(standing ovation)
I'm still on record as saying that, should anything I write ever be filed,
it'll be animated, and *no famous actors will be allowed on the set*. Casting
*starts* with the unemployed actors.
"There is no reason Good can't triumph over Evil, if only angels will
get organized along the lines of the Mafia." -Kurt Vonnegut, "A Man
Without A Country"
--- On Tue, 7/1/08, ravenadal <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
From: ravenadal <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: [scifinoir2] More celebrities taking on animated roles from voice
actors
To: scifinoir2@yahoogroups.com
Date: Tuesday, July 1, 2008, 9:39 PM
Original Story URL:
http://www.jsonline .com/story/ index.aspx? id=766785
Not just a pretty face
More celebrities taking on animated roles
By JOHN ANDERSON
Special to the Journal Sentinel
Posted: June 27, 2008
Los Angeles - Is it not enough that Angelina Jolie was kissed on the
lips by the God of Good Looks, gets to play with Brad Pitt and shoot
bad guys in $100 million movies?
Must she also take food out of the mouths of people who use those
mouths to make a living?
Jolie's role as the voice of Tigress in the animated flick "Kung Fu
Panda," which also features the dulcet tones of Jack Black, is yet
another example of the Hollywood star-ization of the animated
voice-work industry.
Last year brought Jerry Seinfeld and Renee Zellweger in "Bee Movie."
This year heard Steve Carell and Jim Carrey in "Horton Hears a Who!"
and now there's Disney's "Wall-E," with the voices of Sigourney Weaver
and Fred Willard.
And it's not just the starring roles. Look at the list of voices on
the Internet Movie Database for "Kung Fu Panda" or "Madagascar: Escape
2 Africa" (coming this fall), and you'll find the first 10 or so
actors are household names.
"When the `The Lion King' came out, there was no big deal made about
who was in an animated movie," says Paul Dergarabedian, president of
Media by Numbers, which tracks box-office figures for the industry.
"But you see now with `Kung Fu Panda' it's all about star power and
Jack Black."
Critics voice opposition
Yet celebrities aren't necessarily wowing critics. It's curious how
many reviewers of "Kung Fu Panda" went out of their way to trash the
vocals of Angelina Jolie, Seth Rogen, Jackie Chan, Lucy Liu and David
Cross, who play the movie's "Furious Five."
"It's not her voice that makes Angelina Jolie distinctive, " wrote the
Newark Star-Ledger' s Stephen Whitty, "so it's unclear why she was
given the part."
"Despite all that marquee vocal talent, (the characters) have next to
no personality, " said NPR's Bob Mondello.
"Star names for the Furious Five have relatively few vocal
opportunities to shine," wrote Variety's Todd McCarthy.
Blame it all on Robin Williams. Previous to his vocal acrobatics in
1992's "Aladdin," vocalizers were as anonymous as key grips.
Even as late as 1991 with Disney's "Beauty and the Beast" which
remains one of the masterpieces of Disney's so-called second golden
age the studio used a virtually unknown vocal cast, with the
exceptions of Jerry Orbach and Angela Lansbury (who certainly weren't
cast to reel in the youth market).
Once Williams brought real-life star power to cartoons, however, the
putty tat was out of the bag.
"I can't help thinking, `Don't they already have enough money?' " says
Veronica Taylor, a voice well-known to fans of "Pokemon" and lots of
other Saturday morning cartoon shows.
Taylor is a trained actress who says she "sort of fell into vocal
acting" when she had her daughter nine years ago. It was all about the
flextime.
Hurting the little guy?
But that doesn't mean there isn't a certain amount of resentment
toward what she calls the "celebrities only others need not apply"
policy now surrounding Hollywood animation. (Spokespeople for
Paramount and DreamWorks, which together brought you "Kung Fu Panda,"
had no comment neither did Disney.)
It's easy to see why actors want to voice animated characters, says
actor Keith David, who has appeared in dozens of films and TV shows
(including "Crash" and "ER"), and has been the voice of video games,
U.S. Navy ads and the Ken Burns documentary "Unforgivable Blackness:
The Rise and Fall of Jack Johnson."
"The quality of animation has risen to the point where . . . a lot of
these features are like any movie, except you're doing it with your
voice," he says. "The question is why they don't use more people who
are equally as capable. There are people in the voiceover community
who act as well as any star."
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
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