Within the voiceover community, Dee Bradley Baker is among the cream of the crop. For the past three decades, Baker has been involved in some of the biggest properties, most notably voicing Captain Rex and an entire army of clone troopers in Star Wars: The Clone Wars, as well as filling integral roles in multiple other Lucasfilm animated productions. Baker has also made a name for himself for his amazing ability to provide animal and creature vocals. Whether it’s an adorable household pet or a terrifying monster, more than likely you’ve heard the vocal talents of Dee Bradley Baker.
In the upcoming animated film The King of Kings, based on a Charles Dickens story about the life of Jesus Christ, Baker provides the vocals for Willa, the mischievous cat of the Dickens’ household. Ahead of the film’s release, we had the pleasure of interviewing Baker to discuss his career, acting process, and much more.
Taimur Dar: Awhile back I was listening to the director’s commentary for The Suicide Squad, the film where you provided the vocals for Sebastian the rat. James Gunn mentioned being amazed to see and discover that there was an actual person who does these animal and creature sounds. When you got into voiceover, was doing creature vocals a goal or how did you fall into it?
Dee Bradley Baker: It wasn’t a target I was aiming for at all. I haven’t’ had a lot of goals in my life. I followed the things I like to do and the pathway opened up. I’m glad to hear that James Gunn didn’t know there was such a thing because ultimately if I’m doing my job right, nobody knows that I’m involved. Unlike most other kinds of acting where there’s some sort of attention drawn to the actor, generally speaking, I don’t want that. I want to be an invisible part of a well-told story. Especially when I’m doing animals, creatures, and monsters. That’s one point that I wanted to throw out there.
When I got to Hollywood a little over thirty years ago, I was doing more energized, comedic improvisation voice acting for Nickelodeon and Hanna-Barbera shows that were going at the time. I think I was in a Scooby-Doo session with Frank Welker, a fellow Coloradan by the way. It was like, “He’s doing all of these really interesting creatures and monster things. I like doing weird stuff with my voice. You need that kind of stuff in movies and animation. I’m going to start working on that.” So I did. I got some audio CDs, compact discs in the olden times. There was one with animal sounds and I would drive around Los Angeles listening and making animal sounds and building up an orchestra of playable instruments that could come in handy for anything from household pets to monsters that they might need for video games or television or movies. It was pretty late in the game where I realized this is something that sounds interesting, I like to do, and I have the facility for.
Taimur Dar: Funny enough, right before I jumped on for this interview, a sneak peek for the Superman movie was released. Unsurprisingly, people have fallen in love with Krypto. James Gunn has said he based Krypto on his own rambunctious dog. For you, how did you find the character and soul for Willa the cat.
Dee Bradley Baker: In this instance, you want something that’s pretty close or right at a realistic cat sound. But the way it’s playing out, there’s some vaudeville going on there and there’s a lot of human intent as well. So, you’ve got to dial in a range and reach of the expression of the animal sounds so it starts to have more connection and more humanity and intent and specificity just like you would need with any speaking character that’s part of your ensemble sound. It’s not a generic animal sound. It’s very specific to what’s happening. Not just the action but what the mental process is of the animal. In this instance, the animal is processing this entire story and what’s playing out as much as Charles Dickens’ son is. And the audience is watching and relating to this and being taken along as the pet and the child as the stand-in for the audience. It’s a very important role to have in a way that’s convincing and seamlessly fits into it in a way where you’re not thinking where the sound comes from. We don’t even want people thinking if they had a library or there was a cat in the studio. You want to be an invisible part of a well told story.
Taimur Dar: I had the immense pleasure of interviewing Jamie Thomason, the voice director and producer for The King of Kings, at WonderCon. You’ve obviously worked together on numerous projects such as Spectacular Spider-Man and Young Justice. Do you remember when you first worked together and how your relationship has developed?
Dee Bradley Baker: The first time I ever met Jamie was in one of the learning annex classes that he taught in Los Angles when I first moved to Hollywood about thirty-five years ago. [Laughs]. He gave a very marvelous overview of what voice acting is and how you do it and what they’re looking for [as well as] the art and business of it. That was very helpful to me. Every time you go into it with someone who’s as good as Jamie is, it adds a lot of efficiency to the session and it’s much more of a pleasure to move right through the material because he knows what works. He’s got a really great opinion about things. And he also knows what they’re looking for because he’s in contact with those who are creating and producing it. He’s this invaluable lens that just facilitates the efficient and full rendering of what needs to happen so you’re not wasting a bunch of time just trying things randomly. He’s marvelous at that. He’s got a great instinctually facility of what sounds right. He’s great.
Taimur Dar: I don’t mean to keep the conversation centered around James Gunn projects, but I am reminded of an interview his brother Sean Gunn did for Creature Commandos admitting he wasn’t excited at first to reprise the role of Weasel. But the voice recording progressed, he found it incredibly gratifying and found emotional depth to a seemingly simple character. When you perform these creatures and animals, how do you able to create a connection with the audience?
Dee Bradley Baker: That’s an interesting question because your audience is not in front of you other than the person on the other side of the glass who’s helping direct you. So you imagine the audience to start. The way it plays out in my mind is this. I’ve always loved movies and television since I was a kid. The further I get in my career and life, the more I go back. I used to say that my knowledge of movies stopped at Planet of the Apes, the Charlton Heston version. By the way, I love Planet of the Apes, especially the newer ones. What really helps me in teeing up something that works beautifully with what we’re doing is I have a better and better grasp of the history of entertainment of movies, television, and theater.
A couple of years back, I read a couple of biographies of Buster Keaton, the brilliant writer, director, actor, stuntman, and all these other things. The more that I dig into that stuff, the easier it is for me to dial in a story well told. Back then, it was much more condensed and pure to make something that’s a visual story that had no sound. There’s a specificity that plays out in my mind as I’m giving a performance to record to put out, in this instance an animated movie. Sometimes I can see exactly the scene it’s going into, it’s being shown to me and I’m performing to picture as we say. But sometimes I’m just imagining variations of it in my mind. Like I’m playing it back in a movie theater in my head. There’s a specificity of imagination that any actor has bring to bear in their performance. In my case, I can’t see the set or my fellow performers. There’s just the script and Jamie Thomason and everything that I know or think works with what we have in front of us.
Taimur Dar: Finally, Nickelodeon recently announced Avatar: Seven Havens, the newest animated series from the world of Avatar: The Last Airbender. I’m very tempted to assume you once again are involved voicing some new creatures. But even if you are, more than likely you can’t acknowledge it in any. Nevertheless, I still have to ask if you can say anything?
Dee Bradley Baker: All I can say is that I’m not at a liberty to say, with a smile. So I don’t know! I love that universe.
The King of Kings will be distributed theatrically across the globe by Angel Studios beginning April 11, 2025.
