Since May 4 is officially Star Wars Day, I decided to move my Monday newsletter to Tuesday for a change, to talk about an actor who’s very important within the context of the franchise: Dee Bradley Baker, an important part of the Star Wars universe since 2008, when Lucasfilm’s animation branch launched the Clone Wars TV series. He now stars in the spin-off The Bad Batch, voicing the titular group and earning his own separate credit at the end of each episode.
Much like fellow voice actor Frank Welker, Baker is known for providing animal and creature sounds for various film and television productions (in fact, the two have shared a few roles over the years, most recently Bubba the Caveduck in DuckTales). His credits include Zack Snyder’s Dawn of the Dead (zombie vocal effects), Phineas and Ferb (Perry the Platypus), Avatar: The Last Airbender (Appa, Momo and other creatures) The Boxtrolls (for which, in addition to voicing the trolls, he came up with their language) and The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies (assorted creature vocals).
On the more human(ish) side, he’s perhaps best known for American Dad! (Klaus), Space Jam (Daffy Duck) and the Star Wars franchise, having voiced every single clone trooper in the animated series for over a decade. This continues in The Bad Batch, a new fun challenge for Baker as he gets to voice Clones who have been genetically altered and are therefore quite different from the classic troopers.
Occasionally, he gets to combine the two sides of his voice acting persona, like when the producers of The Spectacular Spider-Man cast him as Dr. Curt Connors, aka the Lizard. Or that one time when, in addition to his regular gig as Klaus (a role he won by deciding to switch the character’s nationality from French to German during the audition), he also graced American Dad! fans with that most unusual of sounds: a living, wandering spleen. Oh, and he also did the vocals for the Frog Lady in the second season of The Mandalorian (and he recorded sample vocals for Kuiil before it was decided to give him intelligible dialogue and cast Nick Nolte).
Not only is he absurdly talented (like with Welker, it’s hard not to be astounded when you watch footage of him producing creature sounds), he is also remarkably generous when it comes to passing on his knowledge of the craft: if you are an aspiring voice actor, or curious about the field in general (as I am), his website is a goldmine of information, about all aspects of the job – how to protect your voice, how to put together a demo, how to work from home (a section that has been considerably updated in recent times, for obvious reasons).
On one page of his site, Baker addresses the myth about voice acting being considered a “lesser” form of performing, and urges his aspiring peers to not buy into that: “You see yourself as less and you thus end up allowing yourself to bring less. You then give others permission to see you as less too. So many in this world earn their living by maintaining things or copying things or shuffling numbers around, but we actors create things for a living. We solve impossible puzzles. We conjure magic from thin air. We collaborate in an essential human activity– story telling. To create with our acting, with our voice, is our unique and remarkable power that deserves respect and appreciation— especially from us.”
He is absolutely right, as one of the most prolific and noteworthy creators in the US acting community, and fans have certainly shown their appreciation over the years: I remember seeing footage of the audience reaction at a convention, when a trailer for the second season ofStar Wars Rebels revealed Captain Rex (the most prominent of the clone troopers from the previous series) was going to appear, with Baker then showing up on stage to thunderous applause. The Force is indubitably strong with this one. Be it in English, German or whatever other sound he’s asked to create.