With the demand for animated programs and voice actors higher than ever, we spoke to Peter New to learn more about his career and the art of voice acting.

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Tell us a little bit about you and what projects you have on the go right now.

I’m doing voices on Littlest Pet Shop, among other shows, and I’ve recently finished shooting a fun turn in Electra Woman and Dyna Girl for Legendary Pictures.

What was the moment when you knew you wanted to be a performer?

I was maybe 5. I had a menagerie of animal characters I played. I used to put on shows curated by Ruff Ruff the Talking Dog.

Who were some of your greatest influences early on?

Terry Gilliam. Samuel Beckett. The Frantics. I just realized that Samuel Beckett and the Frantics sounds like a terrible band.

You’ve enjoyed a variety of roles on stage, on television, and on film. What creative rewards do you get from each of these three platforms and do you prefer one over the others?

Each individual job has its own challenges and rewards. I don’t really see the forms as being altogether different. Each has its joys and limitations. Indeed sometimes the limitations themselves are the source of the joy.

When you look at your career, what have been the most memorable moments for you?

I have to say chatting idly with Terry Gilliam while on the set of The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus about one of my all-time favourite shots from any movie – the epic pullback from The Adventures of Baron Munchausen when Baron Munchausen is surrounded by the Turks army. To have this casual moment with someone whose work I’ve long respected was the kind of perfect moment that can sometimes happen in film.

As someone who has been inside the Vancouver film industry for a long time, how do you think it could be improved?

I think the main improvements – and this is nitpicking to an extent – would have to be at the political level. There are rules around distribution and citizenship which I read as grossly skewed. I have eked out a fine career despite this, however, so I’m not sure how wise it is to bite that feeding hand any harder.

You are getting a lot of recognition right now for your voice acting on My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic and Littlest Pet Shop. What does it mean to you at this point in your career to have a large fanbase that you’ve gained specifically through voice acting?

It’s incredibly humbling. That anyone at all would call themselves a fan of me or my work is deeply touching. Let alone a group of people. It’s incredible, regardless of whether it’s from voice work or whatever.

How does your creative approach change when you are preparing for a voice role vs. a live action role?

It doesn’t really. I mean you have to memorize a live role, so that’s a change, but every scene is a conflict featuring a character who wants something. Deciphering that and then rendering it is the job of the actor, regardless of the format.

What advice would you give to an actor who wants to specialize in voice acting?

Start by acting. Voice is not the operative word. Acting is. Get on stages, join improv troupes. Use the audience to learn how to make fast, bold, successful choices.

You won a Leo Award for your writing on Point Blank. What are the three most important elements that every screenwriter needs for a successful screenplay?

I disagree with this question. Each screenwriter needs to serve the story being told. Each story requires different things, has variable needs. Writing is a process of discovery, like any art. Understand that everything will be wrong before it feels right. But I disagree with the approach that there are specific creative fundamentals. I think that’s a recipe for pat stories and dull screenplays.

What books have been influential in your creative journey so far?

True and False: Heresy and Common Sense for the Actor by David Mamet.

A Practical Handbook for the Actor by Melissa Bruder, Lee Michael Cohn, Madeleine Olnek, Nathaniel Pollack, Robert Previto & Scott Zigler.

The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark by Carl Sagan & Ann Druyan.

Fox in Socks by Dr. Seuss.

Ozma of Oz by L. Frank Baum.

Where can we find out more about you and keep up with your projects?

My website PeterNew.net or follow me on Twitter @ActorPeterNew

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Our thanks to Peter New for speaking with us!

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Recommended Reading

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A Practical Handbook for the Actor
Melissa Bruder

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True and False
David Mamet

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The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark
Carl Sagan & Ann Druyan

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The post The Biz Interview: Peter New appeared first on Biz Books.

Best-known as the voice of the title character on the long-running family favourite, SpongeBob SquarePants, Tom Kenny has also contributed to animated shows like Ultimate Spider-Man and Futurama.

Tom Kenny finds himself on the big screen in The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge out of Water, which opens in theatres on February 6th, 2015.

In our Tom Kenny interview, we learned more about the voice acting process, his journey into the SpongeBob realm, and his advice for aspiring voice actors.

Do you want to start by telling us a bit about the movie and how you became involved with the role?

Sure, I guess I’ll start at the beginning.

I got into animation (and) voice-over through the backdoor of stand-up comedy. I had made a living as a stand-up comedian for eight years. That was all I did. I was doing well enough with it that I didn’t have a day job or anything during the comedy boom of the ’80s. But I really wanted to do voice-overs and it was hard to break into and then somebody saw me at The Improv in Los Angeles doing my stand-up and I did a lot of characters – not so much celebrity impressions but people in my family and people I knew… So he said, “Hey, have you ever thought about doing cartoon voices? I’m with Hanna-Barbera Cartoons.” and I said, “Yes. Weirdly enough I’ve thought about it every day since I was six years old.”

