Comic-Con 2006: Naruto Party Interview

We talk with the actors of the show about fans, fighting and fitting in!

Along with the awesome Naruto Preview Party we attended, publisher D3 was kind enough to give IGN a chance to talk directly with voice actors Tara Platt (the voice of Temari) and Yuri Lowenthal (voice of Sasuke) about Naruto: Clash of Ninja 2, as well as the world of voice acting. The actors were kind enough to take a moment away from the party to discuss Clash of Ninja, rabid fanboys, as well as the dos and don'ts of videogame voiceovers. Enjoy.

IGN: First off, please introduce yourselves and talk a little bit about how you got into voice acting for Naruto.

Tara: My name is Tara Platt, and I play the part of Temari, and I got into Naruto because I had done Marmalade Boy, which is also a popular anime series, and it was also done at the same studio. Since I had been a lead on a previous series they called me in to audition for Naruto. If, of course, you're asking how I got "into" the show. Now I'm literally into the show because my character is kick-ass, but that's something else isn't it?

IGN: Would that be kind of like method acting?

Tara: (laughs) Yeah, pretty much.

Yuri: My name is Yuri Lowenthal, and I got in since I've worked with some of the people updating the Naruto franchise, Mark Handler in particular, who was originally directing and writing episodes for the show, and we'd worked together on Rave Master on Cartoon Network. Also Tara was on that show, yet another villain playing opposite of me. I guess she's just an ass-kicker? Anyways, I came in and auditioned for the role of Sasuke, and was called back to take that role, who I guess I beat out a ton of other actors for. I'm honored to be playing that role, as there were other awesome actors trying out. Also, Sasuke is a hit with the fangirls. (laughter)

Tara: But seriously, everyone working on that show is just right for their part. There are so many different characters that the fans that support the voice actors get to hear them all on the same show, which is really exciting. Everyone is so talented, and since you can only have one actor for each role it's really special to have a ton of people working on it.

Yuri: Yeah, it's really fun. When we were down at the Anime Expo a few days ago they did a panel which they asked any available actors to show up for, and we ended up with 26 of us there. It's such a huge cast.

Tara: When you are fortunate enough to love what you do and have fans that give so much support for it, you want to support them just as much as they support you. They're one of the reasons we're even doing it, so it's stupid and selfish in a way to not have at least some sort of relationship with your fans. We need fans to make the show what it is. It's funny though, since the panel was only an hour long, it took so long to get everyone introduced that we only had a half hour left to talk. It was ridiculous.

Four is better than two.

IGN: Now, since America and Japan are really two separate versions of the same show, is it more difficult knowing that your character is already established? How much free reign can you really have when a character is already set up? Would you rather be in a situation where you have total control, or is it interesting in its own way to step into a role and bring yourself out in it?

Yuri: I think there are aspects of it that are both more enjoyable and less enjoyable. On the one hand, the brass ring in this line of work is to star in original animation where you lay down your voice and they animate to that voice. They base the character around your acting.

Tara: You're working on a show right now for the WB like that now.

Yuri: Yeah, I'm working on Legion of Super Heroes, and I get to do the voice of young Superman, which is very cool.

Tara: That's exciting because it's so original. You get to make the role your own. But really the great thing about working on dubbing is that you get a sense for who that character is already, since it's already been created. It's its own entity even before you get to it, and then you get to work within the parameters of what that character already is. It's nice to color outside the lines, yes, but it's also nice to work within boundaries since you can expand your own limitations within that little box. Also interesting, is that original animation is often considered a lot harder than dubbing, but that's not really the case, since dubbing means you have to lip-synch and be emotionally in the same place as that actor. You don't have anyone else there recording with you, so it's harder to react to the moment…

Yuri: There's also this big cultural gap when you're looking at different regions of actors trying to portray the same attitudes.

Tara: Yeah. A lot of times there are stereotypes for how people in cultures are supposed to react. For a Japanese girl that little "he he he" giggle is well-known and expected.

Yuri: For all of you out there right now, she's leaning in with her hands and doing this tiny giggle like a tiny Japanese girl… (laughter)

Tara: It's funny, but that's not really how we as Americans think of young girls. The same thing happens with guys too. In Japan the role of guys is often played by women doing guy voices.

Yuri: A lot of the characters I play on Japanese shows are actually acted in Japan by women. I don't know what that says about me… (laughter)

Tara: There really are a ton of moments like that where you ask yourself "How am I going to make this truthful to the situation," and that's when you have producers come in and change things around. A ton of times on fan forums readers will go off on the actors saying "How could that actor change that…" when it really has nothing to do with us. They bring the script from Japan, then they change it so that it works for our society, and then you hand that new script to actors who read it as is. You do it the way they tell you, and that happens a lot. Fans get very upset over that, but it's not always the actors or even the directors that have control over that. There are people that come down the line and say "This is what we have to do for this situation…"

Yuri: One thing I do think our fans really dig though, is that they're having us pronounce names as close to the Japanese dialect as we can get, so that really gives it an authentic feel.

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