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Celebrity Voice Actor: Difference between revisions
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For some reason, celebrities do a lot of voice-acting in big-budget animated movies. Maybe the producers figure more people will see movies with "big-name stars" in them. Maybe John Q. Public just loves his celebrities. Regardless, regular voice actors often get cast aside in favor of someone more famous when a big, important animated movie is made for public consumption.
Sometimes this results in the more [[Genre Savvy]] of viewers not only becoming aware of just who's voicing the characters, but mentally referring to the characters by the actors'
As it turns out, voice actors are not exactly pleased that their jobs are being poached by actors from other disciplines ('''Especially''' [[Billy West]]). Which makes sense, as it implies that the performing skills are interchangeable.
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Often turn out to be examples of [[Ink Suit Actor|Ink Suit Actors.]] See also [[Pop Star Composer]] for the musical equivalent.
{{examples}}
* Nathan Fillion, Adam Baldwin, and Alan Tudyk come together once more in ''[[Halo|Halo 3: ODST]]''. Yes, Bungie Studios is mostly staffed by [[Firefly|Browncoats]].
* [[Trope Codifier|Codified]] by [[Robin Williams]]' role as the Genie in ''[[Aladdin (Disney film)|Aladdin]]''. Also an instance of [[Ink Suit Actor]].
* [[Dreamworks Animation]] is notorious for this trope. Name one movie of theirs that ''doesn't'' have celebrities voicing the characters. They also market these actors ''very'' heavily; if they get a particularly big name, he or she will be [[Billed Above the Title]].
** CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg justifies the practice of hiring celebrities for voice over roles by explaining that most on-camera actors give more "human" performances to characters, while regular voice actors try to come up with too goofy of voices, which is not what he wants.
*** Which is a [[Kick the Dog|pretty big slap in the face to professional voice actors]].
* [[Pixar]] doesn't do this as blatantly as Dreamworks, but they're still very guilty of this trope. All of their films have a cast of familiar faces much better known for on-camera work, assuming they've done any animation at all (beyond appearances on ''[[The Simpsons (animation)|The Simpsons]]''). Their only lead actor to date with extensive voice acting experience is [[Edward Asner]], and even he is [[The Mary Tyler Moore Show|no stranger]] to [[Lou Grant|live action]]. (''[[WALL-E]]'' is an exception to this trend, for obvious reasons.) To their credit, at least after the original ''[[Toy Story (franchise)|Toy Story]]'' ("Starring [[Tom Hanks]] and [[Home Improvement (TV series)|Tim Allen]]!") they haven't been [[Billed Above the Title|shouting this tendency from the rooftops]], unlike Dreamworks.
* Disney also does this outside of the [[Disney Animated Canon]], as evidenced with their American dubs of [[Hayao Miyazaki]]'s films and the ''[[Kingdom Hearts]]'' series (though the latter also employs many regular voice actors as well, considering that there's [[Loads and Loads of Characters]]).
** Speaking of Disney, ''[[Atlantis: The Lost Empire|Atlantis the Lost Empire]]'' had [[Michael J. Fox]] as Milo Thatch, '''[[Leonard Nimoy]]''' as the king of Atlantis, [http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001258/: James Garner] as Rourke, and [http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001815/: Jim Varney].
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* [[The Emperor]] Uriel Septim VII in ''[[The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion]]'' is voiced by [[Patrick Stewart]]... and also doubles as [[Dead Star Walking]].
** And Martin is voiced by [[Sean Bean]].
** Patrick Stewart also provided the voice for Professor Xavier in both of the ''[[X
*** Considering Stewart played the role in the X-Men movies made BEFORE the games, this can hardly count? It makes perfect sense to bring in the same guy as a newer audience associates with the role.
** Back to ''Oblivion''. [[The Dragon]] Mankar Camoran is voiced by [[Terence Stamp]].
** ''[[Skyrim]]'' has quite the list of these. See the [[The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim/Trivia|Trivia]] page for the full list. Notably, Esbern (the narrator of the trailer) is voiced by [[Max Von Sydow]]. Unfortunately some of Esbern's lines were voiced by another actor who tried and failed to imitate von Sydow.
* ''[[The Critic]]'' and ''[[Duckman]]'' both were star-vehicle toons, for Jon Lovitz and Jason Alexander respectively.
* Speaking about doing the voice of Optimus Prime in the live-action ''[[Transformers (film)|Transformers]]'' movies, Peter Cullen remarked that it was great to be working with "the old crew" again (a couple of the voices for the live-action movie were done by the [[The Transformers (animation)|G1]] voice actors), but pointedly made the comment that he "wished he could have worked with [[Frank Welker]] again." A subtle [[Take That]] over the fact that Megatron was voiced by [[The Matrix|Hugo Weaving]] for the live-action movies, given that Frank Welker voiced Soundwave, Ravage, and Devastator in ''[[Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen]]'' (whom Optimus never meets, for different reasons.<ref>Namely, Soundwave never goes to Earth and {{spoiler|Optimus dies; by the time he's revived, Ravage and Devastator were both killed gruesomely}}</ref>
*** ''Dark of the Moon'' adds another example: [[Leonard Nimoy]] as Sentinel Prime.
** Long before that, ''[[Transformers: The Movie]]''. Hoo boy. The movie practically advertised itself by actors alone: [[The Breakfast Club|Judd Nelson]] as Hot Rod, [[Monty Python|Eric Idle]] as Wreck-Gar, Leonard Nimoy as Galvatron, [[Airplane!|Robert Stack]] as Ultra Magnus, and '''[[Orson Welles]] as Unicron'''. [[The Other Darrin|All of them ended up replaced in the TV episodes following the movie]]. The TV show and movie did, however, have the late Scatman Crothers as the voice of Jazz, plus John Moschitta as Blurr.
