Richard Epcar - Mortal Kombat, Kingdom Hearts, Jojo's Bizarre Adventure | AW19

Are you a gamer? If so, you’ve probably heard our guest a number of times. When someone has voiced, probably, more than 600 characters, you’re bound to hear of this VO icon. He is not only a voice-over actor and on-camera actor, but he has also directed several amazing shows. Yup, you guessed it, it’s Richard Epcar.

Richard has been in the industry for years and years. This week, we tap into all that talent and experience for you. Listen in for some amazing tips from the voice of Raiden and Joker from Mortal Kombat himself! This may be the episode that will inspire you to pursue your VO dreams.

Show Notes:

[4:45] How Richard got into the VO industry.

[12:00] Richard’s various roles in animation and video games.

[16:49] Richard on becoming a voice director.

[27:44] Updates on Richard’s upcoming projects.

[35:43] VO and relationships.

[42:06] Q&A with Richard during the IgTV live.

Instagram: @Alicyn
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YouTube: Alicyn Packard
Twitter: @Alicyn 

Transcript

Intro Welcome to Alicyn's Wonderland. I'm your host, Alicyn Packard. Join us as we journey through the looking glass and down the rabbit hole into the wild and wonderful world of animation and video games. Hey, do a girl a favor and please subscribe to this podcast and go on iTunes and leave us a good review. If you like the show, please help spread the word it really helps us to get heard by more people. Thanks so much. Alicyn Hello, hello. Welcome to Alicyn's Wonderland. It's Wednesday, it's Wednesday. And you know what that means? We have another incredible guest that works in animation and video games. Today's guest is Richard Epcar. And I love Richard, I've known Richard for over a decade. I first met Richard when we were working together on the Mr. Men Show I'm going to show you guys something actually before we bring Richard on. This is, how I flip my camera, here we go. This is the poster from the Mr. Men Show with all the different characters, and this was Richard, Richard played Mr. Noisy, I was Miss Sunshine, Miss Whoops, and Miss naughty, and so even when I started working with Richard back then, I knew he was a total legend and I'm so excited to have him on the show. I want to give a quick shout out to everybody that's joining live Hey, Jeffrey. ElGeorginito, sorry about your name. Yes, I was on The Mr. Men Show. Did you watch? Photosbythedude. Hey, ChrisBrown. So good to see you. Jeff, awesome to have you on. BrettStryker, you made it. Max, hey, good to see your face. Thank you guys so much for joining live. It is so special when we get to have guests on and interacting and being here witnessing in real time. So I'm so grateful for that, Richard Epcar is here. So we're gonna welcome him on. Richard is a voice actor and you might know him from Final Fantasy, Saints Row, Arkham, Skyrim, Call of Duty, World of Warcraft, League of Legends. This guy's resume is insane. You also might know him as the Joker in multiple Batman franchises. He's also, in addition to being a voice actor, he is also a voice director for anime and video games. And I've had to, the opportunity to work with Richard on the other side of the booth, of the glass wall, as it were. So I'm so excited to sit down, so please give a warm welcome to the one and only Richard Epcar. Hey, BrickmanMosaicArt. Good to see you. Guys, Brickman has some really incredible Lego artwork. If you guys are into that. MelanieAnimated, good to see you. Richard! Richard Oh my God. Alicyn Hi, how are you? You know what? Oh, wait. Yeah. Richard What? Alicyn Yeah, it does that. It kind of like gives you like, one minute you're out here and then it's like you're, Richard Am I too close? I don't want to scare anyone. Alicyn You look perfect right now. It's good to see your face. Richard Well, you always look perfect, so there. Alicyn That's funny. It's the ring light, remember? It's the ring light. Richard No, it's not. I've seen you in person. It's not the ring light. Alicyn You're so sweet. Where, are you in your home studio or your home office? Richard I'm in my home office right now. Yeah, this is where, this is where the magic happens right here. Alicyn Do you feel like you want to show us around? Are you more stationary right now? Richard Well, it's kind of a mess right now honestly, but I have, I do, well, I guess I could well, I'm kind of hooked into this thing here. But, I have a I have a booth in my office, I have this is my command center here where I do a lot of writing and stuff like that and all that sort of thing and I do have, let me, let me take it off. It's kind of