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Posted: 01/14/2005
Photography: Courtesy of Crispin Freeman
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You may not recognize him right away if he were to walk past you along the street, although his incredible good looks and demeanor would make most people pause to glance his way. Distinguished comes to mind perhaps, or a man about the town. You might not know him right off, but if you are any sort of Anime fan, whether you just dabble in the genre or are obsessed with it, the name Crispin Freeman should probably ring a bell. It certainly will when you get done reading this feature. So who is Crispin Freeman? Well, for starters, in the new lauded American dubbed Anime series, Wolf's Rain, he's the American voice actor for Tsume. In Last Exile, JIVE Magazine's 2004 Anime Series of the Year, he's the mysterious and forsaken Alex Rowe. In Witch Hunter Robin, he's the torn, yet romantic Amon. In The Big O, he plays Alan Gabriel, Ravemaster as Shuda and Seighart, and in Digimon, he's Duskmon, legendary warrior of darkness. In the TV Series X, he's Fuma, eventual leader of the Dragons of Earth. In Chobits, he plays Hideki and in Read or Die, he's the inimitable Joker. More recently, in the new Anime series, Strawberry Eggs, he directed and played the lead character, Hibiki. In the highly acclaimed Hellsing, JIVE Magazine's 2002 Anime Series of the Year, he plays Alucard.
This just lists some of his Anime characters for voice acting in American dub versions. Read on and find out what Crispin has to say about the tough business of dubbing Anime that stays true to the art form, the intention, and most importantly, all the love he pours into what must be one of the most fun, yet technically difficult jobs in the world.
JIVE: You are considered one of the most in-demand and busy American voice actors in the Anime [American dubbing] industry. Your "Anime voice" is also one of the most recognizable, if you were to ask the typical fan. What would you say has been the key to your success that sets you apart from many other voice actors in the industry?
Crispin: Your first thing is actually sort of a surprise to me. I mean, I know I've been in a lot of high-profile titles recently, which is great.
JIVE: You've worked on quite a few series and you seem to be doing very regular work. I've sat beside people watching a series you're in and, instantly, they know it is Crispin in the first episode, without even watching the credits roll.
Crispin: Interesting. I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing.
JIVE: What's the story of your success, basically?
Crispin: I think the story of my success, as it is in the Anime world, comes from two things. One, I have a very long background in performing and acting. I trained for a very long time in theater, as well as singing and dance. So when I came to Anime I brought with me my experience in the theater and in opera and musical theater. I'm not sure that all voice-over people bring that. I know that a lot of my compatriots have very long theater careers. Some of them, however, just come from radio, voice-over or what not. They weren't necessarily theatrical actors. I think the one difference between me and my compatriots who are theatrical actors is that I really know and appreciate Anime. I've heard that people online play "Six Degrees of Crispin Freeman." I was like, "Oh, I'm well then … I'm flattered."
JIVE: So you're like the Kevin Bacon of Anime.
Crispin: Yeah, though I'm not to sure I want that title.
JIVE: Hah, you know what I meant.
You can be the biggest fan on the planet and if you don't know how to act it's not going to help you when you're going to be in the booth. |
Crispin: I usually say I'm six degrees of Anime when I'm trying to describe my position in Anime to people. And that's not just because I've worked in a lot of shows. Because I know the art form, I'm interested in its history; I have favorite directors and artists in Anime. Anime has inspired me artistically. So I care about the art form.
JIVE: So you're not just another actor showing up at a studio; you're actually a fan.
Crispin: Yes, I actually am a fan. Now that's a dangerous thing. Because most fans think they can get involved with Anime and that they would be good at Anime just because they're a huge fan. That does not necessarily translate. You can be the biggest fan on the planet and if you don't know how to act it's not going to help you when you're going to be in the booth. Or if you've never directed a show before you're not going to be able to tell people what you need to get a good performance out of them. Just because you're a good dramaturge or you know all the research behind a certain show does not mean you necessarily have the skills to produce a good animated show. It doesn't make you a writer just because you're a fan.
