Interview with Chris Patton

By: Allen Divers
Date: Monday, February 24, 2003

In the last few weeks, I've had the honor of getting to speak with not one, but two voice actors from ADV. This time around I did a little email sparring with Chris Patton. (Ah, gotta love the Internet as even interviews take on a whole new approach thanks to email.) Aside from his occasional roles as everyday heroes and angst-ridden teens, Chris spends his time acting in the Houston, Texas acting community. Starting with Daley Wong in Bubblegum Crisis 2040, Chris has acted in over fifty different roles, ranging from secondary and background characters to a few male leads in some of ADV's hottest releases.



In his role as ADV voice actor, Chris has made himself available in the Internet Anime Community make frequent appearances on many popular webboards. Never afraid to share his opinion, he often goes out of his way to share his experiences as a voice actor with the curious. Trying his hardest to earn the title of most heard voice ever, Chris has quite a few roles in a few upcoming video games as well as a little show ADV picked up, entitled RahXephon. Chris was kind enough to actually answer my questions about his career as well as a few specific questions about his performance of Kamina Ayato, the lead protagonist of RahXephon.



Allen - Where did you get your start in the world of Voice acting?



Chris - It's really got a lot to do with Jessica Calvello. I was doing a production of A Chorus Line with her (and Monica Rial, in fact) and as you can imagine, we did quite a bit of cutting up and the like backstage, after the show, at cast parties, etc. She quickly grasped how much I loved to play with my voice, and suggested that I might one day audition for ADV Films. I kept my eyes peeled for open calls in a local street rag, and one day, BOOM, there was the ad. I went in, a little nervous, mainly because I didn't know exactly what was going to happen. I did my best, and in about two weeks got a call to do some additional voice/background/walla work on "Masters of Mosquiton". From there things grew, and so did my career with ADV.




Allen - Has performing always been in your blood?



Chris - Yes. I've been acting since I was nine. Operas, musicals, comedies, dramas, improv. I studied theatre at the University of Houston and have appeared in about 50 live stage productions. I am also a member of Actor's Equity Association, the stage actor's union. I am not SAG, however, because joining would be counter-productive in a city like Houston.



Allen - What are your influences?



Chris - Wow. Quite a range actually. Mel Blanc and Dan Castellaneta have both had a huge impact on my voice acting, the quality I aspire to, the range that I push myself to have when behind the mic. I also have great admiration for Scott McNeil and am ( I admit with a bit of fanboyish silliness ) a big Crispin Freeman fan, in the sense that I really respect his work, and the fact that he does so much quality stage work as well.



Allen - What was your first major voice acting job?



Chris - I guess the first "biggie" for me was Daley Wong in "Bubblegum Crisis 2040". Oh my BALLS that was a fun role to voice!



Allen - Going back, what would you do differently with that first role?



Chris - I would make some of his quips a little more pointed. I would improve on his first couple of appearances in the series, because I think maybe I didn't have the greatest grasp on the character at first. I think that happens often with anime voice acting.



Allen - When it comes to picking roles, do you have a preference? (i.e. hero, side kick, villain)



Chris - Hm, well you can't really deny the draw of playing the hero, I mean I will never forget voicing Yu in "Spriggan" or Yushiro in "Gasaraki", but I have to tell you, the most fun I've ever had in a recording booth is the two sessions I have had voicing episode characters in Excel Saga. (Little Brother, an inept kidnapper, and Key, a pretty-boy rock star.)



Allen - Does genre (i.e. horror, comedy, drama) affect your decision to audition for a particular role?



Chris - Not at all, I embrace them all wholeheartedly, though I would LOVE to do some horror. I haven't had a chance to do any of that yet. I've done avant garde SF, I've done camp, comedy, drama, but never horror. Matt, are you listening? :-)



Allen - How do you prepare yourself for a role?



