Anime Boston: Yuri Lowenthal Interview

You've worked on all levels of industry as an actor, a director and even that now as co owner of a production company with Monkey Kingdom Productions.  Could you give us perspective on where do you see the industry today and what happens you see cultures changing for growth in the future?

I have found that at first it was just to keep my sanity.  Me and my wife Tara, we formed the production company together, because as actors, you have very little agency over your career. Unless you become super famous. You audition for a lot of things and take things that you get that you are not morally opposed to. Obviously, it's hard as an actor. 

But the only way we found that we that would help us sleep at night and what helped us keep our hearts full, was to create our own projects. And so that's why I formed a production company. 

Since then, because the world has changed. And I have found that the actors that I see succeeding, the actors that I see happy, are actors who don't just go to auditions and hope for a role, but they have to create their own content. And I tell that to people who are like, "Hey, I want to act," I'm like, "Great, here's what you can do. Start making your own series, you know, go, you know, come on YouTube, dude, get together, find that group of friends that you're all on the same page with and then make things," 

Because for the most part, actor salaries are shrinking because of the economy of the internet. But it's just the entertainment economy, overall. And you have to find a way if you want to survive in that profession. You have to own more than just that paycheck on that job. You want to create content that people can license or then you can create your own show. 

But you can't think of it as "For money, I'll do this." It always has to be for love I'll do this. And I hope that someday that your passion pays off. 

Happens all the time, Tara and I, we've created a lot of different content, web series and films and we've still made yet to make a dime off of the things that we've created. We just haven't found a way--we're really good at making things and very bad at monetizing those things. But it just kept our hearts full. 

But you know, like Critical Role, they did that out of love and found their audience. I mean, it happens all the time. Without that, you know, they'd still be and still are, working actors, but they just be actors. 

I find it difficult to give advice because especially in this industry, there's no, A plus B equals C formula. So everybody's going to have a different path. So I try not to give advice, but I have told people what I see works. And for me, that's making stuff. 

Make sure you don't wait around for somebody, because as an actor, we're mostly waiting around for somebody to say, "Yes, you can do this thing." And we have to stop and just start making our own stuff and still work on other people's stuff. I work on everybody's stuff. But you got to make your own stuff. I mean, some people are like, I just want to show up and do the thing. Great. If you know that it works for you, it works. I see no reason to stop doing that. But that was where that was where we had to go with it. And I think that's a I think that's a trend you look at actors who are, you know, whether it's Rachel Bloom and Crazy Ex-Girlfriend.  She created that show. You look at people like Felicia Day, she created that career. She was an actor who was working but it didn't blow up until she started making stuff with The Guild and you know all of what she's done. Chris Niosi has a show called TOME. And he created that show and it's got a huge following. And it's you know, he loved anime and he learned to animate stuff and he made his own show. He didn't wait for Cartoon Network to come, or Nickelodeon to come. 

It keeps you moving and it keeps your soul full. So yeah, I see that as a trend.

So the very first time I started to notice your talents as a voice actor and was on a classic Toonami show known as the Rave Master, as Haru Glory. So my question is, with that being one of your very first, how would that role prepare you for the many iconic characters that you would want to play throughout your career?

It was... it was a flashpoint for me.  I had only had a sizable role on one other show before and this was, you know, the lead role. I would say he formed who my heroes were going to be from that point on, or I finally found Where my heart lay in him? And I thought it was going to be big, but then they ended up not even releasing, you know, most of the episodes.

I don't know if I should say this or not, but there's these VHS masters of the episodes that never got released.   Have they finally ever been released? No? So just the first 12...

I'd rather that people can see them than not. Some of my favorite shows have been, you know, the timing has been wrong or, you know, whatever. Financial things that we don't know, we're not privy to that information as to why something gets released or not released or why it's buried. I felt that way about Legion of Super Heroes on the early morning Warners Brothers kids block, that sort of got buried forever too. And I loved that show--that's still one of my favorite memories. Yeah, some of my favorite shows are the ones that get buried. What does that say about me, or the shows that I like… I don't know [laughs]. But yeah, I guess I let the cat out of the bag on that one, but let's see if I can find those tapes.

So I wanted to ask, you know, Marth is a really beloved character. And so I was wondering about the process of becoming the voice of Marth.

