“He’s that guy, and it comes through in his voice and how he acts. “Do we relate to this guy? Can we hear him think through his voice? Do we get what he’s doing, what his motivations are? A really good voice actor can impart that.”įor Beck, Jack Black in Kung Fu Panda playing Po, the dumpling-loving panda who has to learn martial arts, captures that key quality of a great performance that instantly connects us with a character.īlack brings to the affable panda a relentless enthusiasm for the world around him - and martial arts, in particular - that is not just endearing, but instantly recognizable to any of us who have geeked out over anything.
“For any character or voice, it all comes down to, do we care?” says Jerry Beck, an animation historian and an author of more than 15 books. Make An Audience Care: Jack Black as Po in Kung Fu Panda Jack Black plays Po in Kung Fu Panda. Snap Stills/REX/Shutterstock. We asked four animation experts - a casting director, a voice actor, a historian, and an author - to take us through some of the best voice performances of the last 25 years and illustrate what defines exceptional voice acting. Like any form of creativity, there are core qualities that lead to exceptional work. There is a fine art to great voice acting. We’ve all watched a behind-the-scenes DVD feature where an actor is standing in a sound booth and casually delivering variations on the same line of dialogue into a microphone.
That’s not an uncommon perception of those who give life to the characters in animated movies. “It’s the easiest job in the world,” actor Chris Rock, who voices Marty the Zebra in the Madagascar movies, once said about voice acting.