Chris - Yeah, the preparation. Well, first of all, I do all the research possible. This is where fans on the net can come in real handy. I mean, these fans and their knowledge, they blow me away! They know so MUCH! I owe what I know about certain shows more to fans on the internet than the info I sometimes get from just asking ADV for the title of a show and what character I'm playing. Beyond that, I try to get an image of the character, and try to imagine matching my voice to that picture. I look at the image and I say, "How does that person sound?" And I start playing with different voices til I find something that rings true. Then, I try to put that voice through a range of emotions. If I can do that, and it still sounds like it's going to fit the character, I'm on my way to something. Apart from that, I just really try to take good care of my voice and keep my voice in shape.



Allen - Were there any roles that you felt you had to have?



Chris - Oh yes. I was hungry for Yu in "Spriggan". I was really going to be quite crushed if I didn't get that one, ya know? There are just some roles you feel with every fiber of your being that you are meant to and should play. The bad side of having all that passion is, sometimes you just don't get the role, for whatever reason.



Allen - Is there a role you would love to revisit?



Chris - Without a doubt, I would love to revisit Daley Wong. I think Yushiro has taken his journey, and I certainly wouldn't turn down a sequel to "Spriggan", but Daley is such a great character. Not my favorite, but one I would like to revisit.



Allen - What's the most challenging aspect for you when it comes to Voice Acting for Anime?



Chris - I think the biggest trick is combining matching the lip flaps with realistic, truthful acting. Simple as that.



Allen - In terms of your career, where would you like to be in 5 years?



Chris - I would love to voice for Disney, of course, or a prime time show in the same family as The Simpsons or Family Guy. Something really over-the-top that is also very popular. That's any actor's dream, I think.



Allen - Within your voice acting career, do you feel like you've reached any pinnacles?



Chris - I guess you're always scared of reaching an absolute "pinnacle", because where do you go from there? I would say though, that Kamina has been an exceptional role for me. I am very proud of my work on that show. :-) The thing is though, the reason RahXephon is so good, so "on" as an English product (because I reject the term dub in the Japanese and English delineation, for any time you post-lay a voice down to a piece of animated art, you are dubbing), is because the performing of the piece has become a wholistic process of all these very talented, committed performers giving their all every time they go in to record. The entire cast for RahXephon blows my mind. I will not call it my "pinnacle"; I'm not ready for that. :-) I'm just very happy with the way it's turning out.



Allen - Still a month away, RahXephon is proving to be a highly anticipated title. Of course, it doesn't hurt the current issue of Newtype USA has a sneak peek of episode one. I recently had the opportunity to hear the English soundtrack for the first five episodes of RahXephon. The English cast is made up of many familiar ADV voices with you in the role of Kamina Ayato, Monica Rial as Shitow Haruka and Hilary Haag as Shitow Megumi. While Monica is in a role very different from her other current work, Noir, you've fallen into a familiar role of teen hero. Do you ever worry about becoming typecast?



Chris - Well, as one of my friends likes to say, I have become the "sort of Uber Teen Butt Kicker of ADV", but the truth is, that's only like, 6 out of about 50 roles that I've done. I mean, I've voiced everything from a bishounen rock star with artistic constipation to a dog; so I think maybe I've passed a few versatility tests.



Allen - Before beginning recording, what of RahXephon had you seen?



Chris - I had seen nothing but still images of the characters, although I had done extensive reading up on the show.



Allen - Where there any special steps you took to work out the character of Kamina Ayato?



Chris - Yes. It was a matter or paring down. I realized I had already voiced three very prominent seventeen-year old characters, or near seventeen anyway: Yu from Spriggan, Seishiro from Princess Nine, and Yushiro from Gasaraki. My first thought was; how do I make this guy sound like a totally new seventeen-year old, and not just "another seventeen-year-old being voiced by Chris Patton?" I had to find his niche, his quirks, his defining characteristics. At first I just went off his look, but then while recording the first episode, it hit me: This guy is PURE. That was the key. He wasn't a government-programmed ass-kicker like Yu, he wasn't a brooding, angst-ridden kid like Yushiro, and he wasn't a "dork with a heart of gold" like Seishiro. He was just a very pure, normal, popular, yet untainted high school kid living what he thought was a normal life. That was my springboard.



Allen - With RahXephon, were there any personal challenges you found with the role?