I've heard many artists, and I sort of agree with them on this, say that you're either a consumer or a creator. Most creators barely have time to keep up with what's going around. What I mean is that people have asked me, for example, "But haven't you watched Inuyasha?" And I think, "Well yeah, I've seen a couple of episodes." I know Rumiko Takahashi's work and I can see what the character is that she's doing. It's sort of a monster of an episode type of show, that's all I have time for. I don't have time to get involved in the nitty-gritty of everything else because I'm busy creating my own stuff, too. So, I acknowledge Takahashi, because she does great work; I really love it, and off I go. No, I haven't seen all of Ranma 1/2. I just don't have time because I'm busy creating.
I think a lot of people think that because they're great consumers that they will be great creators, and that's not necessarily the case. But what's helped me because I have been a fan of the genre-and because I approached it not just as a sycophantic fan, but as someone who appreciates the art-I have been able to bring to my work a level of knowledge of the shows that has helped me. Especially when I started in New York, because most of the people that I was working with, including many of the directors-not all but many-had no idea what they were working on, and didn't really care. And I did! And so that meant that when I went in to read my character I knew what was going on, which helped immensely. So, I kept getting cast. Then, as I started doing more and getting deeper into it, I think people realized that.
Directors didn't have to explain anything to me, and that's what a director loves. They love an actor who can come in and just sort of nail it. And I would come in and they'd say, "This is a character that duh duh duh duh duh …" and I'd be like, "Oh, he's sort of like a Japanese version of a young King Arthur," and they'd be like, "Yeah …!" and I'd just go in and nail it. Also, there is an archetype in Japanese animation that I slip into very easily which is a bishounen-the sort of beautiful boy. Which usually, in Inuyasha, it'd be a character like Sesshoumaru. In X it is Fuma. He's usually very romantic, has a slightly deeper voice, and is many times mysterious, like Amon in Witch Hunter Robin. Most importantly, he's a romantic character, someone that the girls are supposed to be attracted to. That doesn't really happen in American animation; romance is somehow taboo.
Many sorts of mature subjects are taboo in American animation and I think it's sort of silly. But I think that I was sort of ready-made to play those kinds of characters because when I was doing theater I would play similar characters in theater. I would play in the Irish repertoire theater; I be would cast as Hamlet. There aren't a whole lot of Hamlets in domestic animation, but there are a ton of them in Anime. They constantly need that sort of heroic type of character.
JIVE: Not only heroic, but there is always a mystery to your characters. There is a side of them that we don't get to see very often, and it really comes out at the end. They're always sort of an anti-hero but yet there's some sensitive side there that we even saw this with the vampire Alucard, for example in Hellsing at the end.
Crispin: Well, it's funny because when I was working on Last Exile, I usually try to watch the shows I'm in before I go in to record, which is also something that many of my compatriots don't do. They're incredibly busy. I'm just crazy. I'll stay up all night and watch a show that I'm in. I don't expect anyone else to do that, but I do just because I want to know the story. Especially if I'm playing a smaller part because the way we record-you record just your part; you don't get to see the whole show while you're recording.
If you're not a main character, you may skip over vast sections of the story and not know what happened. Like in Ghost in the Shell [SAC] I played Togusa. Togusa is a main character, but he's certainly not Motoko or Bateau, so there's going to be long stretches of the show that I'm not around in. Then I'm going to have to come in and say something very important, and if I don't know what happened, I'm sort of sunk. So, I make sure to try and watch the shows before I go just so I know what the storyline is. I'm not trying to imitate anyone's voice, but just so I know this or this happened, then I come in and say something. Got it! I know what I should do.
In Last Exile, when I first watched it, and I was watching Alex Rowe, and I sort of figured him out. I sort of I got him by about episode four or six. I said, "OK, I know what he's about; I can go in and record him." I had a sneaking suspicion what was driving him underneath. And I was absolutely right!
That was not the case in Witch Hunter Robin. Usually I can sit down and watch the first four episodes and figure out what's driving my character. Even though I might not know exactly, but I know enough to go in and play him, like Tsume in Wolf's Rain. But in Witch Hunter Robin I watched the first four episodes and I thought, "I don't get why Amon is doing this. I have no idea." I watched the next four. Then, I'm up to episode 13 and I still have no idea why Amon is acting like he does. "What the hell is going on?!" So I literally have to watch, and I'm up until four in the morning watching until I think it's like episode 24 or 25, when we finally find out what Amon's deal is. OK, thank you! Now I can go in and record him because I finally know what's going on. The director thought I was crazy.
