But there are some voice acting powerhouses already in the show like my all time favorite Fred Tatasciore. The show has a pretty good mix of friends from TWD, celebrities, and awesome voice actors.
Edit: I responded to the wrong comment, but I wanted to put that out there anyway lol
I've read that about Stephen yeun, Sandra OH, Walton goggins, Seth Rogan, and mahershallah Ali, but I've always been under the impression that Mark hammil and JK Simmons were good investments under the invincible brand. Esp considering both are proficient voice actors
Simmons was surely a great investment. He's a great VA who may have attracted viewers. I wouldn't be shocked if having his name attached helped the show get made.
Mark Hammil is a small enough part that I'm not sure it makes much difference, but surely it didn't cost the show that much for it.
Hamill is a very well-established VA at this point, who spent decades with that as his main income stream, and his recurring role as The Joker didn't bankrupt any DCAU projects.
He's probably more expensive than some nobody VA, but not so much so that it outweighs the prestige value of having him on the cast.
Valid point -- I suppose I mean on a per-hour basis.
If another actor costs half of Hamill's pay but takes three times as long to nail the character, Hamill makes more sense.
And as a side note, I really like that we have a smaller, recurring character, particularly just a base human, played by such a well-known and identifiable VA. It makes the world feel deeper to me, like Art's got his own stories to tell even if we'll never see them.
What makes that comment so funny is that Hammill isn't just a good voice actor, he is more a voice actor than he ever was Luke Skywalker. He took it up after he got into that disfiguring accident if I recall, and it's been the bulk of his career at this point.
Hammil is literally the Joker, from BTAS and most animated batman stuff over the last 30 years. Other Jokers often imitate hammil's.
Absolutely agree. And this was Yuen's first big role right? Dude knocked it out of the park. He has a long and bright voice work career ahead if he wants one.
I mean with Yeun he's a Kirkman veteran and also a professional VA, Goggins was probably cheaper pre-Fallout, and Rogen is literally a producer on the show.
Do you know who’s still pretty cheap, post-Fallout?
Walton Goggins.
Funniest shit has been watching morons who don’t know how cheap actual A-listers are for VA work throw tantrums about TV character actors driving up the price.
Anime doesn't do it either, the working conditions of anime studios are horrendous. The best season animation wise for MHA was Season 7 and Season 8 where in Season 7 they animated 21 episodes which is 4 less than their typical season and in Season 8 they only had to animate 11. That was a yearly release anime where they only have to do 21 minutes not the 46-60 minutes invincible animates.
I wonder when Mark Hamil really took off as a big name in voice acting. Did the showrunners think they were hiring a professional voice actor when they recruited him as the Joker in Batman the Animated Series, or did they think they were hiring Luke Skywalker to play a murderous clown?
Pretty sure they just heard his voice for the role and were like “yeah that’s fucking Joker” because I mean it is. The first time you hear Hamills voice come out of the Joker it’s like the most fitting voice ever.
Feel like there should be a term for forcing people to focus on criticisms so outlandish that it downplays the validity in them.
We have complaints about Mark Hamill for voice acting budget, when there are still other celebs being cast as overpaid VAs. That's after that trend of comparing the show's quality to Jujutsu Kaisen, despite there legit being other anime that are half as good and less as stressing, still far more consistently good (if not great) than Invincible's.
Leave aside MAPPA’s working conditions, etc - JJK has released twelve episodes in the last two years…and they’re 22 minutes each, with a 2 minute OP and 2 minute ED!
Whoever said that probably had a maraca as a head. Mark Hamil is several times a better VA than a actor. His range could fill a entire room of different voices.
Some actors struggle with voice acting, it’s not as easy as some think. For instance, actors in live action use their whole body to convey their messaging. Facial expressions, body movement. Not every actor can express themselves as well with just their voice.
Yes, and relatedly I think this is why many successful VAs did many years grinding their careers on the theatrical stages (plays, musicals, etc.). It makes sense; even if you do act with your body and facial expressions on stage, your voice has to be more expressive since most of the audience will be visually inhibited by the literal physical distance.
At every con I've ever gone to, most VAs talk about themselves or a majority of their colleagues getting their start there.
I feel like Chris Pratt does best in the "normal guy" role, whether that be voice acting or live acting. Emmit, Peter Quill, Owen Grady, they're just normal guys and he does great as them.
Yeah, that was a bizarre casting choice to me as well. Audiences didn’t go let’s see Mario because Chris Pratt is doing it, it’s because it is frigging Mario.
Cuz there kinda is. Its like a GP doctor versus a heart surgeon. Sure, its the same profession but different specializations and they develop different skillsets.
Voice Acting and Screen Acting are specializations that require different skills be developed. You can't really jump from one to the other without developing those first (which is doable, just as a doctor can transition).
If you try to play a voice role the same way as a screen role, you're performance will come off flat and un-emotive. Screen acting focuses a lot on facial expressions and body language. This is why a lot of people don't like movie stars being cast for voice roles. Its a very common problem.
VA work requires a lot more vocal work and overacting to make up for this loss of information, more vocal health because its a lot harder on the throat muscles then traditional acting, etc. Its arguably closer to being a singer in training.
