The Voice of Trevor Devall

Will and Christy welcome Trevor Devall who had an unusual route into the world of voice acting. One that eventually led him from, fearing he’d never get work, to landing voice acting roles in such mega-universes as Star Wars, Marvel and DC! Hear all the details of his inspirational story, right here!

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hi Christie, Hey there Will. How are you welcome back?
You missed a great one, if all of the ones
for me to miss, I had to miss Kyla Pratt
Are you kidding me? Right? And she was bummed. She
was totally bummed and she was well because she was
stuck with me, which is the worst thing. That's that's
not true. Everybody loves you. That's awful. But yeah, it

(00:21):
was so cool. I mean, just talking to Disney Royalty, she's,
you know, proud family, I ever, dude, and it's come
back and like she's I've really am bombed that I
missed that interview. Um, I did everything I could to
try to make it happen. So you know, it's it's
it's the multiple podcast life that you have that you
can relate to right well, which, speaking of House House

(00:42):
Pod mets World going, it's going really really well. Are
you guys doing live ones too? Yes, We've done one
live show that went amazingly well, so I would say
there's a very good chance that we will be doing more.
Would be the best good I want to come to
those two I should. We're so lucky that we know
great people man, and we know each other, which is

(01:04):
good too. Yeah, I know, I love I missed going
to comic CON's with you. When's our next comic con?
I think like there's one coming up at some point.
I think there's one coming up. It's one of those
things now where Sue just has me. There's a giant
calendar that is on our table that is not allowed
to be moved, and everything is written in bright red ink.
So yeah, she's she's she's taken over the here's what

(01:28):
we're gonna do. We're gonna write everything in a big
old calendar because my brain can be a little scattered
with that stuff. So I think it's in March. Maybe awesome.
Mar is so cool. But until I see giant red
letters saying you have to be here in March, I
won't know for exactly. And so the contest is officially closed. Everybody,
everybody out there. Guy, that was like so quick. I

(01:48):
feel like that happens so quick. But we've got a
ton of submissions, we really do. So we are so
excited and we are going to find the next big
voice Accory and we're not going to mention who, but um,
some of the guest judges that we already have signed
on that are gonna help us pick are awesome. I

(02:11):
can't wait. I mean some of just the most talented
people that have already said, oh heck yeah, I will
come into an episode. So it's gonna be so cool.
I can't wait. I really can't mean too. It's a
fun podcast, and I think that a lot of the
people that we've even if you if you've listened to
our podcasts in the past, a lot of times will
be like, hey, would you come back because we have
this like contest, and it's like everyone was more than
happy to like you know, so uh yeah, it's we are.

(02:35):
We are calling through them, but we cannot wait. That
does not change the fact that until the contest starts,
we are still meeting some of the most prolific, incredible
voice over actors in the history of the world, and
today is no exception. Christie, oh my gosh, very excited
about Trevor. Yeah, I am too. I've known Trevor for
a very long time. Trevor and I did Guardians of

(02:57):
the Galaxy together. We'll get into that. But he's also
as an amazing Emperor Palpatine and he was on My
Little Pony. He's on f IS for Family I mean,
this is a he's also a big nerd. I know
it's gonna say. I saw his YouTube which is about
D n D right, D and D. It's it's it's
it's D and D and it's all table top games.

(03:18):
He's got a great channel we'll get into that's called Me,
Myself and Die and uh yeah, there's some great stuff.
So let's get into this with Mr Trevor de Val. Hello. Hey,
now that is a sexy set you got set up.
What can I say? I'm a sexy background looking kind

(03:38):
of guy. It's good, it's good. Nice to meet you.
Nice to be met. I would say the foregrounds pretty sexy, Trevor.
But what are you gonna do? Oh you? How are you?
Pretty good? How are you? I'm good. I'm glad that
we are able to do this. We've been going back
and forth about when to have you on, and I

(03:59):
think the time it's pretty perfect. The time is nice.
Time is nice. So we okay, so a little bit
about our show. We talk just about religion in politics. Hey,
favorite time we talk about voiceover, and that's something that
you are pretty darn good at but had a different

(04:21):
road than a lot of people. Can you tell us
how you got into v O. Uh, well, do you
know the term blackmail and extortion? Have you heard of
these two things? Yes? Yea, How did I get into
voice over? Um? Okay, Well, when I was about five
years old, my older brother Mike used to do this

(04:44):
impression of Jackie Stewart, who was a Scottish racecar commentator
back in the day. He used to be a driver,
but he turned into a commentator on his entire thing
was would be very excitable, right, so I mean commentate
to the relation. Of course, in those days the races
were just cars going round and around around around it circles,
as much as they are today as a matter fact,

(05:08):
that's still the same anyway. So what would invariably happen
is that one of the cars would blow a tire,
spin out, hit the wall and explode. And so as
Jackie was, you know, uh talking about this, he very excited.
Oh no, look at care forty three is coming around
the Bandy's looking good. Oh no, don't. He's hit the
wall and he set the flames. And that was a

(05:30):
big thing in Burthon fight. So he would My brother
would do this thing around the dinner table where he'd
have like he'd say, hey, pass the catchup and mustard
and catch So it's a great deal forays. Today we've
got cot Shop on mustard. Oh look at this cot
Shop pulls out in nth and you do this whole
thing and then oh no, that mustard hits at bar
sent the flames. So everyone and I saw this, and