JIVE: Actually, I am totally in agreement with you. It was a difficult series for me to actually "get" until about half way along when we start seeing the plot formulating. I waited for my review of it because we were getting a lot of feedback that it was too episodic, almost like the X Files. When the plot finally kicked in it completely enamored people with the series. It was just a very interesting series to watch that whole turnover happen with the plot.
Crispin: I was very lucky that I got to adapt scripts for the second half of the series. From episodes 14 and on, all the script adaptations are mine. I had great fun writing the last final episodes.
JIVE: We were wondering, because there did seem like there was a turnaround or turning point in the scriptwriting, and it just made it so much better. The plot became very complex and very deep; we started to understand why people were they way they were. That's interesting to know. Speaking of Witch Hunter Robin and Wolf's Rain, as a matter of fact, let's talk about the time it takes for these American dubs to be released. It's almost excruciating to the [American] fan. Can you tell me a little bit about what the process is in terms of how these dubs go into production and get released, and why it takes so long?
Crispin: Why it takes so long … Well, the first step is obviously the licensing of the show. Those are negotiations that I'm not privy to because that happens between the studios that create the animation and the studios that are producing them. Geneon or Bandai or whoever will have their deals with different studios to make whatever shows and they have to have licensing agreements about how they're going to release those shows overseas. So, initially, or sometimes, there's a bidding war between different studios like maybe Geneon and Bandai, where they will bid on different shows and whoever bids the highest usually gets the show. Then, sometimes studios will have in-house deals.
From what I understand, and of course this is all hearsay because I am not privy to these conversations, Bandai has some in-house deals with certain shows because they put up some money to help produce them. I know Pioneer / Geneon has done that with other shows as well. So, maybe they'll get first bid and if they refuse it, someone else gets to bid. Anyway, that's the first step, and licensing can take awhile and that's why it takes them awhile to announce that a show's been licensed when everyone's already seen it in Japan.
Then the next step is that that licensed show, or the elements from that show, meaning the video and audio elements, has to be sent to a recording studio. So, the recording studios then bid on the shows and whoever gives the licensing company the best recording bid can get the show, or if they're going with a studio because they have a certain reputation or because they are known for doing very good work and that studio is courted first to do the show. Once it's decided who is going to be recording the show, and sometimes the dub, then you enter into my realm, which is the actual adaptation and dubbing of the show.
This is a slow process because the first thing that has to happen is that the script has to be adapted to match lip-flap so that we get a straight translation of the show with timecode (the director and the adaptors). Like the show I'm directing right now [October 2004], and I'm also adapting it, I will get a time-coded video and a time-coded script. I can match up where the lines go with the video. The script that I get is a straight translation of the Japanese, which means it's not going to match the lip-flap. So then it is my job as the director and the adaptor to take this straight translation and adapt it to match the Japanese lip-flap.
There's many things that need to happen. You need to make the lines "speakable." The Japanese tend to speak in the passive voice much of the time because that is more respectful. Unfortunately, the passive voice is bad English grammar. You have to switch sentences around so that it sounds more natural like English, while retaining the same meaning. Then you have to make it dramatic. You have to make sure that the characters are working out of their motivation, so when they are saying things it's true to the character. Then you have to make sure you're translating any cultural references, so that if there are any inside Japanese jokes, or if someone starts switching the honorifics that they use when they talk to somebody so that they are revealing how they are speaking and how they think about someone, you've got to try to put that in somehow or how can you express that. You know [in Japanese] they can do that with a "san" or "sama" and that's only a syllable or two. So how am I going to express that in English? Then you actually have to match the lip-flap on the screen so it ___ doesn't ___ seem ___ like ___ you're ___ talking ___ like ___ William ___ Shatner. It's tricky!
JIVE: It sounds much more complex then I bet a lot of people realize.
Crispin: Yeah, it's extremely difficult and it's this weird-wacky problem solving. You know, not to toot my own horn, but I will. One of my pet peeves is a sentence that gets split up in the middle for flap. That's just annoying!
JIVE: What do you mean by that?