fun. We do have some characters that I, that I can see some of these guys, here you can see some of the characters. Here's Jigen from Lupin III. Here's Gladiator. There's Batman, a bunch of James Bond guys, but the only thing I did with James Bond w as like cast, Ellen and I cast the motion capture for one of the games that they did. Here's some more Joker stuff. I don't know if you guys can see that very well. But and then here's Ansem, from Kingdom Hearts and other characters. But, you know, it's always fun to me. This was the first one back here. He's this guy here. Can you see that? Yeah, he was dark heart was the first time that I had gone in a store and seen a character that I voiced as a toy, you know? So that was kind of exciting. That was that was a long time ago. But that was the first one and then after that, I just kind of started collecting some of these characters that oh, here's a good one. I didn't even show this one. This is one of my favorites, Raiden, Raiden from Mortal Kombat. Oh, he's fun. And they got him dressed as Dark Raiden, which is kind of nice. Alicyn That's amazing, a lot of guys, a lot of you guys big Mortal Kombat fans on the stream. Give a thumbs up if you are. Richard I love Mortal Kombat. Alicyn Richard, I'm so curious. I don't know much about how you got your start in voice acting and acting. Do you care to take us back to the early days and how that all came about? Richard Back, back before the Trilobites. Yes, well, you know I'm an on-camera actor. I'm an actor. I'm actually stage-trained actor, right? I was trained on the stage and did a lot of theater. I came out here to be a film actor and I did a bunch of television and soaps and some films and stuff like that. I was in Memoirs of an Invisible Man. And I did a bunch of TV shows like Colombo and Cheers and did a bunch of soaps, Santa Barbara, One Life to Live. Alicyn The Days of our Lives. Yeah. Richard Days of our Lives. I was on that for a while. That was fun. Alicyn What was your character on Days of our Lives? Richard I think it was Rick. They always had me, I always had like a one name character. And I was usually the bad guy, it's either a bad man. in Santa Barbara. I kidnapped Robin Wright, which was kind of fun. I got to tie her up and inject her with blue fluids. And I don't know what the hell else I did to her. But it was, it was. Yes. So yeah, that was fun but, you know, that was a long time ago. But that was really a lot of fun. I came out or like I, I did a lot of soaps and stuff like that. And then my wife, Ellen Stern, was in a movie. And she wasn't my wife at the time. She was my girlfriend. This is a million years ago. And the people who did the movie, they had another movie. And they didn't like the actors in it. They wanted to replace their voices. So they had auditions. And she said, Can I bring my boyfriend? Who was me and I went in there. And the guy said, Have you ever done this before? I said, Yeah, I've done it a million times. I never did it before in my life. And I went in, I got the lead, the lead character. And they really liked me after that, and they started hiring me for other movies. This was live action stuff. And then from that I got hired into a place called Inner Sound. And they did, they did a show called Robo Tech. And Robo Tech was like the first big animated show that I did. It was on network television. But we didn't think anything was going to really happen with it. It was kind of a little tiny show. We didn't think much of it, but it blew up. And to this day, I have people coming up to me and asking me about Robo Tech, which is kind of fun. But that started the whole thing. And then I literally not stopped working since then I've been you know, voicing and directing, and, and doing a lot of that stuff. So Alicyn Wow, that's amazing. So it was just the one chance encounter. And as Tamara, I may have to get the correct pronunciation of your name, Tamara, and make sure that but like he said, fake it till you make it, right? Richard Yeah, I mean, I don't know that I was really faking it, honestly. But I mean, I did you know, the thing that really helped me particularly was, as you know, when you do dubbing it's, it's you're, dubbing is a little different than just doing regular voice work, you know? The regular voice work you go in, you're doing a character, and they take your tracks and they animate to those tracks. But when you're dubbing the shows already in the can and you're replacing the dialogue. And so you have to hit those mouth flaps and do the the lines in sync. Well, the fact that I'm also a drummer helped me tremendously because there's a real rhythm to this stuff. Alicyn Yeah, I