Spike Spencer -
Anime
Convention Personality of the Week - January 7, 2007
Actor Spike Spencer clearly
remembers Anime Central in 1998, where he was a guest of honor and
attended a party where another actor insisted that he play a card game
- but there were no cards. So, Spencer and the other guests at the
party had to find pieces of paper and make cards so they could play "up
the river, down the river." Spencer needed to go along, because the
card fan was his director in the series that gained him his biggest
acclaim, when he played Shinji Ikari in the dub of Neon Genesis
Evangelion. The teenaged Eva pilot would be an exceptional character in
any language, but Spencer's performance made the character much more
vivid and real for English-speaking fans. In those days, Spencer was a
mainstay of the ADV Films stable of actors, which saw him get roles in
Nadesico, Gantz, Gunsmith Cats and Bubble Gum Crisis 2040. Legend has
it that Spencer appeared in at least one Houston-area radio commercial
with another lead actor from the Evangelion series. He's since moved to
the Los Angeles area where more roles have followed, on and off camera.
And you may want to buy a house from him one day. If you do, be sure to
ask Spencer to tell you the story about the recording booth, the bottle
and the space heater.
Actor Spike Spencer clearly
remembers Anime Central in 1998, where he was a guest of honor and
attended a party where another actor insisted that he play a card game
- but there were no cards. So, Spencer and the other guests at the
party had to find pieces of paper and make cards so they could play "up
the river, down the river." Spencer needed to go along, because the
card fan was his director in the series that gained him his biggest
acclaim, when he played Shinji Ikari in the dub of Neon Genesis
Evangelion. The teenaged Eva pilot would be an exceptional character in
any language, but Spencer's performance made the character much more
vivid and real for English-speaking fans. In those days, Spencer was a
mainstay of the ADV Films stable of actors, which saw him get roles in
Nadesico, Gantz, Gunsmith Cats and Bubble Gum Crisis 2040. Legend has
it that Spencer appeared in at least one Houston-area radio commercial
with another lead actor from the Evangelion series. He's since moved to
the Los Angeles area where more roles have followed, on and off camera.
And you may want to buy a house from him one day. If you do, be sure to
ask Spencer to tell you the story about the recording booth, the bottle
and the space heater.