Marth was an interesting sort of backdoor story, (for Marth), because I wasn't as familiar with the character.  But there was, I believe that it was Steam... Agents of… something interesting, something steam--

Codename STEAM?

Yes.  Thank you. Codename STEAM. They asked me to come in to do a few line lines for this little character named Marth. And then afterwards, I found out that he had never been done before [in English.

Marth's voice was always in Japanese, even in the, you know, the English releases. I thought it was just going to be a one off thing for that game. And then they came back to me when they wanted to do it for Smash and for Fire Emblem. And then that's when I got really nervous because when you don't know how big a character is like but when you look back when we started for Naruto, you know, like, a million years ago, and we're still working on that show 13 years later, I believe we just finished. 

I went online to do a little research before going in because the audition process was a little more stringent than other shows I have worked on and I wonder what this is all about. And that's what I got really nervous and like and especially when I got the part.  Everybody's online with video, everybody's like, "They're gonna get it wrong. I know they're gonna get it wrong." I mean, I'm that way, too. So I get it. I got really nervous, much like with Spider Man, same with Sasuke, I was worried I was gonna mess it up. 

And I'm glad that it has been generally well received and I found that with Marth as well. And I'm very happy about that, I'm very proud of that. I know there's a lot of me in Marth, maybe that's why what convinced them that that was that I was the guy for that.

I wanted to ask you about sort of the old Gen voice actors from like from the early 2000s and the late 90s. I noticed that there's a big shift going on, and that a lot of these old Gen VA's are moving from anime, to video games or to mainstream cartoons. So what is your opinion on this change?

I think primarily it's a financial thing, to be honest. I'll speak for myself before I speak for anyone else, because I don't know everybody's story. 

But anime dubbing anime does not pay very well, to be brutally honest. A lot of people say "Hey, I wanna I want to go out to LA and I want to dub anime for a living," and I'm like, "You can come on dub anime but it won't be for a living," like you won't be able to make a living doing just that.

It was where I got my start and you know, I was a big old anime nerd before I even got started doing this business, and I will always want to stay in it. But it didn't work out for me to just dub anime and provide for my family. 

So you know as an actor I audition for a lot of different things as for commercial stuff and video games. Video games have become, you know-- they've exploded since I started. And animation, original animation now that we're recording Los Angeles, they offer residuals. When they air over and over if they're running or rerunning the show, I can still get paid on that. So if those opportunities are open, I want to take those two. So that I can support my family. 

Again, just speaking for myself, I do know it might not necessarily be everybody's decision. But I will always try to keep my head in the game because I love it so much, and I love the art of it so much. But I have participated in fewer dubs, just because I haven't had time. That stuff takes a lot of time to you know, dubbing a show. It's a huge commitment depending on your role and there's some times when I've agreed to do it, because I knew that it was actually a small project and they're like, "Hey Yuri, it's just a few episodes." Great. I know I can manage that. Let's get into that. 

So for me, that has definitely been a factor. I've been fighting on the sidelines with a lot of other people to try to get better rates established for actors who dub. That that takes a lot of work because there's less money in it because of piracy and being able to watch a lot of stuff for free on the internet. 

Japanese production companies have ramped down their production, because they can't count on English jobs being sold and making money on that. So rates have been sort of dropping and a lot of people are non union. And so it's a struggle, but I think, personally, I think dubbing is a harder skill than just doing original animation or video games, I mean, they're all different skills, but not to take away from people who only do that. 

But I think dubbing is hard, and I have great respect for the actors who do it and I wish that they were paid commensurate to that skill. So, we'll always always be fighting for that.

Let's talk a little bit about the Spider-Man game. Can you just tell me a little bit about if that's opened any doors, or if you can see the future with that?

I will talk until I am red and blue in the face about the Spider-Man game because it was a dream come true, as a kid growing up reading comic books and dressing as Spider-Man

This game was like a perfect storm. Like it had the good writing and it had, you know, good gameplay and you know, the design was great. It all sort of came together as a dream come true. It was hard because it took three years and I couldn't tell anybody that I was Spider-Man. I mean, I would tell my kid but you know, he's so young. He couldn't like, spill the beans. Yeah. Now I think he thinks maybe his dad actually is Spider-Man, and that's so cool, because he doesn't get acting yet. So he's like, I think my dad is actually Spider Man.