play guitar, and ukulele, and sing. Richard Snd you sing, right? So, you know, I find that the people that are musical really take to dubbing a lot, a lot easier than people that are not musical. People that are not musical, it's very tough for them to figure that out, this whole thing out, you know? Yeah. So I think that helped me tremendously, the fact that I was a drummer and an actor, and I just, I just saw the rhythm in it. And I just kind of got into the rhythm. And it just for me, it was, it was really kind of an easy transition. And then when I started doing a lot of voice work, I had some of the studios asked me, Hey, can you direct this stuff? And I had directed theater. So I said, Sure, I can direct the stuff. And then they said, Can you write this stuff? And I said, Sure, I can write this stuff. So I just, I just started doing so much of it. And one of the things that I wrote one of the first things I wrote was Cinema Paradiso, which was won the Oscar for Best Foreign Film. So I adapted and directed that in English. So that was one of the first things that I've done a bazillion titles since then. Alicyn That's so fun. It's amazing how that, how you segue down into that. And so, so when you started booking more and more voiceover were you still continuing on your drumming path? Richard Well my, my drumming was more of for my own joy, honestly. I was never trying to, I never wanted to be a professional drummer. Now my son is a professional drummer. And he plays on Broadway. He's been a first-call drummer on Broadway for 10 years. And you know, he was on, he did Spider Man, and he did Hamilton, he did Waitress, he did. He was just doing Mean Girls when they shut it down for the pandemic. And you know, he's been, you know, they shut down Broadway for a year and three months and it's been really tough on him. But he's finally, they've been out, they've asked him to come back and work on another show. So he's, he's going to get up and going again. So that was good. I mean, he's played on Seth Meyers and the Tonight Show and all kinds of stuff and he's doing really well. Alicyn I remember hearing about him back in the day, back when we're working on the Mr. Men Show over ten years ago. Can you? Richard No, no, I can't. That was a lot of fun. I was hoping they'd have more seasons of that. That was really fun. Alicyn Me too. You know, we have a lot of, I'm sure you probably do on Instagram as well. But there's a lot of diehard Mr. Men Show fans out there. And a few have been just begging me to get somebody from Mr. Men onto the show. So I'm so glad. Richard And actually, actually Mr. Noisy played the drums, which was kind of a good fit for me. I thought, how did they know that? Alicyn Well, you know, they say sometimes that actors each have an essence. And there's just something in your DNA, which makes you a very good fit for certain roles. I wonder if you just somehow have drummer in your DNA. Alicyn I smell like a symbol. I think that's what it is. Smell like a singing symbol, and sound like a kick. Richard Yeah, there you go. There you go. So but you know, I've been playing once in a while, I get together. And actually I was, you know, you mentioned the Days of our Lives. I was on that show for quite a while. And one of the cameramen, I was talking to him, and he said, you know, we got a band, but we don't have a drummer. And I said, Well, I'm a drummer, and I don't have a band. So we got together and we made this this band. And then I got a friend of mine, who's another voice actor, an actor, and he came in and he started singing and playing keyboards for us. So we started playing it. Some of the clubs where we played at the Viper Room, we played at the Hard Rock, we played a bunch of places around town, it was really fun. And we had a lot of our you know, our voiceover fans come and show up and watch us play. So it was really a lot of fun. Alicyn That's so great. And it's amazing how many voice actors are musicians, by the way. I mean, I guess it makes sense. But I'm always, Richard And all of the recordists are all, they're either musicians or they record music or you know, I mean, they've all had some, something to do with music at some point. So it's kind of interesting, you know? Alicyn Yeah, for everybody that's just tuning in. This is Alicyn's Wonderland, we're a weekly show where we interview people that work in animation and video games. And today's guest is Richard Epcar, director and voice actor of multiple projects. I see some questions coming in through the timeline if you guys just don't mind dropping them in the question and answer box at the very bottom with the question mark, and we'll try and