Interview with Tiffany Grant, Patrick Seitz and Derek Stephen Prince at Anime North 2007.
Note:
Anime Station.Net = Anime Station
Interviewer = other interviewers (from different media groups)
Interviewer : What's your favorite show which you've worked on.
Tiffany Grant: I've worked on tons of shows. I can't just list one because the list gets longer and longer. Hello Kitty, Excel Saga, Evangelion... there are several, I can just pick one.
Interviewer : like Ah My Goddess?
Tiffany Grant: Yeah, I'm writing the script for the second season of it. It's very iconic in this industry, I even started to get into the manga. It's a great series and story.
Patrick Seitz: Koi Kaze - which was an intense little show. It didn't get a huge fan base because it was about a brother and sister falling in love, and that's a little intense but it was handled very well and it was the closest to theater that I've ever had behind a microphone.
Derek Stephen Prince: I'm having a hard problem with picking a series because its hard to pinpoint a series and I'm working with Bleach right now, but if I had to pick - I would have to say it would be the second season from Digimon because I had the opportunity to play against myself as the Digimon Emperor and Veemon. That show was in the bag 7 years ago but there is such a fan base to it - that its crazy, I'm so impressed.
Anime Station: To play out characters - you have to emphasize with them - have you ever played a character you disliked or have grown to dislike? or like?
Tiffany Grant: I really think you need to find something you like in every character, regardless if its in theater or in voice acting. I mean even if objectively if I was watching the show and I thought "Wow, what a horrible person" - you need to find something to emphasize with, and understand that a characters point of view, even if they are evil or villainous in some way because they believe they are doing the right thing.
Patrick Seitz: Speaking for someone who plays a lot of bad guys, it's that point exactly. No one thinks they're doing the wrong thing - and if they do they rarely think they do and you need to take it from that view.
Derek Stephen Prince: With the exception that when you're playing a psycho person who is going on a killing spree, its hard to find a reason why you would like this guy, and I had a problem with that when I was voice acting in a live action movie called Zero Woman , and there was this character who was just a complete psycho, but that was the way he was written. He was written so that when Zero woman would kill him off you would cheer.
Anime Station: As a follow up question -- have you ever had to play a character that was just very flat? Where you had to work yourself into -- to give the character more depth?
(Tiffany and Patrick answer)
Anime Station: Did you ever find a character you could base your friends off of and you could stay around them to do your research or have you ever based a character off someone you knew in person to help you in studio while voice acting?
Derek Stephen Prince: Yes...
Patrick Seitz: I can't say that I have, but that could be because the characters I play are so evil that I'm glad that I don't have people like that in my circle of friends. My characters aren't real enough to do that.
(Tiffany answers)
Anime Station: Where were you when you first wanted to voice act? or do it for a living?
Tiffany Grant: Do it for a living? I really don't know know many people that do it for a living. Most of us do other jobs like script writing or editing. Over 13 years ago someone called me and told me about a new company that was recruiting voices for Japaneses shows, so I went in for the audition because that's what I do as an actor -- and it was a paid acting job.
Patrick Seitz: For a while I was living 80 miles out of LA and still working with a real job and voice acting until a company asked me if I wanted to work on a real series to adapt and direct. At that point I had to move out to LA and I couldn't teach high school anymore. I had my paycheck and I had to think about where I wanted to go next and this was the right direction.
(Derek Stephen Prince answers)
Anime Station: Being part of the revolution of the anime industry, why do you think it has grown so much?
Tiffany Grant: Well, originally the shelves were very small for anime. Back then I could have never imagined that it could have grown to be this big. The fan base has changed to a male-and-female ratio, and it used to be only male. There are so many different varieties of shows, there is an entire room at Anime North focused on Yaoi and that's amazing for an anime genre to have its own room. The anime industry is like a rocket and its still growing and expanding.
Patrick Seitz: The things I noticed: when i started working in the industry I have only been in it for a few years now... so in that prospective - I can only see small changes. When I was at Anime Expo I was very impressed because for me when I'm in studio and finished recording an anime -- "That's it, I'm done, it's in the can" -- however coming to the convention it means something much more. I had some high school students where I used to teach who contacted me by email and tell me that they watch my shows. So anime is very around us.
Derek Stephen Prince: I've been around for 14-plus years. The only reason we are around is because of Japan -- if they didn't make the anime, we wouldn't be around to dub them. I see a large market for the female fans with shows more targeted for them such as Yaoi, etc. Like there is Sailor Moon and Love Hina, where it reaches this inner depth for teenage girls, where it means something to them. Five years ago if you went into Blockbuster, there was basically nothing for anime , but now as in today there is tons of anime.
Tiffany Grant: And the popularity in the US to Japan. The anime industry was in its death throes in Japan when it became popular in the US and this saved the anime market. They can't make money on producing anime -- they make money on overseas markets. When ADV was trying to license their first show, the Japanese company couldn't believe it, but now that's taken into account when they produce an anime. Look now, there is the Anime Network and the Cartoon Network, and there are specific anime channels.
Anime Station:: Where do you see yourself in the future? Is there a role you would like to do or see yourself in?
Patrick Seitz: By not knowing which company is going to get a certain anime title -- by having hopes that a company will get it -- is just setting yourself up for defeat most times. However , if someone called me tomorrow morning and asked me to do a role in Monster -- I would be very happy.
Tiffany Grant: Not anything in particularity. Even if a show did get licensed by a company I worked for, it doesn't guarantee that I'll even get an audience.
Patrick Seitz: You just want to keep working - you're thankful for the work you do.
*all the voice actors agree*
(Derek Stephen Prince & Tiffany answers)
Anime Station: Do you have any favorite shows or characters that you can connect with?
(Patrick,Tiffany and Derek answer)