But also because it's such a sacred cow, I was worried I was going to mess up, to be totally honest. I thought it was gonna ruin Spider-Man, because it's so it's such a beloved character. Not just by me but by a lot of people.

I hope that there's more, there's got to be more.  They haven't like called me up and said, "Here, report to duty for the next game." I can only imagine that with the success of the first one, there's going to be a second because people who like companies like money but i don't know if it has opened any doors yet, so it's still soon to to say that. 

But I have noticed the jobs that I have been on since then people want to talk about Spider-Man. I showed up on one job and I was in the room we get all our mocap suits on and everything and they had a little whiteboard with all the the actors who runs that day. You know, name, name and then call time, and call time and everything. And next to my name somebody had drawn like a crude little Spider Man. 

I didn't know anybody there, it wasn't like, "Hey, cuz we know each other." Right? Like, it was stuff like that has started to happen. And I mean, I'm so proud of how it turned out. And I personally think it's the best work I've ever done. And that comes from, you know, working with a team that clearly loves the property. And clearly Spider-Man nerds themselves taking their time with it. I mean, I'm glad that it had the backing, that they had the money to take the time with this, because not all games have that budget. So I was very privileged and proud to be a part of it.

So for a show like Naruto, you've been doing it for 13 plus years now.  For such a major character as Sasuke, did you know that it was going to be such a success? I'm also curious about your thoughts on not only playing him as a young kid but also as a father in Boruto.

Yeah. It was about the same time that I became a father, which is a weird coincidence. Weird serendipity. But no, I mean, obviously, I hope that everything that I worked on is wildly successful, but you never know. Because some of my favorite stuff that I've worked on can fizzle you know, and or doesn't get released, like I mentioned before, or, you know, it gets released after a long time or people hate it or whatever is, you never know. So no, I certainly didn't know, at the beginning. 

It soon became apparent after, you know, we started releasing those episodes that people liked. I did like, 700 some odd episodes of it. And then you know, and there's more coming around. I mean, again, like I've mentioned before, you know, companies like money and if things are making money, they'll keep making that stuff. But I had no idea, and as an actor you rarely get a season of something, sometimes you only get a few episodes of something. If you're lucky, you get three seasons of something. Getting to live with the character and grow with the character over that amount of time is a gift. I don't know if I'll be able to replicate that with any other project.  If you're here when we're old men in 20 years and we're still talking about this, remind me that we had this conversation!

Some people call you one of the voices of a generation so to speak, like Sasuke. How does it feel to know that your voice is basically helped some parents guide them through their lives.

Oh, that makes me feel old. [Laughs].  That would be the witty answer to the question.  It's always funny when people go, "man you are my whole childhood," and they're like, an adult so that means… wait a minute, hold on, let me do the math...  [Laughs]

It's…  It's my greatest honor.  I've only recently become a father, so now I feel a responsibility to teach my son how to be a good human being. And it's only then that I realized that because of the combination of the characters that I play and the person that I am, that I've had the opportunity to teach and lead even when I don't know that I'm doing and that's why I think storytelling is important and powerful.  It's where we learn lessons. And it's where we see people fail and get back up again. It gives people strength, sometimes even when I don't know that it's giving people strength. And that's a communal thing: I take part in that, the writer who writes those characters and the stories takes part in that, you know, the producer takes part in that, and then the person who's taking that entertainment and who's listening to that story, the person reviewing it, or listening to it or watching it.  They take the the greatest responsibility of all of that, because people have, have come to me and said, "You helped me during a really dark time." And I'll give credit to Burnie Burns from Rooster Teeth, the first person to say it in a way that made sense to me, "I didn't do anything. You did the hard part."

You know, if you were going through dark times, and the story affected you and gave you strength, it was still your strength to stand back up again or to fight. So I love that stories can inspire characters and inspire and it helps me keep doing this because, you know, there are days where I'm like, "Shouldn't I be building hospitals in Africa? What am I doing?"  I mean, how is this helping the world and because I believe the stories are important and because of the, you know, people who, who say that things like this that have helped them or inspired them. I can wake up every morning, you know, and keep doing it. But more importantly, it makes me feel that what I do has value, and what I do helps. So I feel like I'll never, I'll never not feel grateful for that.