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Anime Central - Day Three - Crispin Freeman
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Crispin Freeman doesn't want to spend his entire acting career in a
recording booth. He just finished acting in a play at the Alley Theater
in Houston, and won the role of Demetrius in a Connecticut production of
"Midsummer Night's Dream" by Shakespeare. Freeman wants to stay active
on stage, but he's still interested in more anime roles. |
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| Freeman says online anime fandom is responsible for helping him develop
his roles. Producers don't always have a lot of background information
on the complete story lines of the shows he dubs, so Freeman makes an Internet
connection and checks fan sites on the World-Wide Web for information on
those shows. The background information in hand, Freeman is ready to start
working out the interpretation of the role he will play. "I do my best
to get online with the fans," he said. |
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Freeman enjoys looking beyond the obvious to find the cultural background
in anime. He sees an Asian attitude of ambivalence between good and evil,
tempered with the Western noting that you're either all good or all bad.
"There's this notion (in Asia) that there has to be balance," said Freeman.
Maybe it's not cut and dried and we have to acknowledge our shadow side.
It's a major problem in Western culture - where you have a devil to fight,
if there are no more enemies you start to eat at yourself." |
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| Often, anime fans will hear changes in dubbed shows from the subtitled
versions and claim the changes violate the artistic integrity of the original.
freeman was part of one dub where unusual changes were made - and the creator
liked them. That was Record of Lodoss War, where director Michael Alben
added some New York City jokes and puns to the script. According to Freeman,
Lodoss creator Ryo Mizuno approved of the changes, saying they were funnier
than the puns he had put in the Japanese original. |
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