(05:52):
I said, everybody laughing at this le voice, and I thought,
it's my gateway to total power and domination. One day
I just kind of did the punchline and he was
doing the set up, but everyone oh, and I thought, oh,
perhaps I could do something with it. And yeah, so
I just started doing voices and accents and stuff. But
it wasn't for years and years and years years later

(06:13):
that I realized it could be a you know, a job. Well,
you're also in Canada, so there's not a lot of
opportunity for jobs, and there was in vancous. I was
living in Vant to the time, which was the big
the theatrical capital of the western hemisphere of the country
as it is me. But I with the filmmaker at
the time as well, a director, So I went to

(06:34):
Vancouver because that was Hollywood North and uh went north
That's that's what they called it. Yeah, because especially at
that time, man, because that was the days of the
Hex Files and like everything was being shot up there,
you know, and we got there right, Oh yeah, sure Disney.
Disney would always do whenever we did a Disney movie,
it would be like, hey, you're shooting a movie that

(06:56):
takes place half a mile from your house, Let's go
to Vancouver. So that's pretty much what you do Vancouver
or Toronto. Yeah. So, so we had there was a
there was a big animation industry there, um and so
I I went and I didn't even think because I
went there to be a filmmaker and director, and within
six months I had sort of fallen backwards into this
strange world where people were talking to each other and

(07:18):
silly voices and doing things and that was that. And
that was two years ago. So that sounds like you
were inspired by a lot of the folks around you
at that time. Well no, well, okay, so the thing
is is that, you know, I grew up, you know,
like a lot of people who may age, I grew

(07:38):
up you know, watching uh, you know, Bugs, Bunny and
of course all that stuff was great, and but I
didn't actually think that voiceover for cartoons was was a thing.
This is how this is how dim I am. When
someone said to me, A friend of mine said to me,
when I moved to Vancouver, he said to me, you
know you should get into a voice over. I said,
what do you mean. He said, well, you know, like
cartoon voices and tough and I was like, oh, yeah,

(08:00):
those are actors. You know. The next thing I thought
was in and this cartoon was you know, drawn in
front of a live studio audience. I'm just didn't quite
make the connected. Yeah, their their hands get very tired,
very quickly when they have to draw live. Yeah. But
when I started to work, what I discovered was the
same thing I would go on to discover in l

(08:21):
A in that it's a very tiny little community, a
very dedicated kookie people who love their jobs and they
take their job seriously, but they don't take themselves particularly seriously.
And that so happy. Um. Yeah, so in that sense,
I was inspired by the people I worked with immediately
was it was Yeah, it was a great world to
be part of. Now, was that when when you started

(08:42):
v O was at it? Were you like, this is it?
This is what I'm doing? Or were you still saying, hey,
vo is great and this will be awesome until my
acting and directing career takes off. When I did my
first job, it was September and it was with Sue Blue.
She was my first director, and uh, it was it
can't be any twenty and can't be seen IM sorry,
So what I was like, wait a second, and I

(09:05):
did a show together before I didn't even realize. I
was that's how did there it is? That's the brain
works U and he was two thousand it was, and
uh it was a great that we did like twenty
six episodes and three months it was like pop, get
him out. And the show never made it to air
because they ran it a funding, which kind of sucks

(09:27):
because it was really cool. But up in Canada we
were paid with a buyout system, so we got we
got all the money up front, so that actually worked out. Yeah, exactly,
that's why they couldn't afford the show. They had to
pay us anyway. Anyway, we did the show and the
whole time I thought, Okay, well this is great. That's
more money than I've ever seen in my life before.
I'm gonna pay off my big student on which I

(09:48):
had and that'll be that I'm gonna keep a little
for a rainy day and assume that this will never
happen again, because it probably won't. And and the next
week they said, hey, you're on another show, and I
went o, well, this will never happen again. And then hey,
you want to do this on the show. Okay, but
this and to this day when I get a job,

(10:09):
I'm still well, this is nice, but that's never gonna
happen again. That's such an actor thing. We still always
do that we're doing we're I remember so Trevor and
I did Guardians to the Galaxy together and he was
Rocket and I was star Lord, and we would look
at each other even by second and third season be like,
this show is not gonna go It's like, wait, it's
been on the air for two years. Yeah, now this

(10:29):
this isn't going anywhere. I mean, that's show you got away.
Such an actor thing. I mean, it's every actor has
imposter syndrome. Every actor is completely and totally insecure about
themselves in their career. And if you meet an actor
that's like I'm gonna work all the time, you're like,
you are not really in this business? Are you? Because
you just don't you don't meet those people. I was.

(10:51):
I was in a I was in a bar, a
pub after a session this many years ago back in Vancouver,
and there was a colleague of mine who shall remain nameless,
who was sitting there at the bar with me, and
we were just coming off the high of having this
great session and you know, playing multiple characters blah blah
blah blah blah. And he said, you know right now,
how everything's great. We're all on like six shows, you
and I. Right now, this it's never gonna get this

(11:14):
is it's just gonna keep getting better and better. And
I was like, no, that are you out of your mind? There?
Listening every time every time I'm in the car with
my wife and she's like, wow, no traffic. I'm like,
are you kidding me? What are you doing? What are
you It's not gonna rain on our picnic day? Hey?
What are you thinking? Don't think they're listening there, You're

(11:38):
absolutely right there listening. You mentioned bugs, Bunny and stuff
like that. So, having kind of fallen into the voice
overside of the industry, were you not a huge animation
fan growing up? Well? No, I mean, like I said,