Crispin: If you watch the beginning episodes of Witch Hunter Robin, many times you will see an entire English sentence that is split up for no good reason. There's just no motivation for it. I may be talking to you and I may pause because I'm thinking about something in the middle of my sentence-that's natural. If you can motivate the pause, great! But if I stop in the middle ___________ for no good reason, then it sounds Shatner-esque. We don't buy it. So I will rack my brains, trying to find some other way of working the text so that you don't ever have to do that. If you do ever have to take a pause, it's motivated. There's a good acting reason why that pause happened, because there was when the Japanese did it, so there should be when we do it. And the Japanese are doing the same thing we're doing. They have the animation in front of them and they are doing lip-sync. They have the advantage in that this lip-sync was designed for Japanese text. I have to make sure that my English text is designed for that lip-flap as well, and hopefully, if my English text is designed as well as the Japanese text was designed for the lip-flap, then what should come out should be relatively natural. So that's the difficult part. Once the scripts are done, then you have to pull in the actors, and it's different from the way it's done in Japan.
In Japan, everyone is recorded in a group together, like a radio show and I've even seen them rehearse. Actually in the Dead Leaves extra it's wonderful because you could actually watch the actors rehearsing their parts and you hear the director say, "OK, we're going to do a rehearsal." Then he turns to the engineer and says, "Record it anyway in case we want to keep it."
We've never had rehearsal! That's crazy!
JIVE: You don't?
Crispin: No; there's no time for rehearsals! It all has to be done very quickly, which means that the actors are incredibly dependent on the director to keep it all together. It's sort of like trying to record a symphony one instrument at a time. You are incredibly dependent on the conductor to make sure that all these instruments are going to flow together. And so the director really has to have their stuff together to make sure that all of it sort of melds well. If they are fighting a bad script, they don't have time. They are just going to be stressing about trying to make the script work and not focusing.
The problem with dubbing Anime is that it is so technically difficult. It's one of the most technically difficult forms of acting I think I've ever
across besides opera or musical theater. It gets so wrapped up in the technicalities of matching lip-flap and making sure you're staying in your character voice, that you forget the most important thing, which is acting, and which is telling the story. If the story's not communicating, you've failed. Even if you match lip-flap perfectly and everything else is matching great, if the story hasn't communicated, it's not working. So, for me, it's trying to get all that technical stuff out of the way as much as possible so you can focus on the good stuff, which is acting and telling the story.
JIVE: Now why would they rush it that way and not just complete the series out at a slower pace and release the entire … ?
Crispin: Money.
JIVE: Ah. Money. Very good answer.
Crispin: If you look behind the scenes for, say, Spirited Away, they have the entire cast of sitting in front of recording-studio monitors, watching the entire movie of Spirited Away together, mouthing the script as they go. They'll do a line at a time and then look at each other and say, "Do we think that line fits?" And if they think if fits they'll keep it and they'll move on; or if not they'll think, "Well maybe we should change it …"
Oh my God, I wish we had that luxury! I wish I had the time to have everybody sit in a room and put the script together, or just have everybody sit in a room and watch the show, because that would be great. But some actors don't deal with that well. Some actors, you give them the show ahead of time and they think they have to mimic the Japanese perfectly, and then you're fighting this preconception in their head and you can't get a natural performance out of them. So I say, "Hey, that's great. A Japanese actor did that, but now you have to do it and I want your version."
For me, the importance is the artistic intention. Tchaikovsky once said that the artist's goal is to have the audience have the same emotions and reactions as the artist did when they were trying to put the art together. Then Tchaikovsky had debates with much of his fellow artists. Now, you can agree or disagree with that, but I don't think that it's really far off base that an artist creates something and hopes that the audience has a similar reaction to it, or a similar level of understanding of the artist's intention when they were making the piece.
So, to me it's about making sure that the artist's intention in Japanese Anime is held true, and that I stay true to that vision. And it's not about slavishly mimicking details. If you ever heard anyone mimic anyone else, that's all it is-mimicking. That may be funny for a minute, but you certainly wouldn't want to listen to that all day long. I mean can you imagine a friend of yours imitating Agent Smith on The Matrix and walking around all day long talking like that? You'd begin to hate them! But if Hugo Weaving were doing it, you'd listen to him all day, because Hugo had intention when he was playing Agent Smith. There's a reason why he's doing it that way. There's a motivation behind it. Your friend, when he imitates Agent Smith, well, his motivation is, "I'm imitating Agent Smith." That may be funny, but it it's not ever interesting for very long.
