Oz Comic Con - Jason Marsden Interview

So with Oz Comic Con Melbourne, wrapping yesterday I have a lot of things to share with you all, great photos and chats with people. The first thing I wanted to share was an interview that I was able to do with Jason Marsden. Many of you will know Jason as the voice of Max from A Goofy Movie, I know his voice from The Gummy Bears cartoon as well. Check out the interview below.

I understand that you only landed here in Australia a few hours ago. Now is this your first visit to Australia?

First time yeah

So you have not really seen the Melbourne weather?

I’ve seen Williams and Elizabeth streets, that’s as far as I have gotten. *laughs* I did not bring the power convertor, so I was running up and down trying to find one.

Most of the souvenir shops on Swanston St will fix you up there.

Well, why didn’t you tell me that earlier? It was way after that. *Laughs*

Now I know you as Max, from A Goofy Movie. Did the reaction to that film shock you when it came out or was it something you expected it to be?

I wouldn’t say I was shocked, I was pleased because I knew; I mean I knew we were doing something really special. I mean it was a feature film starring an iconic Disney character, never been done before. The story was outstanding and beyond the cartoony stuff, really kinda grounded Goofy as a father figure and a person, a dog person. But I was very pleased that people had dug it as much as we had hoped. And what I am shocked in is that still to this day people are still love it as much today as when it came out. That’s shocking and pleasing.

You took one of my follow up questions.

Shocking and pleasing, like a cold shower. *laughs*

*laughs* Now is there any chance of a Girl Meets World cameo?

If they ask me I would be happy to consider.

So you obviously have a very prolific voice acting career but also a live action career. Do you find one to be more rewarding than the other?

Yeah, Voice over is so much fun, it’s an 11 on the fun scale. And I am working with guys I used to listen to when I was a kid. I have the capability of working on many different projects at once, usually if you do on camera it just one at a time, because there is location, make up and it takes a lot longer. I always say the fun part is that my ego loves to see myself on TV, so I love them both equally.

Do you get recognised for one more than the other?

I do get recognised a lot for on camera, I do get recognised on my voice alone, I will be in line at the supermarket and people will be like, ah you sound like A Goofy Movie, Max and I am like yeah that’s me. Yeah people will pick me out from the voice and that’s pretty astounding.

Now there was one particular role from when I was young and that was Cavin, from The Adventures of the Gummy Bears.

Yeah, Cavin. That was my first cartoon.

What was it like walking in there to an existing series?

It was terrifying. Terrifying and exciting, It was my very first cartoon I had watched the show and the reason that I was cast was that the young man who was doing the voice originally had gone through puberty and he didn’t sound like a kid anymore he sounded like an adult and they needed a young Cavin the young knight again and I was young and sounded young enough. It was weird being in a cartoon voice over session and meeting the people who do the voices because you have, you know voice actors are not as, you know, well seen as we are now thank to the internet and social media.

For example I could not wait to see who was the voice of Cubby gummy, the little boy gummy bear and I turned to my left and it’s this young woman, who’s the voice. And I was, wow woman are doing voices here too. The voice of tummy and the villain were voiced by one guy; I had no idea that voice actors were that diverse. You know I knew Mel Blanc did a lot of the Warner Bros. stuff and it really puts that into perspective when you see it happening from this one human being.

Now you have done a lot of characters of the years, Peter Pan, Haku from the English version of Spirited Away. Is there a real disconnect for you to do the work before the animation and after the animation?

Well traditionally, the voices are always recorded first and they do the animation to the performance. In the case of Spirited Away and most anime, are you an anime guy?

Yep.

Like Cowboy Bebop, Pokémon all those are already done. So by the time they get to be dubbed in the US, that’s when we do what we call ADR, Automatic Dialogue Replacement or Actor Directly Recorded, whoever coins that? So by the time I joined Spirited Away it was already done and they put be in a booth and I just did Haku’s lines one at a time, which took about two days I didn’t even see the entire film until like a month later.

Was that challenge, knowing that you had to meet...

I am like savantish kinda good at ADR, they show you the image on the screen and I am pretty good at matching the lip flap or usually ADR is not just covering dialogue but adding a little breath here or there if the animation comes back and the animators have kept the lips moving, kinda based off the action. But I was always good at stuff like that and they have beeps to let you know when it’s time to go, it’s like there are three beeps and where the forth beep is that’s when you start. It’s a little bit of a short hand but you figure it out. I have always been gifted with that.

So we talked before about the on camera and the voice work. But if you were not an actor, what job would you see yourself doing?

Like nothing in the entertainment industry?

Well, not acting. Would you go the musician route or maybe the plumber route?

If you heard me play the guitar, it would defiantly not be that and I am one of those guys that when my toilet broke, I took three different trips to the hardware store because I got the wrong pipe. I would be pretty bad at both of those, though I can fold clothes so I would be really good working retail, I could clean houses, I am good at cleaning. This is if it was nothing to do with the entertainment industry. 

Otherwise I would probably direct, I like hanging out with musicians, I live in Nashville Tennessee, so there are a lot of musicians I hang out with now, doing photography with them and music videos for them.

Now with a career as big as yours, have you ever sat down and watched something and realised that was my voice back there?

Laughs

Has it even happened that you’ve forgotten that you have done a role here or there?

Yeah, I was just watching Jimmy Neutron, the feature film with my son and I was like, oh that guy sounds familiar; Oh that’s me. Yeah I forgot that I did a small part in that years ago, so yeah it happens. 

Do other people, members of your family come up to you and say “I didn’t realise you did that”?

Oh yeah, or Twitter fans ask, were you in this? And my response is very so often, was it me? Really? But the fans know more than I do.

So what’s next for you, you obviously have things on the go that you probably can’t talk about, but what’s coming up that you can talk about.

I just finished the third season of a show called Transformers Rescue Bots, for the Hub network and its on Netflix, it’s the transformers universe but geared towards a younger audience, not like Handy Manny where its educational, but it’s like, family of first responders, it’s a little kinder, less violence. And another season of the Garfield show, some guest spots here and there.

Final question, I am sure coming into Australia people have told you about all the random things, spiders and snakes, which you won’t find here in Melbourne, Is there any one thing you wanted to do while in Australia?

Oh man, I mean I want to, there is absolutely no way but I want to visit the Outback. That’s not near here at all is it?

It depends on your definition of Outback.

Like you know, I just saw that movie Tracks, about the girl who crossed the desert with the camels. You know adventures like that.

That’s a good outback movie to watch, don’t watch Wolf Creek that will turn you off the Outback straight away. So you want to see Kangaroo’s and stuff like that?

Yeah and the Aboriginals and the land, I just love desert scapes. It would be beautiful, picturesque just feeling the energy around it.

Fantastic, thank you for your time.

Thank you Luke.