My good friend Gareth (better known to some as FTA) had the chance to sit down with Jason Griffith to talk about Sonic, the fans, other roles, the acting business, and more. Check it out:
Nice interview! Also cool that you're actually friends with FTA. Never cared for Jason Griffith's rendition of Sonic, but he seems like a good fellow on his own merits.
Holy crap. I thought Jason griffith was black. MIND BLOWN. I have a new respect for Jason though, I think there was a notion that he was just some guy who came in and didn't listen to previous iterations, when it was a very different story. He definitely got better with time, and it is good for them to acknowledge that. He's a really cool guy. It would have been nice if the directors had made his voice more mature the way through, but y'know, not his fault.
That was a pretty awesome interview. I wasn't really a Griffith fan... AT ALL during his stint as Sonic, and actually preferred Drummond to him, but seeing him talking in a different light outside of his Sonic roles just gives so much more depth to the type of person he is... Did anyone else get mindblown by some of the characters he plays? The condom commercial was a shocker for me!
Agreed. I find his work with Sonic in Sonic Unleashed to be quite good, actually. Especially in comparison to his early work with the Blue dude. I still prefer Roger Craig Smith's work by and far just based on Colors alone, but the point stands.
At the end he makes it clear that Jason Anthony Griffith is a different guy. But his Wikipedia article is titled Jason Anthony Griffith anyway. :v:
Unlike most I actually loved Jason Griffith's early Sonic X performances and liked him less and less as time went on, but I've always really liked him as a person and I enjoyed watching this last night. I remember way back in 2007, when Spax3 told me to kill myself for saying "it could be worse" to him on some Sonic chatroom when he was ranting about how Sean Schemmel should have been the 4Kids Sonic, so I enjoyed his commentary on that. "It's something that younger kids, I think, do."
I thought it was Jason Anthony Griffith. I've been lied to all these years. Also that whole pack of robots remix was hilarious.
Would you mind elaborating on this? I'm not jumping down your throat or anything; I'm very genuinely interested in your thoughts on this, 'cause I think I can understand this viewpoint. (sorry, incoming wall of text) The way Jason started out on the show came across a bit more "nerdy-sounding" as he said... and I remember at the time, I kind of dug in its own way. I mean, it was clear that the voice director at least had a basic grasp on Sonic's personality/how he should sound/etc. back then, at least for a kids show. As it is, I'm torn about how the cast evolved, going from the show to the games. The thing that always struck me was: They were all quite clearly set in their ways, used to doing kids' shows. This isn't itself a bad thing, and I respect and understand it. Yet even in 2005 when they were all "just starting out" on the games, it was apparent to me that there's just something slightly different between 2D and 3D animation that... wasn't quite accounted for in the acting. Likely it was just a matter of Sega giving 4Kids the game scripts and a 4Kids voice director instructing the actors as if they were still doing a show. It's hard to explain, because I certainly can't say Drummond and Co. didn't have the same kind of overdone/underdone/misdirected acting appear during their stints. One thing I did immediately notice in the 2005 games was the sudden "evolution" of Dan Green's Knuckles and Jason's Shadow. During the show, both characters came across very unnaturally straight-laced and, as Jason once said, "full of cock". In Riders and Shadow Dan's portrayal of Knuckles was much more laid back where needed, was a bit cocky when "gearing up for a fight", but it was just overall much clearer he was at least trying to give it his best, whereas in the show it just seems like the director was unaware that Knuckles had a personality other than "Grr! I am angry! Angry about things!" Jason's Shadow was similar -- he went from "always stiff and cocky" for every line in the show to having a bit more range in the games. Of course, that was counterbalanced when he tried to pull off a cocky line towards the end of the game, and just wound up overshooting it to the moon. Oh, and go figure -- he says he liked playing Jet. Augh. I sort of get where he was trying to go with the voice, but as he says, reading lines for a game you're "out in the wild", unsure of the direction and that much more reliant on the voice director. Again, because of the impression I get that the director was still "doing a 2D show" this just fell flat on its face. I just found the physical voice to be grating, certainly more so than I'm sure was intended. Anyway, long story short, this is really cool to watch. Thanks for the link. It was certainly nifty to get a behind-the-scenes look at what goes into that aspect of the games.
Now I cannot unhear Sonic talking about what kind of guy he is while using condoms. And, I can agree that I found his voice much more acceptable at the beginning of X's run for the same reason I thought Matt Smith was better at the beginning of Season 5 of Doctor Who than he is now. When an actor begins a role, he may have a fairly firm idea of what the character is, but he is still in the process of figuring out how to depict it, so it sounds a bit more natural because it's a learning process. As time goes on, they lock down how they do it so it becomes less of a natural progression and more of a filling that role deal. That happened a lot in Shadow and '06, but he began pulling out of that groove a bit towards the end. Griffith had really started hitting his stride, especially in Unleashed. I can't say I would have preferred he'd stay, but I have much more respect for him now. It's cool to see the kind of things he's doing now, and I wish him the best.
I liked how it sounded nasally and youthful, and it sounded like the type of voice you'd expect coming out of Sonic. As time went on, Jason started talkINGGG like THIS all THE timE, his voice got deeper (inb4 roger's voice is too deep), and he just generally lacked the energy Sonic's voice needs (see: Jaleel White, Martin Burke, Ryan Drummond, and Roger Craig Smith). I'm pretty sure this wasn't Jason's fault, though, and moreso the fault of the directors. Ryan has said a few times that the director SEGA had for him screwed up his acting quality, so it wouldn't surprise me at all.
I thought Jetsounded like Sonic being an asshole, I never liked his voice, and I found it difficult as a player to take the threat of the bad guys seriously at all, but I did kinda get what he was trying to do with him, just that it coulda been pulled off by anotehr actor who wouldn't make him sound so similar to Sonic.