That's my goal. It's to understand the intention of the piece and make sure that the actors and direction that I'm working with are true to that intention and elucidates it as true as possible. The problem with this is that oftentimes the greatest compliment I can get is, "Ah, you didn't screw it up!"
JIVE: And that's a compliment?
Crispin: Yeah. "Your stuff doesn't suck." Many times that's the frustration I am finding working on Anime dubbing. People think that the Japanese version is perfect and we are doing a sub-par version. So the best that we can do is equal the Japanese version.
JIVE:. Actually I'd have to disagree with that. I watch both versions. It just depends what mood I'm in, but I typically will watch the series both ways by the time I've finished the series and many times, I've actually enjoyed the American dub version best just because of the acting, the emotion portrayed. I don't know if it's just an American bias that I might have, but sometimes the acting on some of the really good shows can just be more emotional. Again that may just be the passiveness, as you said, with the Japanese language. I just don't see the emotion carrying through all the time like I do in the American dubs.
Crispin: Right! Well that's great. That's wonderful. But there are many, shall I say, otaku that would disagree with you.
JIVE: I would imagine so.
Crispin: Because they hear the Japanese acting and think that's incredibly emotional and real. Now, many of the Japanese are amazing at what they can do. A Japanese director friend of mine in Japan, who I worked with in many theater shows, when I told her that I was working on Anime, she said, "Oh, are you over-acting like they do in Japanese Anime?" And I was like, "Um … well …. I'm trying not to. Maybe I am, but I'm trying not to."
So it depends. Some people love Anime because it is a different cultural world. It comes from a different culture and the obsession is with the Japanese culture and by putting it into English you are stripping from it what they find interesting. That's fine. They can watch the Japanese version. Don't get me wrong. There are many Japanese shows that I watch because I love how "Japanese" they are.
JIVE: Have you had a chance to go see the new Ghost in the Shell movie in the theater?
Crispin: Ah, yes!
JIVE: That was quite a treat for me, to actually go to a big screen and see Japanese Anime on the big screen. It was almost Kabuki-like.
Crispin: Oh, was that the first time you've seen Anime on the big screen?
JIVE: Big screen, yes.
Crispin: The first Anime I ever saw on the big screen was Porco Rosso, a Miyazaki film. Miyazaki, who is a personal hero of mine, will say that you haven't really seen his films unless you see them on the big screen. After watching Porco Rosso on the big screen, I think he may be right. I have it on video and it's just not the same.
JIVE: You're right, it's just not the same and I felt it was much more theatrical. It's just a rare treat. We are headquartered out of Atlanta, and although there are a few cultural art theater houses, it's just rare to get a theatrical release in Anime, at least on the East coast. But as far as Japanese acting is concerned, have you been to Japan?
Crispin: I have! I was actually in Japan last January [2004]. I was invited to Anime Expo Tokyo. I think the first day I was there I got tickets to see the Studio Ghibli Museum. I was like, "OK, guys, I'll see ya later I gotta get back to the museum!" For all my time studying Anime and studying Japanese culture and mythologies and whatnot, that was the very first time I'd ever been to Japan! So hopefully I will be back sooner again rather than later.
JIVE: I want to touch on a couple of your series: The Hellsing series... I want to discuss that with you. Alucard seems like an amazing character to have had some fun with. It's one of the most highly rated series to come along with an unusual backdrop of a British story. How much fun was that, and how much leeway did you have in becoming Alucard, the American Version?
Crispin: Yeah, that was a lot of fun, and I think that was the first big role that I got when I came out here to LA. It was one of the first things that I did in LA after moving from New York. I had met the director, Taliesin, at different places and we had chatted. When I auditioned for him it was very fun because we talked about the character a lot. I almost had him convinced. I'm almost embarrassed to say this, but I almost had him convinced that we should try it with a Transylvanian accent, which is so funny because he was completely against it but I said, "Well, hang on and let me just try it!" I went to grad school with this Romanian director, so my Romanian accent is pretty dead on. When I did it, Taliesin said, "You know, you've almost got me convinced, but I don't think we can do it."