Not only have I thought about it, but I’ve probably thought about it way too much. So they said, “Come on down and audition for this cartoon” and I did and the occasional voice-over turned into a lot of voice-overs and auditions and then before I knew it, I was almost exclusively a voice-over actor and stand-up was something that I didn’t do anymore. I was glad to leave it behind.

Then next thing you know, 15 years later, we’re making the second SpongeBob movie, the first SpongeBob movie in 11 years. So this thing has just kept on going. It’s not like a resurgence or reboot. There’s always been the Spongebob being made. It’s never really been out of production. I’ve always done SpongeBob stuff, but the movies are 11 years apart.

For people who are already familiar with the Spongebob character and the show and the first movie, what can they expect this time? What’s going to be different about this one?

Well, when you’re doing the 11-minute TV episodes, I tend to prefer the stories that are small stories. I tend to like those ones better… I tend to like the ones where SpongeBob just is learning to tie his shoe for 11 minutes or he’s trying to come up with an idea for an essay that he has to write for his boarding school class and the whole other minutes are him just having writer’s block. Those are really simple shows, but you can’t do that in a movie. Movies have to be an event now and the first Spongebob movie in 11 years has to be an event, so it’s a much bigger arena and a much more epic-scale story, I think.

Having seen it finally last week, I think that the director Paul Tibbitt and Stephen Hillenburg and the writers did a really stellar job of keeping the characters true to who they are, but put them in this big Guardians of the Galaxy meets Mad Max meets JJ Abrams Star Trek movie, where there’s time travel and alternate versions of the characters. It’s really pretty heavy and complex of a plot and really weird. Like really weird and odd in a way that I really loved and I think kids – at least my kids – they love oddball stuff and this movie, I really enjoyed that it was trying to not be like every other kids movie and I think – no matter what one thinks of the movie, I loved it, but I would think that you would have to give it points for at least taking great pains to make it not like every other movie,when it probably would’ve been easier to make it like every other kids movie… It’s a whole new visual way to experience Spongebob…

I thought it was a perfect marriage of those two schools. It’s gotta be an event. It’s gotta be 3D. It’s gotta be big. But you don’t want to lose track of the characters – especially with cartoon characters. You want them to be the same comfort food you eat. You don’t want Bugs Bunny to change or Popeye the Sailor Man to change. You want them to be the same as they ever were. You don’t want the new, improved Bart Simpson. You want Bart Simpson. I think comedy archetypes in general are like that.

What is it about animated movies and cartoons that make them so long-lasting?

I think part of it is that they’re drawn. There’s all these psychological reasons, I think. The characters that I grew up with, that I had an affection for as a kid – like Rocky and Bullwinkle and Popeye and Betty Boop – I totally loved those characters.

Animation – people just have a special relationship with it that’s different from live action and I think part of it is that the characters don’t change. Bart Simpson is always a 10 year-old boy. SpongeBob is a sponge of whatever indeterminate man, boy, age he is. And Mickey Mouse is always Mickey Mouse. I think that’s it. I think it’s kind of a connection and I think also even though SpongeBob has been on for many, many seasons, you can turn on any SpongeBob episode and know who everybody is. It’s not like Breaking Bad or something where you go, “I have to watch this from the very beginning.”

It’s the over-enthusiastic guy and his not-too-bright friend and the greedy boss and the cranky neighbour and the scrappy squirrel friend. I think it’s very easy to get and I think it helps with the global embrace that SpongeBob has been lucky enough to enjoy.

Are there any books in voice-over or comedy that you studied?

There’s a book called The Last Laugh that was one of the only books about comedians that you could find when I was a teenager and that blew my mind…

I think the best book written on animation was Creating Animated Cartoons with Character written by Joe Murray, the guy who created the first animated series that I was ever on, Rocko’s Modern Life. It’s about what you need to know to sell a show in the animation world. It’s one of the most useful books about what it’s like to work in animation right now in the here and now and what you’ve got to do to, what you’ve got to watch out for, what not to do, what to be careful of, and I think it’s really great.

What would your advice be to someone who wants to get into voice acting?

Voice acting in particular, I would say it’s more about your ears than your mouth. Just listen to people. Listen to accents… One dumb skill that I’ve gotten good at is being able to take disparate voices and kind of mash them up into something else – like kind of mix and match some weird character actor from the 1930s that I saw in a movie and then you mix that with some guy that you overheard talking on his cell phone to his wife at the mall… or some weird regional accent that you heard on the news while they were interviewing some guy and you mash things up.

I think if you’re a listener, then you can be a good voice-over person. Being able to make funny voices is the least important aspect of it and people think it’s the most important. Also, that child-like sense of play of being able to just – the theatre of the mind – get into the oral creation of these characters. Just let yourself go. It’s kind of a weird out-of-body experience. It’s kind of goofy and stupid, but it’s also the only reason that I have a house.

The post The Biz Interview: Tom Kenny appeared first on Biz Books.