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Interview with Brett Weaver

If you've ever attended one of Brett Weaver's panels, you'd realize that his comedy doesn't just come from a script... He's genuinely hilarious. He's lent his talents to many famous roles, such as Carrot from Sorcerer Hunters, Nabeshin from Excel Saga, and Gai Daigouji from Nadesico. At JACON 2004, I got to catch up with Mr. Weaver after a panel of his on Saturday.

When did you first take an interest in voice acting? Did you pursue it actively, or did you fall into it while pursuing a more traditional acting career?

Well I started out in radio, so I kinda did voice acting at that point, but that’s more like being an announcer. I kinda fell into voice acting, because I didn’t know there was a recording company in Houston that did cartoons. At the time, it wasn’t anime to me, it was cartoons. It was only a year and a half old. It’s just kept growing since then, and they just keep calling me back!

So you had never watched anime before you started voice-acting in it?

Oh, no, no I watched anime. I watched Speed Racer as a kid, and of course Robotech when it came out when I was about eighteen or nineteen. There are other shows that I’ve found out were anime, but I didn’t watch them because I thought “Oh, these are from Japan”, it was always “Oh this is a good show, let’s watch it.”

When you go in to audition for a character, do you audition for a specific role or does the director tend to just stick you with whatever character they believe your voice fits best?

It all depends on the company. I’ve done it enough now to where a lot of times they’ve already got a role in mind for me, because they’ve heard me enough. But there are times when I’ll go in and do more than one- like, I did a videogame recently, and the guy had never heard me before, and he wanted me to come in and try out for two roles. What ended up happening was, he was so excited about what I had done in those two, I ended up trying out for eight different parts. Because of that, I’ve got more work. Now I don’t even have to audition for them, I just go in and he says “Here’s what I want you to do.”

You’ve done some very unique roles in your career. How do you prepare for these roles?

I’m the worst kind of person for this type of thing, because most of the time, I don’t prepare at all. I just let the director- that’s his job, he tells me how to play the character. If in the process, I find something that I think is great to help make the character a little more original, so he’s not just the same old thing, then I’ll talk to the director about it and he’ll approve, or say “Nah, I don’t want you to do it that way.”

You mentioned that you started out in radio. Do you still use your voice for jobs other than anime and videogames?

I did a radio spot, but it was as the person you knew me as, from anime. I don’t make any money doing any radio spots right now. I mean, I might do some of that later. I just built this studio at my house, a little one, and I might be available to start doing stuff like that, but it’s not really a priority. I’m not trying to make money as an actor, I really just like being an actor.

I found out some very interesting things about you on your website… That’s SiteOfDestiny.com, by the way! You’ve also ventured into amateur photography. How did you get into it, and do you plan to pursue it?

I’ve always had an eye for photography. Whenever I’ve gone some place, I’d look and say, “God, that’d make a great picture.” In about 1998, I decided to go to Australia. Before I left, I decided, “I better get myself a good camera, because it’s silly to go there and not get good pictures of where I’m at.” When I get interested in something, I have tendency to read as much as I can about it, so that I can do it from an educated perspective. So I went and got a really nice Cannon A1 camera, used, from a thrift store. I had it fixed up, I went and took pictures, and when I came home I said, “Wow, these came out really well.” So now, I’ve still got that camera and I’ve got a digital camera too. It doesn’t take very much to just shoot a picture and see how it came out.

Another thing I found on your website… You’re also a musician. Care to tell us a little about that?

Oh sure, that’s actually my passion. Acting is fun, music’s my passion. I’m in a percussion group in Austin. We’ve been playing for two years, and we’re about to have a CD come out. There’s no name for it yet. In fact, I mentioned in my panel about the anime Panzer Dragoon… The guy who did the music for it just graduated from college, and he’s an excellent musician. He’s moving to Austin and we’re going to start our own band. I have no idea what the style’s going to be, it’s probably going to be all different kinds of stuff, but once again, it’s like acting… We’re just gonna have fun, that’s the most important thing.

Back on the subject of voice acting… What would you say are some of your favorite roles, and what makes them stick out in your mind?

Well, probably Gai Daigouji from Nadesico is one of my favorites, because he got to be so extreme, and ‘out there’, and such a spaz, and then… and then… he dies. He was martyred, and everyone remembers him. In the rest of the show, you are reminded of Gai, and what he did, and what he stands for. That’s great. I love Damaramu in Dragon Half, because… heheheh… He’s just so stupid! My favorite thing that Matt Greenfield said about him, was that Damaramu says his name so much because he’s so stupid he can’t remember his own name. So, he has to continuously say it so he doesn’t forget. There are so many others, but those are two of my favorites.

You’ve played the goofballs, the villains, the dumb ones… What would you say is your favorite kind of character? Do you prefer heroes over villains? Villains over heroes? Or what?

Well, the sarcastic answer is “The one that pays the most.” But really, just the ones that challenge me. In one show I play the calm, collected, ‘get-things-done’ guy, and it was a real challenge. A lot of people think it would’ve been boring because he never really showed a lot of emotion, but because I’ve done all of these outrageous characters, it was a great change of pace.

Recently I just did a videogame, where I got to be the baddest bad guy you could ever meet… and I absolutely loved doing it. The best thing about that was, if they have an outtake reel of it… It was me and the second bad guy. We worked in the booth together. They left the tape running while we did adlib stuff. We had so much fun, because as soon as the guy saw that I would play along, we just went with it and saw how sick our characters could be. So much fun.

You’ve mentioned a lot of “I was working on this recently,” and “I was working on that recently,” and “this videogame”… Would you care to tell us a little about those projects? Anything we should keep an eye out for coming soon?

Sure. I think either the end of this month, or the middle of next month, on Cartoon Network on Adult Swim during the week, there’s a new show coming called Detective- …well, it’s Detective Conan, but they call it Case Closed. I’ve just got a bit part in it, but it’s a good show. The game that I just finished with is called Kohan 2: War of Kings. It’s a sequel obviously. I’m working on Axis and Allies 3. It seems things are moving in that direction lately.

That’s very interesting. I’m sure the videogame world will definitely benefit from your contributions to it. I’ve really enjoyed interviewing you… Thank you very much!

No problem!

If you'd like to see Brett's website mentioned in the interview, you can find it at SiteOfDestiny.com.

~Ashley Clark (Anna May Belle)