(12:00):
I love Bugs Bunny. Uh, But it didn't really occur
to me that this was the cartoons that I watched
as a kid. Bugs Bunny. Uh. What the hell was
the Battle of the Planets, which was the the anime
thing that was a rip off of something I don't know.
We was some gotcha, well it was. It was some

(12:23):
giant Japanese anime that they turned into a different version
called Battle of the Planets, and I watched that today.
By the way, it's unwatchable. We actually, I'm sure we
were like, let's check this out and see it. Holds up?
Hold up? But that or like like, um, this is
the old Spider Man cartoon that like back he did

(12:43):
and stuff like that stuff. I love that stuff. But
I didn't really watch a lot of cartoons as a kid.
I was I was too busy playing with my toys
and giving them my own voices. You know, I didn't, Yeah,
so it um, I didn't. I didn't know it was
a job, like I honestly didn't know it was a
career choice. It didn't even occur to me. Honestly. Doing
voices was a way to try and impress girls at parties,

(13:06):
which was only marginally successful. So I was gonna say,
you went to way different parties than I did. I
can only apologize in so many dialects. That's well, can
you remember the first voice you ever did? Yes? Oh
you the first voice I ever did? Or when you
even as a kid, Now, the first voice you ever
did as a kid, you remember it might have been

(13:29):
It might have been the Scottish because you know that
that accent has. It's certainly the first one I ever learned.
And uh, to this day, like when I when I
book a job with that accent, I'm just there's there's
a part of me that's like, oh, thanks Broke. He's
he's passed on now. So it's a little like thanks Mike.
You know that was the thing that always amazed me
about you was so And this is a perfect example
of talking about the different kind of aspects of the

(13:51):
voice over world, because there are people we've talked about
how somebody like me, for instance, or Christie, we we
don't do fifty voices. We just can't do fifty voices.
Will never do fifty voices. It's just not in our DNA.
And then there's some actors that can do fifty sounds,
fifty cartoon voices make it sound like, you know, there
are robots or whatever, and then there's actors like you

(14:11):
that can do a little bit of everything. But then
when it comes to dialects, you can kind of do
them all. So was there was that something that you
gravitated tours? Was was listening to other people's voices and
kind of trying to mimic them, because it's not necessarily
the same as doing a cartoon voice quote unquote. You're
not going in going hey, how does everybody go that?

(14:31):
It's more like you're doing a real Scottish thing. And
the thing that I love is I would always do
it next to you and it would go about thirty
seconds and you go, please please stop doing that, please
please please stop. It's not there. And I'm like, what
are you talking about? I am Irish. You're like, oh god,
please please do please cut it out, please stop. So
where did the dialects come from? Um? It is a

(14:52):
bit of imitation. Uh. But also growing up in Canada.
I was just talking about this with a colleague one
the other day. Growing up in Canada, we were exposed
to a lot of British programming, the BBC in particular,
so I grew up with BBC News One, and I
grew up with Monty Python, and I grew up with
all of that stuff. So those accents were prevalent in

(15:12):
my childhood. I just heard them all the time, and
they were easy and fun to imitate. And you know,
when you when you're exposed to a dialect at a
very young age, obviously you develop an ear for it
and you can you know, sometimes you don't even know
you're doing it. Uh But where's a lot of American
friends of mine. They don't have that same experience, you know,

(15:32):
because everything was was about American stuff, an American dialect.
So I think I think that helped me. But yeah,
it's weird because I can't describe how Like I can't
teach a dialect. I couldn't say, oh, this is how
you do dialect x. I just it just kind of
comes to me. Well, I mean, will you remember the

(15:52):
story where we were at? Uh? So, for me, the
South African accent was always this holy grail of accents.
That's like all that. It's such a weird one, right,
and it's like the combinations of different sounds, and I
just like, I'm never gonna be able to get that one.
And then one day I'm doing my laundry and I'm
hanging my shirts to dry because I I don't want
to shrink them, so I hang them and as I'm

(16:16):
doing that, I'm talking to them, because of course I am.
And uh. Then I realized that I'm talking to them
in a Johannesburg accent, and I was like, how did
this happen? I'm hanging the wash right now, what are
you doing up here? You missed their shirts? Look at
you hanging there like it? And I was like, what
the hell? So I went to session the next day
and we were in the in the booth and I

(16:36):
started to talk to everybody, luck lucky just all of
a sudden time of time to me from on or
something like it. And then Harrison, the producer, said, do
you do that accent? I said, I guess so. And
then you think asked me as Claw and Avengers, just
like all right, yeah, that is the joy of our

(16:57):
business is you sit there in the room and like
you said, everyone's not taking themselves very seriously, so you're
just messing around with each other, and these other accents
or voices or something pop out. And then a producer
in the room or a director goes that's perfect for
something else, and then you're on another job. Yeah, I
mean we we said so Kim Possible. When we were
doing Kim Possible. John DiMaggio, who was Dragon, was always

(17:19):
doing these big mr drack you know, dr dracking. She
got all this kind of stuff, and then he just
started doing this rock and roll gut out and the
next week they had written this guy named motor Ed
and that's the voice he did, And it was just
something they came up within the room. And it's just
that happens almost nowhere else in the industry, where you're
not in the middle of shooting a film and all

(17:41):
of a sudden you're like doing another character while you're
doing the film. They're like, hey, we're going to write
another film for you. I mean, that just never happens.
It only happens in in the voice over industry, where
it's just all creatively driven. Well, let me ask you
this as the actor like, and especially this is coming
from someone doesn't do fifty voices. But I definitely done

(18:02):
voice matching. I have a few dialects, but nothing like you, sir,
sir tror Um. But yes, I've certainly does it behoove
you as the actor to be playful and kind of
almost like showcase these aspects of your talent. Two producers
in the room and like kind of like you're saying,

(18:24):
like you walked in and you did that. This is
also for our fans in case they want to just
experiment in different ways. Yeah, I think that's crucial. Uh,
it's it's crucial to constantly have a sense of playfulness
about it. The trick is, of course, not pushing it
too far and become irritating. You know, it's a balanceance.

