Our last interview deals with the most suddenly beloved character of the entire roster, Aquaman! Phil LaMarr brought the more badass incarnation to life in Injustice 1, and he certainly hopes that trend continues in Injustice 2.
Phil has voiced Aquaman in other forms of media, the most recent (besides Injustice) has been on Young Justice. “Actually, I thought that their concept for Aquaman was fairly similar to the time I had done before, which was on Young Justice. The regal, you know, powerful but solid sensitive Aquaman. I thought they did a variation on that and I didn’t know when we voiced the first game… how badass they were going to make him. Because you don’t get the whole script. You get maybe a couple of images, but then when I actually played the game I was like, ‘Oh damn. Ok, AQUAMAN!’ I was very pleased and very excited to be back.â€
Aquaman has seen quite the resurgence in the past handful of years. A punchline of a character now turned into a fun, awesome character. Personally, I thought his run for the New 52 was outstanding, and the Jason Momoa casting for DC’s movies Justice League and the standalone Aquaman movie sealed the deal with the transition from ho-hum to awesome. When asked what he thought about the growing love for Aquaman, Phil  said, “I love it, and I actually am going to start taking credit for it in a minute. I have been lucky enough to be part of good reboots of both Green Lantern and Aquaman. I thought the old Justice League with Jon Stewart really gave that character a foundation that it hadn’t had before. Like they did a great rewrite, and I feel these guys did the same thing with Aquaman. They finally made the character click in a way that literally for decades it didn’t. And there is no reason that he didn’t. I mean, you are king of the oceans, that’s 75{3a19833c997fa52158a43c449fe089ff048ac0506a335cac10721cfa396ff282} of the planet. Like you should be badass.â€
One of the threads of questions that tends to make it in interviews such as these is who else would you voice if anyone? The question generally gets the same answer from interview to interview, and it shows the respect the voice actors’ have for one another’s work. “Someone who is not in the game, my favorite would be Static Shock. You know, he made it into the mobile game… But, yeah. As far as the characters in the game, it’s so tough because all I hear are the voices of my friends. Like I hear Kevin Conroy doing Batman and I’m like, ‘Yeah, can’t do a better Kevin Conroy than Kevin Conroy, so I don’t want to do that. I can’t do a better Superman than George.’ It just feels like eh, I’ll stick with what I can do. Because I can’t do better than those guys.â€
Voice acting is such a unique profession, one that has been talked about in every interview, in the fact that it is quite different than having to face a camera and speak. When asked what his favorite line was, Phil stated that, “That’s actually one of the things about voice overs that’s kind of a bummer is that you don’t memorize it. Like when you do on camera stuff or stage stuff, you have to memorize the lines, and so they soak in a little more. With the voice over, and especially game voiceover, there’s so many lines, you literally have four hours of lines at a time. Some of them are scenes; most of them are not. Some are like, ‘You are jabbing.’ Also, nowadays, the facial capture stuff, so you’ve got a light in your eyes, a camera giving you a fish eyed view of yourself that no one should have to see themselves that way, while you are wearing a bike helmet. So yeah, I don’t remember is the short version of that answer.â€
Lastly, Phil was asked what his favorite part of voicing Aquaman. “I like the fact that I get to play regal; I get to play a king. But there’s also humanness to it. I mean, I don’t know how George does it playing Superman, “I am the most powerful guy in the world.†Like maybe put the Kansas into it, but for me, Aquaman has always had a sort of niceness to him. Now that the fact that they added the sense of power and strength, it gives it a nice balance. You never feel dirty playing Aquaman. Is that a joke? Oh I feel freshly washed. Yeah that is what I enjoyed the most.â€
You can catch Phil LaMarr at the following links:
Website: http://www.phillamarr.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/phillamarr1/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/phillamarr
Check out the rest of our Injustice 2 coverage below:
Ed Boon Interview: Â Â http://dualpix1ls.com/2016/07/30/injustice-2-interview-with-ed-boon-at-sdcc-2016/
George Newbern Interview: http://dualpix1ls.com/2016/07/31/injustice-2-interview-with-george-newbern-at-sdcc-2016/
Laura Bailey Interview: http://dualpix1ls.com/2016/07/29/injustice-2-interview-with-voice-actor-laura-bailey-at-sdcc/