Reddit AMA Recap: Sean Chiplock

 

Recently, voice actor Sean Chiplock had a Reddit AMA where he responded to fan questions about his most recent voice roles as Noob Saibot in MK11 and Guido Mista in the Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure: Golden Wind English dub adaptation.

 

On how he got interested in voice acting:
After discovering a sample recording session clip through my Toonami-fueled website visit, I just wanted to be a part of the craft however possible; back in 2007, this meant grabbing a super cheap (literally pennies of cost) microphone off Amazon and making dumb skits over Windows Sound Recorder. It turns out that even before I knew what VO was, I had already been “practicing it” whenever my younger brother and I would take turns voicing characters in the Nintendo 64 games we owned that had dialogue but no voices, so I guess the interest was always there even if it didn’t have a direct line of focus yet.

On choosing between voice acting in anime or videogames:
I enjoy WORKING, period. My heart has ALWAYS been in anime because of the mix it provides between exaggerated moments and intense scenes (which often aren’t possible in videogames in terms of pure character motion unless it’s a pre-rendered cutscene), but I understand that I can’t FORCE things to happen. The best I can do for myself is to understand my strengths and make sure I stay on top of industry trends while hoping that the experience will couple with an opportunity to give me chances to be a part of things I cherish. Breath of the Wild wasn’t a role I ever saw coming (as an example), but it’s one I absolutely capitalized on and committed to.

On not being able to voice Guido Mista with an Italian Accent.
I’m all for authenticity, but only if it’s something I can trust myself to actually DO authentically. I probably wouldn’t have been able to portray Mista if it required a legit Italian accent, so I’ll settle for being grateful that I could embody everything else about him instead.

On getting a feel for the Guido Mista’s character in the Dub for Jojo:
I just love how Mista embraces the Real Mafia Moments. He’s a playful guy but he seriously gets a kick out of intimidating folks who cross his path in a bad way, and being able to go full focus into those moments where he’s laying on the slyness is one of my favorite aspects of his character. I’ve had quite a lot of experience already with playing cool/confident/cocky characters, so Mista was a matter of knowing when to be playful – and when to be passionate – while maintaining that air of being “part of the gang”.

On legally being allowed or not to say “Sex Pistols” (the Japanese name for Six Bullets) in the Jojo dub due to copyright reasons:
There’s definitely nothing stopping me from using either name, but because people know me from the dub I will generally default to using the dub name accordingly. It’s just not worth the risk of confusion if someone wants to talk to me about “Six Bullets” and I’m busily pseudo-correcting them with the sub terminology when that wasn’t the focus in the first place.

On his character Guido having a superstitious fear of the number 4:
I don’t think I’m superstitious enough to put that much weight on a number; even in hotels, I am little more than “amused” when I see they skipped the number 13 for the floor buttons. But I just imagine that Mista’s fear of 4 is the same as my fear of spiders, so it’s easy enough to empathize.

On voicing Guido’s “Six Bullets” stand and how he differentiates each of the Bullet’s personalities:

I knew from the start that I wanted to give them each a different vocal placement to suit their facial expressions, in addition to allowing the listener to pick them out despite them all being high-pitched after audio processing.

Number 1 was loosely inspired by Robin from Teen Titans; confident, leader, enthusiastic

Number 2 was a slight contrast to Number 1 in a Han Solo way; confidence through coolness and “lone wolf” aura

Number 3 is the Angry Aggressive Gremlin. Definitely the easiest one I came up with.

Number 5 was directly inspired/stolen from the crybaby character from the Ghost Stories dub. If you listen closely you can tell which of his cries were imitations of the blubbering from the dub.

Number 6 was the hardest because he had the same ‘cool’ vibe as Number 2; I ended up giving him the “gung-ho rogue” attitude that was more aggressive than
Number 2 but not as mean as Number 3.

And Number 7 was when I was starting to run out of options so I just went “what if I made him Southern”. It worked way better than I was expecting so HUZZAH.

On how he got his voice role as Noob Saibot in Mortal Kombat 11:

Pretty much the same as I potentially get any other role; my agency sent me to audition sides for the character, I submitted my audition takes, and the client decided they liked one of them enough to cast me! The character/project was codenamed at the time so I didn’t know what it was for, but the specs asked for something “wraith-life and not of this world”. So for the first take, I did something higher pitched and ghostly, with a few teeth; for the second, I impersonated Black Doom from Shadow the Hedgehog’s game on GameCube and aimed for a baritone demonic rumble.

On his accomplishments as a voice actor and being a fan of Toonami before getting into the business:
I am so, so incredibly grateful to get to be part of such a popular series as a major character, and I hope audiences watching feel like I’ve helped make the experience better. As I noted in my OP, Toonami played a huge part in getting me into voiceover, to begin with, so the fact that I can truthfully say you might get to hear me LATER TODAY is so surreal.

And finally how he spends his time safely during the coronavirus outbreak.

I’m gonna be honest, it does not feel like a single facet of my life has changed amidst the coronavirus outbreak. California was not one of the hardest-hit places and our industry already involves a higher amount of isolation (voice actors almost always are by themselves in the actual recording booth when performing), so most studios just upped their cleaning routines and carried on as usual.