(18:45):
There are moments, and we've all been in these rooms
where there's that point where an actor has gone too
far and it's like, all right, we got it. You
can do this silly voice. We got it. Due payments
a mata gascar When I was that room, we've all
talked about at least the shaffer has talked about it.
Those guys are crazy. Yeah, you were in between. It

(19:07):
was like it was Jeff Bennett, Rob Paulson, John DiMaggio
and event and eventually you just you just sit back
and go, Okay, this four hour session is now gonna
be nine hours because they're just gonna go at it.
And it's hysterical and amazing and too long a session.
And there's things you learned to like when you walk
into a room full of voice guys, there's certain things

(19:30):
you don't do because you know, it's like throwing red
meat into the room, like you know, back in the
old days, if you did a thing, Oh my god,
Now everybody in the room is shatter into each other,
consistently doing the whole thing, and you're like now or
Sean Connery and all of a sudden, everybody's doing this
show and garry for ten minutes and it's like, just
stop throwing the red meat. I remember one session where

(19:54):
every single person in the room for like an hour
was just doing Eddie Deason oh well, And it was
just oh my, now we're good, you're Attie. Days in
it was like okay, alright, alright, we're good. Can we
get back to transformers or whatever? Actually recording here it
was really bad in twenty sixteen, remember, because everybody was
doing the trip. Everybody was doing. But I remember who

(20:15):
was who's a tech over at I can't remember that
the name of the guy, but he was. He was
one of the regular technicians. And you know, somebody had
done the thing, opened the thing and he said, great,
another Trump impression. I've never heard that before and sucks
the life. Okay, sorry, well what is it's you're the

(20:36):
guy in two thousand three walking into a room going
what right. It's like, okay, we we did that ninety seven.
We're good, thank you? Oh my Okay. So we were
talking before you came on about uh, everything you've been
doing obviously and the assortment of of work you've done.
One of the coolest things that you got a chance

(20:57):
to do, and I want to talk a little bit
about it because it is such a world that once
you're in, you're in is Star Wars. So can you
tell us what it was like to to enter the
world of Star Wars, which apparently was a long time
ago in a galaxy far far away, if you believe
the propaganda. And yeah. So my first for a into

(21:19):
the Star Wars universe as a as a voice actor
was for Lego and it was a project when I
was still back in Vancouver called The Yoda Chronicles, which
was a series um that was kind of set in
the prequel era, but it was a comedy version of
it with all the Lego characters and they were casting
for you know how they'll they'll send outsides and it'll

(21:39):
you know, it's like this is you know, King Joe,
but we all know, okay, this is demperate Palpatine. We
hear exactly, yeah, like okay, so I'm hearing and you
hear the ref and you're like, okay, alright, I get it.
Code names this secret. So I did the auditions for
a bunch of them, Obi Wan and stuff like that.
Eventually they called and said, well, you're going to be
Emperor Palpatine. And I was like, oh wow, that that

(22:00):
that's kind of Mike and like the the eight year
old and me was going yeah. But we went into
session and I very quickly realized that this was the
comedy version. It was written by Michael Price, who was
a Simpsons writer, and it was gone on to become
one of my good friends. Actually, he's also the producer
of Effes for Family, which is a big show that
he brought me in on several years back with Bill

(22:21):
Burr and and but this is the first time I
met him. And he was a Simpsons writer and he
was also a massive Star Wars fan. And you could
tell because in the script there was all these little
easter eggs that only true fans would get, and I
recognized that immediately and went, oh, this guy knows his stuff.
This guy know the Star Wars. So when I started
coming in, you know, I remember the first day we

(22:43):
all came in, and you know, I was trying to
do the Palpatine seemed very siztle veda, right, but gradually
it turned into oh, eight a minute, this is basically
kind of playful, yes, okay, and then my Palpatine became
across between Mark Camell's Joker and Stuie Griffin little get

(23:06):
out of my face anyway, So he quickly became this
like total favorite, and the producers kept going, we need
to bring you back, and so they would write all
these specials where Palpatine would just show up and I'm like,
but he's like dead Dad, that's Cannon, that's like some
non Star Wars canon. So it was it was tremendous.

(23:27):
Man we did. I did a whole bunch of series,
and then when I got to l A, we did
The Freemaker Adventures, which was another series, and then I
did a whole bunch of these specials. And there's still
stuff going on which we can't talk about but this,
and it was just for me. It was just this
wonderful opportunity to be a kid again because I because
I'm also like Admiral ak Bar, and I was Boba Fette,
and I was jar Jar Banks and I was all

(23:48):
of these characters, and I'm like, this is kind of
the coolest thing ever. I gotta say, is your highlight?
Would say definitely one of them. Definitely one of the
highlights of my career for sure was to be able
to now, what did you do with Jargear? I gotta
ask what you did with jar Jar? Oh? You know,
just the usual hor I'm you know that stuff. It's

(24:09):
just the usual. The most popular character in the history
of Star Wars, well, he Jarge are big. There's a
there's a joke in one of the series we do
where stars happen, says and then he immediately gets like
kicked off screen or something, and as he's flying out
of the shot, his line is, uh, me, something, I'd
be in this show much longer. You have to you

