival: With Vic Mignogna.
 * Gentle Giant: Very tall, but can be a big sweetheart. Exhibit A: Playing Mori for a Honey cosplayer at Kawaii-Con.
 * Huge Guy, Tiny Girl: As he's 6'3", he is most likely to be this with his wife Laura Bailey.
 * Kill It with Fire: the modus operandi of several of the characters he has been cast as in his career, something he himself is happy to point out.
 * Large Ham: Oh YEAH!!! There is a reason why he is called Travis WillingHAM! Apparently he auditioned for Armstrong in the 2003 anime adaptation of Fullmetal Alchemist, but got Roy's part instead.
 * And then there's his performance as Charlotte, which is massively Playing Against Type but still manages to be so absurdly Camp Gay and FABULOUS it borders on ridiculous.
 * Going further than that, there is also Relius. Although given that he looks a lot like the Phantom of the Opera, it was obvious he would be this. And thanks to some leaked footage of the English dub, his performance doesn't disappoint.
 * Order Versus Chaos: if Authority Equals Asskicking rings a bell, a lot of his characters he voices will fall into the "order" side.
 * Pigeonholed Voice Actor: normally the high authority/military figure or law-abiding character who shows his authority by kicking some ass. Roy Mustang, Guile, and recently Knuckles. However, he is slowly moving away from his typecasting ever since he moved to California.
 * Considering one of his most recent roles was Charlotte...mission accomplished.
 * And now he's Relius Clover, practically the furthest character from his pigeonhole, being a Mad Scientist Complete Monster and all. Unless you count that despite his atrocity, Relius is still one of the highest ranking member of NOL and one of the people who could've been stronger than Hazama, thereby adhering to Authority Equals Asskicking.
 * What Did I Do Last Night?: The now famous Travis Willingham tequila story.

"Tropes Will Ruin Your Life, so go home and be a family man. "