There is, similarly with theatre acting. They are all different disciplines within acting requiring a different skillset, of course with some crossover. Not Invincible specifically because it seems like the big roles are all well established VAs (who also do screen work), but there is some controversy around screen actors taking VA roles because they bring in more publicity.
I mean, it depends on his direction. I felt like he was pretty damn good in the Sonic movie 3, while he was absolutely terrible in the movie level in Shadow Generations.
He was passable in Movie 3 but it still felt like he has extremely little range, especially compared to Ben Schwartz who actually has a really rich performance as Sonic
The two examples you gave are actors who also considered (by a lot of people not me specifically) bad screen actor but are good at physical stunts and performances. If you want opposite examples Jack black and Robin Williams are both good screen and voice actors
When I say there’s not a hard line between the two types of acting I don’t mean everyone who’s a screen actor will be a good at voice acting but that there’s a lot more overlap then people give credit for. Just because there’s black and white ends of a gradient doesn’t mean there’s not a gradient
Grey Griffin's already doing it, with multiple characters with big speaking roles like Amanda/Monster Girl, Eve's stepmom, Shrinking Rae, Olga, and Thula, and I swear she's done some background characters too. It's awesome.
I'm just wondering why barely any of the most prolific VAs are in this show: John DiMaggio, Nolan North, Troy Baker, Yuri Lowenthal, Hynden Welch, Jason Spisak, Corey Burton, James Arnold Taylor, Jason Marsden. I don't think Debra Wilson is even in this, and she's in everything from the past 10 years.
fans wouldn't even notice if matt mercer voiced half of the cast. Hell they wouldn't even notice A list actors if Amazon didn't have the feature that shows the cast on screen
Pearlman did the cameo in Fallout because he was the narrator for Fo1 through 3, and did the supermutant enemies in 1 and 2. Supermutants were one of his first voice acting roles and he said himself that he loves fallout for that, it opened some new doors to him that he didn't even know were there.
Oh shit! I was really struggling to think who in invincible he would be a good fit for, he doesn't really fit any pf the characters... but that's pretty perfect.
Oh man Perlman as Thragg would've been generational at the time that was my #1 casting for him. (although I do think Lee Pace Is the perfect actor for the role in general), but yeah I concur thats It's crazy to believe that they haven't gotten a role in show yet, especially they got real heavy hitters like JK and JDM on this stacked cast lol.
I'm praying for Keith David and Dave Fennoy, so I can finally get Captain Anderson (Mass Effect), Lee Everest (TT's The Walking Dead), and Dr. Tygan (XCOM 2) all in the same piece of media.
Gary Anthony Williams (Dr. Tygan) is already in Invincible as the newscaster at the end of season 1, and occasionally in season 2.
When was the last time he was in a live action movie not related to Star Wars?
Edit: wait, I forgot he actually had a role in some movie called the Machine three years ago. But I don't remember any other movies that Mark Hamill played in.
Simmons definitly the best investment. Nolan is the character that brought most people into the show, myself included. Don't get me wrong, many voice actors did a bang up job with the voices, but I could see them having a different voice. Simmons is always inseparable from his characters
Does anyone ACTUALLY know the budget allocation? Can anyone point to actual proof of how much JK Simmons is taking from the budget?
People like to throw that around as a negative but does anyone actually have any values at all? Voice acting does not command anywhere near the same price as live acting.
JK and the other major VAs are probably on insane money by now for VA work, this is the #1 show for one of the biggest companies in history and he's irreplaceable. They can't make the show without him and this show brings them more customers than anything else on their streaming service. Yeun and JK are making fuck you money, the other main VAs are making good money too but not the same I'd imagine.
irreplaceable is the right word. i expect Yeun JK and Oh literally could name their price and Amazon would just have to pony up. they're inextricably linked.
I honestly don’t care about whether the person is known or not. Frankly, experienced voice actors are better than known celebrities.
One of my favorite cartoon movies is Titan AE, but for the story/plot. Because despite having some marquee actors, the voice acting is kinda ass on that film.
This is the thing that’s irked me most about the production of Invincible. The voice acting is spectacular and probably the best part of the show. But it’s also probably why the animation is lackluster sometimes. When you spend most of the budget on voice actors it screws everyone else.
I think I should state again. I’m not saying the voice acting is bad or anything but I do think that Amazon doesn’t need to hire every famous voice actor they can find
Voice actors do not make nearly as much as people think, especially cameos. Even the main characters probably need less than a week to record all their lines and they probably do it from home. If you cut the VA budget to industry standard and put the difference to animation you probably would not see much of a difference.
They’re probably a bit more expensive than your average working VA, but the difference is probably what, 10k here or there? Even adding all of that up it wouldn’t really move the needle with how much animation costs on a yearly schedule.
A Cranston Thragg would have gone hard AF especially since he can give it that same thespian energy that Lee Pace gives. Unfortunate but they don’t need to have every goddamn actor on the show
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u/DinosaurusWhen Dinosaurus Apr 18 '26
Ironically, Bryan Cranston actually does a ton of voice acting