(24:32):
have to with Jarge are It's terrible? Oh my okay?
So justice, hashtag justice, that's the hashtag of the day.
Thank you, Christy so you said, that's kind of fulfilling
an eight year old dream. Other than that, then if
you get to play you can play anybody you want,

(24:53):
any character you want to do. What's the ultimate character
that you haven't had a chance to play it, or
even you have, I mean maybe maybe you've played the
character you wanted to play. Oh boy, Um, I've I've
been lucky, you know. Uh, I've been given opportunities to
play pretty big characters that even at the time, I
didn't know we're big characters. Like Honestly, when we started

(25:13):
doing Guardians cast a Rocket, I didn't know anything about
the Guardian. I don't thin anybody knew anything about the
Guardans of the Galaxy at the time. It was this weird,
obscure thing that you know, James Gunnen brought to life
because of the movie. But I remember when we were
recording the show, I was auditioning for the show. For
our show, the trailer came out shortly after my audition,
and my friend Sam he showed me this trailer and

(25:35):
I was like, oh, this is a deal that, Oh
my god, this is a look at this. This is
a real thing. And so when we started doing the
show and I realized that, you know, the Rocket Raccoon
was becoming this cultural phenomenon of the time. I thought,
this is this is a this is a pretty big
privilege to be in this room, and not only just
to be playing that character, but be in the room

(25:55):
with you guys as well. Obviously that was because that
was my first big group show in a Yeah. Yeah,
I mean I've done a bunch of stuff up to
that point, but that was the first time that I
really got a chance to like dive in with with
you folks. So there was a it was a big deal.
Well that was I mean, that was a fun cast.
Is there a different tone in working in animation in
Canada than there is in Hollywood? No, it's the same thing.

(26:18):
It's uh, it's people, Yeah, exact same. Do you think
that is? Well, Ray more polite in Canada, aren't they
that's the illusion? Uh? They they are the exact same
kind of people. You could put the Canadian voice actors
and the American voice actors in the room and the
same there there there. Like I said, they're people who
are really really good at their jobs, but they don't

(26:41):
take themselves particularly seriously. They take their work seriously, but
not themselves. So it's great, Yeah, totally man. And that's like,
that's why I never really got on with the the
on camera side of things. One of the reasons is
I never liked the world. The world to me was
always very judge and and and selfish and bath and
in vo It wasn't that at all. It was just empowering.

(27:04):
And it's also just so much more conducive to creativity.
That's the thing. I mean, the on camera world there's
times where it is, but it's rare. It's rare that
I mean, it's more you've got to be the actor,
and you've got and whereas you don't get to play,
you don't get to play nearly as much. And so
many creative things we talked about that have come out
of just to play that happens in the room. Uh,

(27:25):
that it does. It just takes it to an entirely
new level. So Trevor, forgive, forgive this question. But you
said there was a lot of time in between, you know,
you realizing that you enjoyed voices too, when you made

(27:46):
it a career. What were you doing in that time frame.
I was a theater guy for a long time and
I went to University of the University of Alberta, and
I became a theater director and that's how I became
a filmmaker as well. As I was moving very much
into the directing side of things. It was very successful.
Everything was going great, and like I said, when I
went to Vancouver ninety eight, it was to be to

(28:07):
work on the sets. I had friends that were, you know, uh,
production designers and stuff like that, and so I went thinking,
this is what I was gonna do, and I was
gonna work my way up through the director's guild and
do that whole thing. But when I got there, uh,
like I said, a friend of mine from back home
it said, you should, you should do voice work. And
I was like, I don't even I don't even know

(28:28):
what that means. So I I said to my agent, um,
you know, I do these voices and accents and stuff.
Is there is there anything we can do with that?
And he said, he gave me the speech that a
lot of a lot of agents give a lot of actors,
which is true. But you know, he said, well, you
know the thing about the voice world is that you
have to be you have to be extremely versatile. You
have to be the best in the world. You have

(28:49):
to be bah blah blah blah blah. And I'm like, okay,
well yeah, uh huh. So I went home back to
Abington for Christmas or something, and I knew guys that
worked at the campus radio station, and I thought I
gotta put to gather a demo. I didn't even know
what a demo was. I just thought, I'm just going
to a bunch of nonsense into a microphone and see
what happened. So I I go in there and my
my friend j Who's like, we'll get you in the booth,

(29:09):
you record wherever you want it to be good. I
went in there and I literally fifteen minutes of just
doing stuff, fifteen minutes long. No edits. Of course, why
would you edit? And so I brought this tape back
to my age and I was like, you mean like
this and you listened to it the whole thing, good
on good agent, and he said, well, it's a little long,

(29:31):
but he said, I think you might have what it takes.
And so he got me an audition for a show
called Spider Man, uh, for the role of Spider Man.
And I was so green. I never heard of it,
and I was so green I didn't know to put
the headphones in the booth so I could hear the
director on the other side. I knew nothing, and so

(29:52):
it was a disaster. But luckily a month after that,
I got an audition for this chow called The Lost Continent,
which I booked, and that was the one that we
did episode and three months and and I was off
the races. Your second audition, you booked a series regular.
That's amazing. Yeah, I was. I've been lucky man hey
side note, um, Trevor, I I got married in Bants.

