Read our exclusive interview with actor, voice actor, singer and music producer Josh Keaton, whose career has spanned the mediums of television, video games and film. Keaton will next be heard voicing Hal Jordan in Comedy Central’s ‘Green Lantern: The Animated Series,’ which premieres on September 5, 2011. He will then be heard as The Amazing Spider-Man in the video game Spider Man: Edge of Time, which is set to hit stores in October 2011. Keaton discusses with us, among other things, how the television series and video game differ from their respective big screen adaptations, and how acting in life action series is different than voicing video games and animated series.
Shockya (SY): You will be voicing Hal Jordan in Comedy Central’s upcoming ‘Green Lantern: The Animated Series.’ It has been reported that the show won’t be an origins story to this summer’s DC Entertainment film ‘Green Lantern.’ What will the series focus on?
Josh Keaton (JK): The series focuses on Hal and Kilowog as they patrol Frontier Space. Although stuff happens on Earth, it’s not an Earth-based show – it takes place all over the cosmos.
SY: While the DC comic series The Green Lantern has been a fan favorite and has won awards since its debut in the 1940s, the Ryan Reynolds film opened to poor reviews and has had a lackluster box office gross. Why should devoted Green Lantern fans who were disappointed with the film watch the animated series?
JK: Comic based movies are tough to knock out of the park because a big part of the audience the filmmakers are intending to capture is not going to be familiar with the source material so a lot of stuff gets truncated and otherwise changed up; whereas with a show, there’s a lot more time to explore the characters and more opportunity to tell more than one story. Fans that watch our show will get to see more stories, and many more characters than the film was able to use.
SY: In the video game universe, you are next set to voice The Amazing Spider-Man in Spider Man: Edge of Time, which will feature a new “cause-and-effect” gameplay system where the super hero’s actions affect each other. How is Edge of Time different from, and similar to, the other Spider-Man video games you’ve lent your voice to, including last year’s Shattered Dimensions?
JP: I haven’t actually played it so I can’t really give any input as to the controls or gameplay. But the biggest difference I can see between Shattered Dimensions and Edge of Time is that while Shattered Dimensions was more episodic, the story-lines in Edge of Time are occurring simultaneously, and something done in one affects the other. MvC3 is totally different because it’s a fighting game. All the same because they’re about Spider-Man.
SY: The Spider-Man film reboot, ‘The Amazing Spider-Man,’ is scheduled to be released next summer. Does Edge of Time relate to, or set up, the film at all?
JK: No, Edge of Time is a completely independent storyline and continuity.
SY: Besides lending your voice to video games and animated series, you’ve also appeared in several life action series and movie, including ‘Bones’ and ‘Will and Grace.’ How is acting in life action series different than voicing video games and animated series, and do you have a preference of which area you would rather provide your talent to?
JK: You can show up to an on camera job looking like crap and you get makeup. At a voice over job, you look like crap all day! With video games, you don’t usually have much (if any) time with the script beforehand. You’re usually given a dialogue only script the day of the record with only your dialogue. Not having the complete picture means you have to make sure to ask a ton of questions so you know what’s going on, and you have to trust that the voice director is going to steer you to keep your energy and performance consistent with the other character in the scene. This practice is slowly starting to change on games with mo-cap and more intricate stories. In the last three years I’ve been so busy that I’ve literally had no time to pursue on camera, but I can’t say that I don’t miss it. I’m definitely focusing some more attention in that direction because it’s not something I’m ready to stop doing.
SY: How did you become interested in providing your voice to the animated comic series and video games? Were you a comic book and video game fan when you were growing up?
JK: Absolutely, I was an avid Spider-Man reader. Other favorites included Wolverine and Batman. As for video games, the first one I ever played was my uncle’s Atari and have been hooked since.
SY: Besides acting, you’re also a singer and music producer. Does being a voice actor help with your singing, and vice versa?
JK: The two definitely work hand in hand. My voice acting helps me sing as completely different sounding characters, and singing/rhythm helps with ADR (dubbing) and matching lip flap.
SY: Are you currently working on any musical projects, or are you solely focusing on your acting?
JK: Voice over has been insanely busy lately, but I’m still finding time to write/record. I can sleep when I’m dead.
Written by: Karen Benardello