JIVE: I'm going to put you on the spot then. Give me a Romanian Alucard real quick.
Crispin: "Perrfeeeect niiiight. Theee kind offf niiight that makesss me want to aff a bite to drrrrinka"
[Listen to Crispin's Romanian Alucard and Alucard plugging JIVE Magazine here - mp3 format - 3MB]
JIVE: That was gorgeous!
Crispin: It was almost! And you know, maybe if the show had been set in America, but in the England, with the English character… It was... too much. We didn't do it.
We even tried him with a British accent. We thought, "Well, what would Alucard sound like with a British accent?" And … he just didn't sound … butch enough! It just didn't sound right.
JIVE: He didn't sound like a badass?
Crispin: He didn't sound like the sort of badass he needed to sound like. Something just didn't work. You can say, well you know, he learned English in England so he should have a British accent. But it just didn't sound right. The way that the script was written, he'd come off like Spike from Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Spike is a great character, but he's not Alucard.
JIVE: And I think Spike, in Anime, might not go over really well.
Crispin: Well… He'd be some sort of a bishounen. You know, there has been a rise of bishounen in American filmmaking. Buffy is full of them, The Lord of the Rings, Pirates of the Caribbean. I mean what is Legolas but bishounen love? It gives the idea that, "Hey! You can still be a man and dress well." What a concept! The metrosexual or whatever they want to call it. It comes down to the fact that men can look good too.
JIVE: The pretty man…
Crispin: The pretty man. Not the fey pretty man, but a guy who just happens to be good-looking. What's so wrong with that? Although the hat that Orlando Bloom is wearing at the end of Pirates of the Caribbean needs to go.
JIVE: So with Alucard … He really couldn't end up being anything else than what he ended up being.
Crispin: Well we just decided that he was just sort of more-well, he was an aristocrat! So that was he , and I can play aristocrats very well. That he should be sort of proper and that the man was just incredibly bored! Imagine being the only superhero and having nobody to mess with. He's just incredibly frustrated and bored. So he's pushing everything to its maximum limit, because otherwise, there's just no fun! He's been around for centuries and he's gotta have some damn fun! So that, to us, was what Alucard was all about. I had great fun.
It was also intimidating when we first started doing it. Again, on some subconscious level, I felt I had to live up to the Japanese, which did nothing but make it more difficult. In fact, once I let that go, it was much better. One of my favorite episodes is later on in the series when you get to see the young Integra, and we get to see Alucard locked up in the basement. I didn't have to go for that big, deep, rumbly voice anymore. Alucard was in some other strange place. There was a great section of that scene where Alucard rips the arms off one guy and he's drinking the blood out of this guy's arm.
We started recording it and Taliesin, the director, just fell out of his chair laughing on the floor! I stopped and I said, "What's the problem?" "You're actually doing it! You actually have your arm up in the booth and you have your head up like you're drinking the blood out of somebody's arm!..." |
We started recording it and Taliesin, the director, just fell out of his chair laughing on the floor! I stopped and I said, "What's the problem?" "You're actually doing it! You actually have your arm up in the booth and you have your head up like you're drinking the blood out of somebody's arm! I mean, if I took a picture of you, we could superimpose someone's leg and it would like you were actually doing it." That's how far into being in the situation I had gone. "Well good! Keep that take!" So yeah, incredible fun.
Alucard has some of the best lines around. It was great and the show was a baptismal of fire for me out in Los Angeles.
This is part one of a two part feature series. Read Part Two and find out what Crispin has to say about his new series Strawberry Eggs, along with his views on what Anime does to instill values, as well as the main differences between American and Japanese animation.
Other Related Links:
Official Crispin Freeman website
Crispin Freeman Yahoo Group
Part Two of the Crispen Freeman Feature
Feature Credits:
Jewels: Feature Concept and Interview
Imran Khan: Research, Editing Assistant
Patrick Caldwell: Editing Assistant
Thomas strickland: Editing Assistant
Rick "Low Tek" Merced: Photography Aquisition and Formatting
Katie Seyba: Transcription
JIVE Magazine wishes to thank Crispin Freeman for his time and assistance with this feature and the Daniel Hoff Agency for their assistance with coordination as well. |
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