(30:13):
Oh okay, that's my home province of field Love. I love.
I love it there and I can't wait. We're gonna
go back there next year for our tenure. N I uh.
Side note, I I sometimes shop at albert sins Um,
so very very similar. Uh kind of stuff. Okay, So

(30:35):
I want to eventually get into your geekdom, your nerdom,
because that's one of the things you and I have
always bonded over. But before we do that, there's something
very interesting, because you have kind of an interesting perspective
that I'd like to talk to you about. Um, because
a lot of people that listen to our show are
you know, amateur or want to be that's the wrong
way to say it, but voice over actors, so they're

(30:56):
kind of looking for direction, and you know what they
can do in different things, they can learn in different techniques.
And one of the things that I'm we're trying to
impart to them is that you no longer need to
be in Los Angeles, or need to be in New York,
or need to be in one of the mecca as
a voiceover, and you do in the last couple of years.
I would argue, at the height of your voiceover career,

(31:17):
you up and moved out of Hollywood, and I'm wondering
how that has affected the work the record. I mean
just kind of basically your career. Has Has there been
any negative to saying, hey, you know what, I'm out
of Hollywood and I'm gonna go do my own thing. Uh, yes,
there has been a negative aspect of it, but it
doesn't have anything to do necessarily with the move out

(31:39):
of state. It was more the fact that when the
pandemic came and we were all suddenly relegated to our
home studios and a lot of people had to build
home studios. You know, luckily already had one so I was.
I was set for that. But what I what I
realized was that the thing I love the most about
the job was gone forever. Because what I love most

(32:02):
about the job is being in the room with my
fellow cast members and in between takes, those moments of
trying to make a joke so that you can't do
your next take because you're still laughing at the previous
joke that was that was my favorite. So that's how
unprofessional I am. My favorite part of the job is
screwing up the job for others. So but but I

(32:24):
realized that that really was that camaraderie, that that sense
of family which you really do have in our world,
that's gone. And will it ever come back. I don't know.
There's a lot of there's a lot of directors that
we both know very well who have suggested that, no,
it's not ever going to come back, because the diaspora
happened right where I looked around one and went, oh,

(32:46):
I'm like one of three voice actors left, and like
everybody just vanished. My own agent said to me too,
as well, it doesn't it doesn't matter where you live. Now.
The caveat to that is that it doesn't matter where
I live because I'm an established voice actor, right. I
honestly couldn't tell you if you were new and and

(33:06):
and starting out in this whether or not it behooves
you to live in the place. I suspect not anymore,
because everybody's so used to the remote records and certainly
the Romot remote auditions. I mean, that's been a thing
for a long time. There was a time when you
had to go into a studio to do an audition,
you know. That was the time when you saw a
lot of these other actors as well. But that's long gone.

(33:27):
So I don't know what the advantage is of someone
actually saying, well, you know, I should really move to
l A to get into the scene. You know, so
much of our world is about who you know, and
it's about your your your network, and your your contacts
and your friends and your colleagues. I think it would
be way harder to do that now that you're never
actually in the same physical location as a person, because

(33:49):
you don't get that human bond, right, So I think
it's gonna be harder for people to break in because
of that, um But it's also just the way it is,
so you know, I would say a embrace the fact
that this is the new technology, right, this is the
new way, and work within those work within those parameters

(34:09):
to try and maximize your chances, which just means always
make sure you're committing to the character, you're making interesting choices,
you're being consistent. You know all that actorly stuff, right,
that's so great actor stuff. You were good at taking
regular words and making them adverbs. You were always good
at that. No, I think that's really good advice. I

(34:33):
think that's true. Unfortunately too, I know that during the pandemic,
I still went into the studio every time, other than
the times I went to your studio I did. I
would go into the studio and just be by myself
because I still needed the vibe of the studio. But
it still wasn't the same. So I I'm still hoping
it's going to come back. But You're right, so many

(34:54):
people are so scattered to the wind that even if
does come back, what the cast that you're normally with
are still going to be in the room. Everybody else
is gone, right, And honestly, I think that's going to
be the future. I think it's gonna be a hybridization
of of sessions. You're going to have half the people
in the room, half the people remote, or have the
people just recording by themselves. So it's going to be
a much lonelier experience, I think than what it was,

(35:15):
which is a real shame. But it's just three years
of producers and technicians getting used to this setup, and
producers love it because they don't have to leave the house,
right and it's cheaper in the long run, the long run,
So the odds of us going back to the way
it was, because I was that was a big concern
of mine when I did move. I was like, well,
what if it what if it goes back? What if

(35:36):
it goes back? But I thought I'll be all right.
Let me ask you this. Do you think that you've
actually gotten better over the years by being like, did
you grow more as an a voice actor when you
were with other people? If for no other reason than

(35:57):
you can immediately steal their best stuff and and towards
into a new version. You're basically just doing Kevin Kevin
Michael Richardson over and over. Because but but I mean
you asked me if I was inspired by people? You know,
I have so many sort of stock characters that that
immediately come out now, which are just blatant ripoffs of

(36:18):
stuff I've seen my colleagues do, Like he have this
short old man ntch head dude, and that's a complete
rip off of my friend Brian Drummond's a very successful
vacouper voice actor who did that once, and I was like,
that's awesome. I need to make it mine. Now. Of
course it evolves into its own thing, so it doesn't
sound anything like his. But that's the beauty of it.

