Dee Bradley Baker might not be a household name, but in geek corners, he’s something of a legend. Not only did he voice Rex on Star Wars: The Clone Wars, but he’s jumped around to different studios over the years. This helped him voice Klaus on American Dad, Olmec the Aztec on Legends of the Hidden Temple, and many of the animals of our childhoods.
That list, which includes Perry the Platypus, Apa & Momo from Avatar: The Last Airbender, and Eagly from Peacemaker, has opened the door for Baker to specialize as one of Hollywood’s best animal sound vocal performers. We spoke with him about his latest starring role on the big screen, as Willa the Cat in The King of Kings. This interview has been edited for clarity and conciseness. The full interview is available on YouTube here.
Dee Bradley Baker speaks to FandomWire about The King of Kings
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FandomWire: Mr. Baker, thank you very much for speaking with FandomWire today about your role in The King of Kings. I want to say I am a huge fan, and have been a fan since you voiced Olmec.
Dee Bradley Baker:[OLMEC VOICE] That is Legends of the Hidden Temple!
FandomWire: When you looked at The King of Kings, what was something that you were immediately drawn to that made you need to do this movie?
Dee Bradley Baker: [Returns to speaking voice] Well, they brought me in to do it because this is my specialty. As with any story, I want this to be something that resonates. I want the character, the creature, the animal, to be just as much a part of the story as what is playing out with all the other actors. That’s always fun.
It’s always a fun challenge to do something that’s not generic, but that’s also not over the top. Because you’re doing something that isn’t exactly an accurate animal sound. It’s something that reads as that animal, but that gives a heightened expressiveness that’s more human, and in a way that feels natural. It just feels like, oh, clearly this makes sense, and it’s part of the story. That’s the fun.
Plus, The King of Kings is voice directed by Jamie Thomason, who is a brilliant voice director, and he’s always good to work with. It’s a positive, beautiful story, whether you’re religiously inclined or not, and that’s a positive. So that’s interesting. Then you have this whole stable of amazing actors.
FandomWire: I was gonna say it’s an incredibly deep cast.
Dee Bradley Baker: Yeah, it’s an amazing cast, and they all perform wonderfully. It’s very beautiful, and it’s very cinematic in its tone and what it is going for. It’s a very unique project, and it’s the most fun to be involved with something of that caliber.
FandomWire: You’ve voiced a lot of animals in the past. I mean, Perry the Platypus is one of the big ones. And then clearly, you’ve also got Apa and Momo from Avatar: The Last Airbender. You’ve got so many great character animals. When you get a script, how do you break down the screenplay as you’re performing the role of an animal?
Dee Bradley Baker: In most cases, fortunately, and that’s part of why I got into voice acting. I don’t have to deal with a script at all. It’s more important what the director or the writer is telling me as they describe the scene, because I can’t get the full three-dimensional flavor or the specifics of the choreography or action from a script. So much of that is in the director’s and the writer’s brain, and that’s stuff that I need to get in the session.
In the case of The King of Kings, I hadn’t seen a script at all. Occasionally, they’ll send me a cue sheet that’s a rundown of beats. What really directs me is the image itself. In this case, and in a lot of cases, the image is in post-production. It’s already been shot, it has been edited, the music might be there already, and much of it is already there.
All I have to do is watch it. With the help of the voice director, Jamie Thomason, who is brilliant, I get something that nails the exact tone and flavor of what they want this creature to sound like in service to the story. That’s the long-winded version of saying ‘usually, I don’t pay much attention to a script at all,’ and that often it’s just the picture that is what’s telling me what to do.
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FandomWire: You mentioned you worked with Jamie Thomason before. Obviously, this ensemble includes a lot of big actors like Kenneth Branagh and Uma Thurman. Were you able to do any sessions with your fellow castmates? And if not, what does it mean to you as a voice performer to see a film populated with so many actors who are vocal performers first?
Dee Bradley Baker: It’s fun to imagine what it would be like to actually be in a session or on a stage with any of these people. In this instance, I was brought in for maybe a two or three-hour session. Jamie would show me the segments that they want me in, and I would do the sounds to that performance. Then I would also give them a sort of audio bucket of general reactions. Like curiosity, fright, suspicion, and then they can pepper those in as they’re putting it together.
It’s most gratifying to then play the movie, which is a beautiful, cinematic movie with a wonderful, uplifting message, and just be in the company of the final production with all of these luminaries of voice acting, as well as on camera and stage. That’s the fun of being an actor, to me. The collaboration is to get together and make a story with other people.
It’s just a much more atomized process now, especially since COVID. But it, as you can see, it works beautifully if you’ve got good material, good writing, good directing, and good actors. It all works as a performer. Would I prefer that we all sit together and hammer it out in a studio over many, many hours together in a studio? That would be fun, that’d be great. But there’s also a nice economy to the production.
If we do it this way, in the sort of bit-by-bit way, you do your thing, and then that’s it. You’re out. Even if you’re doing like on camera of some kind, you’re brought in to do your scene, or a couple of scenes, and you don’t know what the whole rest of the whole big circus is going to look like. That’s just an actor’s life. You know, even if you’re doing stage, maybe you’re sitting in your dressing room until you come out and do your two lines as the Shakespeare pole carrier. That’s acting. It’s all right. It’s different for every show.
FandomWire: In the case of King of Kings, how do you begin the process to prepare for the voice of an animal versus when you’re voicing somebody like Klaus on American Dad or Rex in Star Wars?
Dee Bradley Baker: I’ve got to say at this point, there is no preparation. Preparation usually works against me. If I prepare something, then I have to dig out of it. When I’m in the session and they tell me what they need, and there’s all this effort to undo what I’ve already done. My job is more specifically to show up ready, rather than prepared.
I’m ready to do whatever they need vocally. My mind is open. My instrument is feeling good. I’ve hopefully had a good night’s sleep. There’s my preparation, a good night’s sleep. Maybe do a little meditation in the morning to clear my mind. I read out loud every day to myself. I like to do that. That’s kind of preparation. That keeps my motor running so that I’m ready when I come in to deliver whatever they need.
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FandomWire: One of the things that is so great about your role in The King of Kings is that Willa of the Cat pops off the screen, both in the vocal performance and in the dynamics of how she wanders through scenes. Thank you very much for making a character like this pop.
Dee Bradley Baker: I want to point out, though, that that’s an ensemble effort there. An animated character is like a puppet with 100 hands. There’s people who light it, there’s people that time it, that paint it, that color it, in addition to the writing and the directing. All that heavy labor and work weaves together into the character, along with my vocal performance. So I see myself as part of an ensemble. Even with a character, you say, ‘Oh, I’m the voice of this.’ But I realized that I am there with the others who are making this character come to life, and I’m just part of that ensemble.
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