Jamie McGonnigal a voice actor, director, producer and overall great person was kind enough to sit down and talk with us about his life and extensive career experience. See this link HERE to learn more about Jamies extensive work history.
Q: So Jamie how did you get into voice acting?
A: While in New York and the surrounding area I was working in musical theater as an actor, after preforming a show in New Jersey I was approached by at talent agent and got offered an audition for scifi.com to work on ‘Barbarian Moron’ and this was my first voice acting gig.
Q: Do you prefer anime or video game voice acting and why?
A: I prefer the video game industry wages, ‘laughs’ but to be honest I enjoy the freedom with anime voice acting to develop characters deeper. With anime voices acting you are getting better in tune with your character, as he or she goes along. It’s a deeper connection with the story and it also allows you to get more creative.
Q: Do you enjoy playing the hero or the villain?
A: I enjoy playing villains; it’s more challenging, a little bit complex. Villains have more color, more depth and are more flamboyant, they also have amazing laughs.
Q: Why do so many voice actors come from theater as say compared to film actors?
A: Theater actors have a more experience with projecting a character and are used to big powerful characters and they have the vocal range experience, where film actors have to push to become bigger and are not used to pushing the character with just their vocals. This is not always the case but it’s a trend for sure.
Q: What were your favorite roles / characters?
A: It’s very hard to choose just one, Barry from Pokemon or Takeo Takakura from Magic Users Club would be my top two favorites.
Q: Do you play video games or watching anime as a hobby?
A: I play some video games, mostly on the Nintendo Wii, with Mario kart and Mario games in general. I’m into games that I can pick up play for a short while, have fun and are not too time consuming. I can’t make it too far into RPG games because I lose interest due to the length of the game type. As far as anime goes, I do watch some anime, when I do I normally will marathon a show over a weekend if the show is good. I don’t watch too much anime overall due to my career and how busy I stay.
Q: Do you have any non anime favorite shows?
A: I enjoy Modern Family, Scandal, and White Collar.
Q: If you could have any role for any anime or game or movie past, present or future who or what would it be?
A: Fievel from the movie ‘An American Tail’. It was such a good movie with great characters and lots of fantastic musical scenes.
Q: Any recent movies that you enjoyed?
A: I really Enjoyed Wreck-It Ralph
Q: Do you have a favorite pokemon?
A: Chimchar
Q: How was it working for 4kids?
A: I enjoyed working for 4kids, the wages were fair, it was fun, and it was good early experience. I learned a lot about voice acting while working at 4kids.
Q: You have founded many charities and resources. Of which are you most proud of?
A: Talk about equality-blog – LINK HERE is something I’m proud of; As far as work goes the Secret Garden concertevent was a perfect overall event, where everything came together, and with that event we were able to help a lot of kids with HIVAIDs.
Q: Any up and coming roles you would like to share with us?
A: I don’t have much I can share with as far as industry stuff goes, but I’m working on ‘Clear skies’ an effort to help keep gay marriage and overturn law that prevents gay marriage. Prop 8 in California & The Supreme Court to argue the Defense of Marriage Act. – Learn more about this act HERE.
Q: Do you enjoy theatermusicalsclassicalect?
A: Yes, I’m a huge fan of theater, Broadway and musicals.
Q: Any favorite musicals?
A: ‘Secret garden’ and ‘Into the Woods’, ‘Gypsy’, ‘The Books of Mormon’. I have several more but these works stand out.
Q: Anything else you would like to share with us?
A: www.unitedformarriage.org– Tools and resources for equal rights marriage laws.
I would like to give a huge thank you to Jamie for sitting down with me and sharing. He is truly a great person and a very talented individual. Thank you!
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