You might not think you know Roger Craig Smith, but you definitely know his voice! The prolific voice actor should be thoroughly familiar to fans of superheroes, video games, and animation by now. Currently, Mr. Smith is the voice of Captain America on Disney XD's Avengers Assemble cartoon, but that's not his only claim to geek fame! Gamers know him as the voice of Chris Redfield in Resident Evil, he's been the voice of Ezio for most of the Assassin's Creed series, and he'll be taking over as the voice of Batman in the highly-anticipated Batman: Arkham Origins game! Mr. Smith is even poised to reach a whole new audience with his role as Ripslinger, the villain in Disney's Planes! He's a busy guy, but we were lucky enough to chat with him for a bit about these projects and more!
Den of Geek: You're playing Captain America on Avengers Assemble, and there's never really been a truly definitive version of the character in other media. You have the chance to really make the role your own if Avengers Assemble is a big success. Do you have a particular approach to Cap that you to take?
Roger Craig Smith: I wish I had the luxury of walking in and saying, "Alright everybody! Here's how Cap's gonna sound!" But really, we sit down and talk about the tone of the show and the dynamic that we want to play between the individual characters and what role everybody fulfills within the group. We basically just start off by workshopping things. It's a collaborative effort.
But Cap is definitely more of the "boy scout" in comparison to some of the other folks he's dealing with in the Avengers. I'd say that this version of Cap is fairly closely aligned with the film version, without being an impression or an impersonation of what Chris Evans is doing with the live-action character. A lot of us are working on this, and I get to be the lucky guy who goes into the booth and bark out the lines! We try and "square jaw" the lines up a bit without it being too much. The direction I usually get is "a little more fists-on-hips!" to make him more heroic. The thing is with Cap, since this is animation, is that if you get too casual with his lines, it could come off a little snarky, and that's not the direction we want him to go.
DoG: There's a real ensemble dynamic on Avengers Assemble. Do you guys do live read-throughs before you all get in the booth to help capture that?
RCS: Oh yeah! We sort of treat it like a giant radio play. The entire cast is almost always there. So I'm sitting there working with Fred Tatasciore (Hulk), Liam, Travis Willingham (Thor), Laura Bailey (Black Widow), Troy Baker (Hawkeye), Adrian Pasdar (Iron Man)...whoever is in the episode will be there. David, We're all in a semi-circle. I sometimes feel for the director who has to sit through all of the juvenile humor we find ourselves engaging in during this stuff!
We get a chance to work through a lot of the dialogue, and a lot of jabs are taken at one another's expense, and since everyone in that room gets along really well, even outside the business, it all works out really well. In fact, we're probably more vicious too each other than the Avengers are on the show! (laughs) I don't think you'd get the same kind of vibe if people were all going in one at a time and they were all sort of piecing it together.
DoG: Is it more intimate than the work you're doing with Disney? Is there more of that interplay with this cast then there is on a bigger production or in your gaming work?
RCS: It all depends on the project, really. Most of the time with video games, you're recording by yourself. Although, on the last Assassin's Creed game, I was doing facial motion-capture at the same time as an audio capture with another actor in the room. But even then, we were in a fairly small recording space, and we weren't interacting like we would in some other environment.
With Disney, most of the time I was on my own, just to kind of isolate all the recordings. But I think that any time you can capture this kind of ensemble cast energy, it's to your benefit as a production. There's a pace and a timing to things, but I know that it presents a lot of problems for the production sometimes, because we can't overlap our lines of dialogue with one another at all. Even when we're all recording in the same room, if someone else's mic picks up my line, and I flub it, that means neither line can be used. But with comedy, that ensemble approach dynamic is important.
DoG: You're the villain in Planes. Is this a big switch for you? This seems like it's your first lead villain role.
RCS: Just to be involved in anything Disney, whether it's Avengers Assemble or Planesor straight-to-DVD work, it's great. The only way to describe my involvement in Planesis that it's an absolute dream come true for me. Getting to be a bad guy in any project is fun, let alone being a Disney villain. I can't imagine anything getting better than that!
DoG: You've done quite a bit of work in video games between Assassin's Creed, Resident Evil, and now you're going to be Batman. Are you much of a gamer yourself?
RCS: Of course! I'm far less of a gamer than I want to be these days, just because of all the work that I'm getting. The days of staying up until three in the morning playing games seem to be behind me right now. But right now in my PS3 is The Last of Us, and one of my cohorts, Troy Baker, is in there, along with lots of other talented people that I work with.
I'm definitely an avid gamer, though. I grew up playing games, and I remember Christmas 1981 when my Dad got us an Intellivision and we all sat around and played Astrosmash for hours on end. It was a big part of my youth. We had everything from Intellevision to the Commodore 64 and video games were a part of my youth. I still really enjoy playing. I'm very much looking forward to Arkham Origins. Sadly, I'm pretty far behind in my other games. I don't think I finished Assassin's Creed: Revelations yet!
DoG: You have the opposite experience with Batman as you do with Captain America, as there have been so many high-profile Batmen, and you're following Kevin Conroy. Have you looked anywhere in particular for inspiration on your take on Batman?
RCS: It's not lost on me the shoes I have to fill. I don't know if there's much else I'm allowed to say right now but, October 25th can't get here fast enough. We're all very excited about this game!
DoG: You were Captain Marvel on Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes, and you were the first guy to play him in other media. What was that like?
RCS: I wasn't a comic book kid when I was growing up, so I didn't know a lot about the character's backstory. But the interesting thing about Mar-Vell was the kind of stilted approach to his delivery to indicate that he's an alien. They didn't want me to be too casual and contemporary with the delivery, but we also didn't want to push it too far where he'd get boring.
It was interesting, though. Compared to everybody else in his circle he had a very proper, measured way of speaking. He wasn't an overly emotional character. But that was a collaborative effort, too. You're working with a director, writers, producers, and everyone kind of throws their two cents in about their vision. But trying to finesse his delivery to where he isn't your "normal human being" but also not "trying-to-sound-like-a-robot" was a fine line. That was a great series, though, and an immensely talented cast. Hopefully the same thing is in store for Avengers Assemble. The writing is phenomenal, the performances are great, and it all feels right!
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