Chris - Sure. Two things mainly: One, I'm older than he is, and I have to keep him a believable seventeen without making him sound like a whiny, nasally, brat-teen with an attitude, which has become such an anime cliché, and I was really trying to steer away from whamming people's ears with another annoying teenaged "dude". The second challenge was, and continues to be, that Matt keeps me in the dark. He will let me have one episode script in advance, and that's it. And, as you know, the show is full of mystery, so whenever I have a question about certain things that don't compute in the story, he sometimes won't tell me, for fear it may taint the way I'm playing the current moment. It keeps the work on each episode very fresh and edge-of-my-seat.



Allen - When working on a role, such as Kamina Ayato, do you feel its better to be fully aware of where the character is going, or be exposed to things much like he is?



Chris - Ah, well, at first I wanted to know everything about the show. But Matt's point hit home to me. If I know exactly how episode 22 or whatever plays out, my knowledge of that can creep into my acting, and let on a little too much before the audience should know anything. It keeps the performance clean.



Allen - Being mostly a solo process, how do you work around not always having the other performers' recordings to work against?



Chris - It's been especially rough in this show, because I am usually the first actor to lay down the tracks for a volume. You can't, in all honesty, really act off the Japanese actors, because their acting style is different, and the language barrier also creates huge differences in how some lines are delivered. So I pretty much watch the visual, I watch what the image opposite me is doing, and use that as my "scene partner", and play off of that. It helps, sometimes, if I know which actor is voicing the role I'm watching, because I can imagine that particular actor's voice coming out of the character's mouth. It's all about imagination. I guess it's the aural equivalent of working with blue screen, and pretending there are dinosaurs or giant robots or whatever else at your back, but really you're just acting your pants off to this giant wall of blue.



Allen - Which has proved to be more challenging, voice acting for Anime or for Video Games?



Chris - I have to say, the video game voicing is like nothing else. Ha, well actually, that's not true; it's probably EXACTLY like doing pre-lay animation, a la the way American cartoons are recorded. It's no holds barred, because you don't have to worry about lip synch and you can focus TOTALLY on acting and perfect line delivery. So, definitely, post-lay work on anime is a much greater challenge. It becomes that constant battle of matching the lip flaps while maintaining an honest performance.



Allen - Outside of acting, what else are you involved in?



Chris - I'm an avid roller-coaster enthusiast, some might say addict. :-) I read voraciously, I write fiction, I'm working on a screenplay (aren't we all), and I might be understudying the role of Hedwig in a South Beach, Florida production of Hedwig and the Angry Inch. And to answer your question, no, I don't mind understudying. It has done great things for me in the past. Although, there's nothing like getting cast in the lead role.



Allen - What words of wisdom would you pass on to aspiring voice actors?



Chris - Well, first, that last one, humility. Take any gig you can get at first, they will lead to bigger ones. If I had not been an understudy at the Alley theatre at one time, I would have never gone on as a principal character and gotten my Equity card. If I had never voiced background in Mosquiton, I would never have played Yu in Spriggan, you see? Anyway, apart from that, ACT, however and wherever you can. Live or move to where the work is. (Texas, Cali, New York, Canada) Take care of your voice. Watch a lot of animated television and film, just as writers should read a lot and stage actors should see all the theatre they can. On top of all that, be patient. So many people come up to me who seem hungry to act, yet they don't seem willing to go through the motions, and even then they are always bemoaning that they are not a leading man at ADV. Dudes and dudettes, GIVE IT TIME, and if it's meant to be it will be.



While Chris' roles has shown quite a lot of flexibility in performance, its his role as the young male lead that will currently gets him the most attention. It's probably this attention that has lead to Chris getting the lead role of Sagara Sosuke in Full Metal Panic. While still a young male lead character, Chris' acting skills will truly be put to the test as Sosuke's personality is quite different than some of his previous roles. Aside from such a major role, Chris can be heard in the recent releases of Nuku Nuku, Chance Pop Sessions, Excel Saga and Saiyuki. Not limiting himself to Anime, his voice will play a major role in an upcoming video game as well as in a live-action Dub of Gamera II: Attack of Legion.



Thanks, Chris, for taking the time to answer my questions and allowing me to share them with the community!



Thanks!

Allen Divers

Freelance Adventurer

boxie@azraelproductions.com