David Kaye - Anime Convention Personality of the Week - August 26, 2006
Sesshomaru,
the great anti-hero of InuYasha, doesn't say much, but what he does say
sticks in the memory. Part of the reason is the person who plays the
role in the series' dub, Canadian actor David Kaye. He compares the process of creating a voice to changing the tuner
on an amplifier, saying "It's all in the tweaking." Young voices tend to
be in a high register while heroes fall in the middle. And "The more you
read the character description, the more you find the voice - and it's
important to find the laugh. That's a major part of the character."
Before Sesshomaru, Kaye got anime fans' attention when he voiced Soun
Tendo in the long-running Ranma 1/2 dub. Another big role for Kaye has
been Megatron in the Transformers universe, a role played so well that
Kaye has played the part in two animated Transformers series. Kaye has
mentioned that the Vancouver acting crew goofs off by challenging each
other to make the best impressions of celebrity voices such as Sean
Connery and Patrick Stewart. It sounds silly, but it can lead to roles
- as Kaye experienced when he got the Stewart-based role of Professor X
in the latest animated version of X-Men. But his most lucrative work
may be for radio and TV stations, where he's the on-air logo "voice" of
several stations, providing their bumpers and promos.
Sesshomaru,
the great anti-hero of InuYasha, doesn't say much, but what he does say
sticks in the memory. Part of the reason is the person who plays the
role in the series' dub, 