(36:38):
Right now we can boast to two old men and
we don't stand anything Ali anyway. Yes, theft is good,
is what I'm saying. By the way, you both live
like an hour from each other. You guys live like
an hour from each other. I think. So it's no
you guys, stop it. You're in Texas. Yeah, I'm in
San Antonio. Stop I'm in I'm in Austin. Oh. Oh,

(37:00):
I could see you. I'll tell you. I love down here.
I gotta say, man, it's great. Not that there's a
whole lot of people that extra sound like this. You
gotta you go, you gotta go hunting for him, but
they do exist. Every you gotta go, you gotta go
to West Texas or we gotta go Yeah, you gotta
go in the So Austin. Austin is an interesting place

(37:22):
to live. How how why did you pick here Canada? Well, again,
with the whole pandemic madness that was happening, there was
at one point there was the the choice to perhaps
go home, right, to go back to Canada, but I
just didn't think. I didn't think that was the right
choice because I wasn't done with the American experience yet.

(37:43):
And then I wind up getting my citizenship. So I
was like, well, now I can come and go as
I please. Because I had the Green card before, which
means you had to live in the country, but now
as the US citizen. Ironically, now I'm a citizen, I
can say goodbye if I want. So there was that thought,
but I just thought, uh, it wasn't viable for some reason.
So it was like, Okay, well, I gotta get into
California for again a number of reasons. But the three

(38:06):
states that were discussed were Texas, Tennessee, and Florida. I
had never been to Florida. I had never been to Tennessee,
but I had been to Texas and I have a
sister in Katie, which is West Houston, not very far
from here. Uh, and then we've have friends in Dallas.
I didn't want to go to Dallas because I just
don't like the big concrete jungle of Dallas. Yeah, it's
basically a right. And I didn't want to go to

(38:30):
Houston for much the same reason. And I didn't want
to go to Austin because Austin really is l A.
In many, many weeks, Austin is so l A. It's
it's all the l A list that I was seeking
to flee called out right now. Oh, Austin fun to visit, man,

(38:52):
I love going there for four hours and then stabbed
in the heart. San Antonio is beautiful, though, I'm excited
to come and visit. For sure. It's good. And you
know what, it's boring, and I love that so boring here,
it's great. People are just they don't do anything. They're
just sitting around being nice to each other, eating great

(39:14):
Mexican food. It's the best thing ever. Its sounds pretty marvelous.
Al Right. So I'm known as a bit of a nerd,
and I thought I was a nerd until I really
started talking to you. And then I realized, oh, man,
if if the nerd, if there was military ranks in nerd, um,
I was like maybe a lieutenant if I was an officer,

(39:37):
And sir, yes, sir, you were up there as as
an absolute colonel or a general. Um. When did you start?
You're well, first of all, it's you're mostly table top, correct,
And so when did you find your nerdom? Where did
you start your nerdom? And what's your favorite nerdom right now? Well,
I played my first game of Dungeons and Dragons when

(39:58):
I was seven years old, uh, with a friend down
the street, Jason Peters, and he introduced me to this world,
which I immediately just went because I was also a
huge Tolkien fan. You know, my sister read me The
Lord of the Rings every night to go to sleep
while I was very very young, so that we thought,
we thought about those books several times, we have, we have,

(40:19):
but but the D and D experience was just something
that immediately captured my imagination and I fell head over
hills in love with it, uh, And that just went
on and on and on. But in the eighties, when
I was going through high school and such, it was
not exactly cool. You didn't talk about it. In fact,
we never publicly discussed the game. We didn't even call

(40:41):
it dn D. We called it the game. It was
oh yeah, yeah, yeah. I remember. There was this one
moment where we had all got this group of girlfriends
all at roughly the same time, and we're all in
my friend Trevor ladoes uh basement and we're playing this game,
and all of a sudden, the girls all on mask
decide to do the poppin, the poppin Jerry they did

(41:02):
the Poppin and we're like, oh my god. And our
first thought wasn't hey, let's introduce his girls to this thing.
It was no coverless stuff, hid the stuff. We know that.
How about the game? Ridiculous? Right? And then cut to
like twenty years later, thirty years later, Well, now everybody
in their and their grandma was playing D and D.
And it's it's all what all the cool kids are doing?
And I'm like, no, you people have no idea. I did.

(41:26):
By the time I found D and D. It was
really really cool fantasy novels I found very early. In
comic books I found very early, but D and D
I didn't find until it was awesome. See, that's fascinating
to me that you were a big fantasy kid and
never somehow found the road to D and D because
and my brother played. My brother played too, So it
made made no sense. Yeah, no, it made no sense.

(41:47):
I painted minish slightly because it was you know, it
was a direct kind of correlation to the um uh
model cars that my brothers used to build, so the
tester paint like all that kind of stuff where it
was basically lead uh that kind of paint, that stuff.
I was into that stuff as a kid. Um But yeah,

(42:09):
never found dn D until much later, obviously, And then
you and I started talking about all this stuff, and
then you kind of introduced me to Warhammer and some
of the other really cool just systems that are out there.
But you're still, oh there are. So I have this
YouTube channel called Meet Myself and Dict, and I was
gonna get into one of one of the things I

(42:29):
do is this is this series called the Stages Library,
which is me talking about my experiences with the literally
hundreds of games I have in my library. Because D
n D is but the starter set, I'm afraid it's
it is but the introduction to a much wider world
and I and I really want people to understand that
there are so many options out there for them to

(42:51):
try all kinds of genres and styles and systems in
the whole bit. Because I have a big passion for it.
But then the big passion Dandy Boopling, what are you
playing right now? Uh? Like five different? I'm I'm running
a Vampire the Masquerade game with the guys in my
local group down here, which is awesome. Vampires and the