** ''[[Transformers Animated]]'' has [["Weird Al" Yankovic]] guest-starring in two episodes as Wreck-Gar. Two actors from ''The Transformers: The Movie'' return: Judd Nelson reprises his role as Rodimus for the Season 3 three-part opener, and John Moschitta portrays Blurr once again.
* ''[[Brutal Legend]]'': The voice actor cast reads like a "Who's who" of [[Heavy Metal]] musicians.
* The ''[[Doctor Who]]'' story "[[Doctor Who/Recap/
* [[Ron Perlman]] narrates every ''[[Fallout]]'' game. He does, however, have an extensive background in voice acting as well as screen acting.
** Liam Neeson as the player character's dad in ''[[Fallout 3]]''.
* ''[[Coraline (animation)|Coraline]]'' has Dakota Fanning, Teri Hatcher, and Ian McShane on the cast, however they're barely featured on anything other than the behind-the-scenes featurettes. Also, though most people assumed that the casting of Hatcher is for promotional purposes (because the movie's target audience obviously consists of ''[[Desperate Housewives]]'' fans), her voice acting turns out to be [[So Cool Its Awesome]].
* ''[[Mass Effect]]'' and ''[[Mass Effect 2]]'' stick mostly with "regular" voice actors for most of their casts, but have a few celebrities in each. [[Seth Green]], Lance Henriksen and [[Star Trek: The Next Generation|Marina Sirtis]] qualify for the [[Mass Effect 1|first game]], and Green is joined by [[Claudia Black]], [[The Matrix|Carrie-Anne Moss]], [[Chuck|Yvonne Strahovski]], [[Battlestar Galactica
** Lance Henriksen will be returning for the last piece of [[Downloadable Content|DLC]] for ''[[Mass Effect 2]]''.
** Freddie Prinze, Jr. voices James Vega in [[Mass Effect 3]]. Judging from his interview about he seems psyched for it.
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* Disney did it as early as 1951 with ''[[Alice in Wonderland (Disney film)|Alice in Wonderland]]'', casting Jerry Colonna and Ed Wynn as the March Hare and the Mad Hatter, respectively (both were legendary radio stars at the time).
* ''[[Mobile Suit Gundam]]'' franchise enjoys using celebrities for voice actors, usually people who are already experienced voice actors. Most notably, [[Mark Hildreth]], the T.V. Actor, as Heero Yuy in [[Gundam Wing]], as well as [[Matt Hill]], the world-saving athlete, as Kira Yamato in [[Gundam Seed]].
* Several characters in ''[[Gargoyles]]'' were voiced by the stars of ''[[Star Trek: The
** He didn't appear often, but Brent Spiner turned in a very mischievous Puck ([[The Fair Folk|bizarre]] Puck is apparently more typical of Spiner's roles).
*** In fact, quite a few ''[[Star Trek]]'' alumni turned up: Avery Brooks, LeVar Burton, Michael Dorn, Kate Mulgrew, Nichelle Nichols and Colm Meaney (not to mention some who were in the movies, like Paul Winfield and David Warner). [[wikipedia:List of Gargoyles cast members#Star Trek connection|The Other Wiki now has a full list of actors who worked both on Star Trek and Gargoyles.]]
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** And then subverted with his role as Mace Windu on the ''[[Star Wars: The Clone Wars]]'' TV series being played by Terrence Carson.
* Former child star Andrew Lawrence was the voice of T.J. Detweiler in ''[[Recess]]'' ([[The Other Darrin|from season two onwards]]). Eerily enough, at the time, T.J. looked ''just like him''!
* Chester McBadbat from ''[[The Fairly
* [[Mark Hamill]] has actually become more recognized for being a voice actor than he has for being Luke Skywalker in ''[[Star Wars]]''. He moved onto voice acting in the first place because he was failing as an on-screen actor. He's earned particular recognition for his role as [[The Joker]] in various media.
* Early episodes of ''[[Captain Planet]]'' had such big names as [[Meg Ryan]], [[Martin Sheen]], Sting, [[Jeff Goldblum]] in various villainous roles and [[Whoopi Goldberg]] as Gaya, although by the second and third seasons these had been replaced by professional voice actors.
** Also of note is that [[Tom Cruise]] was attached to voice Cap, but it didn't work out.
* ''[[My Little Pony:
* A notoriously bad live-action example was the English-language dub of Roberto Benigni's ''Pinocchio'' (2002), which used an [[All-Star Cast]]: Breckin Meyer as Pinocchio (whom ''Benigni'' plays onscreen), Glenn Close as the Blue Fairy, and in the supporting roles David Suchet, [[Monty Python|John Cleese, Eric Idle]], Topher Grace, Queen Latifah, Cheech Marin, Eddie Griffin, Kevin James, James Belushi, and Regis Philbin. The quality of the performances varies wildly and no one's work escapes the [[Hong Kong Dub]].
* [[Claudia Black]] made a surprise appearance in the North American dub of ''[[Steel Angel Kurumi]]''.
{{reflist}}
[[Category:Trivia Trope]]
[[Category:Voice Acting Tropes]]
[[Category:
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