(43:15):
Masquerade prior to the Masquerade, Yes, where you play vampires
in a modern day setting, and it's awesome because it's
all about politics. It's basically you take and Rice and
Game of Thrones and match them together and that's what
you get. It's so and so this is this the
thing that's taking up most of your time right now? Well,
the channel, the Channel, because I'm doing I'm doing a
whole bunch of stuff in the Channel right now, Like

(43:36):
I said, to do the Stages Liberry. I have my
main show where I play all these characters. But so
so solo role playing is the thing that I got
into for the Channel, which was a total gimmick. I
was like, because will you and I were talking about,
you know, well, maybe we'll do like a critical role thing,
we'll get some you know, when we had sort of
several well, we we got pretty tried along, yeah, and

(43:57):
just scheduling and such didn't work. So finally I thought,
you know what, I think I'm just gonna do this myself.
I'm gonna play all the characters. And so I did,
and I started this thing, and all of a sudden,
out of the woodwork, these people on YouTube are going, yes,
I've been playing solo for some time now, there's no friends,
and I'm like, what, but no, this is just a joke.
What do you what? But it turns out there's this

(44:18):
huge community, and especially in the pandemic when you're now,
they couldn't go over to their friend's house to play,
so they and there's whole new systems where you just
you know, you played by yourself essentially. So I started
doing I did like I don't know, seventy episodes of
like three different seasons worth, all following the same characters.
And right now I'm doing this tabletop mini adventure game

(44:40):
called five par Secs from Home, which is a sci
fi you know, battle game, but with a lot of
campaign elements and role playing elements and stuff. So it's
it's super fun. It's super fun. That's so cool, man,
I miss that. What do you miss? Well, just the
whole again. I haven't been involved in a campaign in
quite a while now, So what is the campaign? A campaign?
In sight, is a game start to finish. Yeah, yeah,

(45:05):
series of linked adventures. Yeah, like like you would read
a fantasy novel, right and you'd go from the beginning
to the end. Kind of. It's awesome. It's awesome. I
always say it's it's it's improv with consequence, just like
my favorite thing. I love that. Today. Um, well, Trevor,
thank you so much for joining us today. Thank you
for inviting me and you guys. Was fun. And we're

(45:29):
gonna be inviting you back very soon because we'd like you.
Well well we'll get into that later, but well we'll
because the contest is closed. We'll talk, um, but we're
gonna we're gonna bug you. But yeah, so of course, Trevor.
Right now, what are the projects I know that we
all know the voice over world, we're so used to
hearing this, But what are the projects you can tell

(45:49):
us about that people can hear you on right now?
Oh boy? Well, the one that was most recently released
I think was the Star Wars Summer Special old a
lego Star Wars Summer Special or Beach Special or something.
It's waters to go to this beach planet. And of
course Palpatine on the beach with Vader is a is
a whole thing. But I get fan mail still, people

(46:11):
writing me going, oh my god, that I just okay,
that's awesome. Yeah, that that was. But other than that, really,
you know, everything else is sort of in in process
at the moment. But it's it's my channel, me, myself
and die, which is the big thing that I've I've
been devoting all my time too. And you know, I'm
about to hit subscribers today and that's what. Yeah, without

(46:32):
that's without any kind of advertising. So that's all right, congratulations.
It's a drop in the bucket compared to YouTube stuff.
But for me, you know, one guy doing all this stuff,
that's yeah, that's pretty awesome. Anything, uh, anything going on
in your personal life that's kind of worth mentioning. Come on,
come on, Well, there's a little wedding happening. Yes, sever's

(46:55):
getting married. What's Happeningly, it's already happened. We technically got
married in April because you know, she needed to get
some some healthcare, so I had to. But so you're
technically already married. We're technically married. This is this is
the party, this is the this is the the ceremony,
such as it is, it'll be that'll be pretty quick
in San Antonio, Antonio. Yes, can't wait. It's called the Spires.

(47:21):
We can't wait, so and I cannot wait to go.
It's going to be so much fun. Of course we're going.
Of course we're going. Of course we're going. So congratulations
on that, and everybody go check out Me myself and Die.
I think, uh, for everybody out there, I think that
twenty thousand. I think we can make that thirty thousand
pretty quick. I think we should. So everybody go and
subscribe to Me, Myself and Die because it is really

(47:44):
really cool and talk about seeing just a showcase of
talent when it comes to characters and voices and everything
else that we love on this on this podcast. It
is really worth it. And then go check out you know,
I think Guardians of the Galaxy is still on Disney.
Plus Rocket Raccoon is okay, but star Lord is phenomenal.
Then you've got the Lego Star Wars stuff everything Lego

(48:06):
Star Wars f is for family. I think you can
still see on Netflix. It's all over the place, so
there is so much stuff out there. Trevor, thank you
so much for joining us. We really appreciate it. And
uh yeah, come back soon. We'll talk about that in
a bit. Okay, all right, thank you everybody, and just
don't ever forget. As we like to say, if you
think you've got what it takes to be one of us,

(48:27):
then step up to the microphone and put your voices
where your mouth is. Thanks everybody. I Hear Voices as
hosted by wilfrid Il and Christy Carlson Romano. Executive produced
by wilfrid Ill, Brendan Rooney, Amy Sugarman and Vicky Ernst Chang.
Our executive in charge of production is Danielle Romo. Our
producer is Lorraine Vera Wez and our editor slash engineer
is Brian Burton. And that was my announcer voice. Some
side effects of listening to I Hear Voices are sore

(48:49):
abs from hilarity falling down the Coco melon rabbit hole,
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