save some time at the end for for questions from you guys. So Richard, I was curious, we talked a little bit about how you got into it and your first few roles doing ADR and looping? What were some of your first roles in animation or video games? Richard Well, you know, I was Batou in Ghost in the Shell. And that was a big deal, you know? I did that one movie. And I thought, well, and actually that movie that we did was the number one selling Video of the Year it came out. It beat out everything, everything, which is really weird when you think about it. And it was a great movie. And I thought wouldn't it be great if they, you know, did more of these. And then I got a call like two years after that. And they called me up and they said, Hey, remember that character Batou, you played in Ghost in the Shell? I said, Yeah. And they said, well, we're doing a series now. And I'm thinking, Oh, this is great. I'll get a series again. We'd like you to audition. So, you know, I'm, audition? They go, Yeah, we want you to come in and audition. I said Oh, okay. And they had like 200 people there auditioning for this thing. I think I, think I got it because I sounded like the guy in the movie. So you know, but you know, thankfully, I got it. And it was only actually only two of us that made the cut from the movie to the series. So I was really really grateful that they kept me on on that. I did that. I Digimon, I did, god, there's so many I don't even remember them all. They just kind of blend together after a while. But there was, literally I've done over 600 characters in games and animation. And I started you know slowly getting getting into the gaming world which I really wanted to do more and more of that actually. Because just because you're not, you're not doing dubbing, you're creating a character. And you're not confined by doing the dubbing. You're just doing it and it's just you know, and then I got into I got into Mortal Kombat which is about I've been doing that about 12-13 years now. Mortal Kombat where I play Raiden and the Joker and that was an amazing audition. They called me in from you know, Warner Brothers, Netherrealm Studios, and DC Comics. They were all in the line when I was doing it and they wanted me to audition for every single character in DC world and every single character in Mortal Kombat and Alicyn Were you coming in to audition in person or online? Richard In the old days, we used to. The olden days. Yes, I would take my my carriage and my you know, my horses and I would come up to the, no but we, it was really a fun audition because it was like being a kid in a candy shop for me because I loved all these characters and I read comic their comics when I was a kid and all that stuff. So they had me going in the booth and I read all these different you know all these different characters and then at the end of it, Brigitte Burdine, who was the casting director at the time said to me, you know, they like you for everything. What would you like to do? I said, Well, I said, If I could shoot, there was something about the Joker, I never tried to do the Joker. But this is crazy voice came out of me in the laugh. And there, it was just nuts. So I said, I love the Joker, and I love Raiden. They're both really fun characters. And then, you know, they never asked the actor who they want to play. They don't care who you want to play. It's, you know, up to them. But literally a couple of days later, they called me and said, you booked Raiden and the Joker so and I've been playing them ever since. So that's been really wonderful. That was a really fun experience. Alicyn Would you like to sample the voices for us? Richard Well, the Joker sounds like this, you're so lovely my dear. You could be Harley, you'd be a great Harley. And then Raiden is more serious. Thunder, take you. So he's more of a, I love Raiden because he's kind of like everyone's dad. He's always admonishing everyone, you know, which is kind of fun, but and then when he turns into Dark Raiden, he becomes a real badass, and just goes crazy. But, you know, it's just been, I've really been so fortunate, I've had such a spectrum of characters that I've been able to play, which is really, really been wonderful. I played this character in Monster. I don't know if you're familiar with that show. But I played this crazy Inspector Lunge who is so obsessed with finding the villains that he becomes, he becomes almost the villain himself in the process, you know? He just pushes his family away, pushes everyone away and becomes so, you know, obsessed with finding this guy. And it was a really fun character. There's a lot of great ones. Yeah, go ahead. Alicyn There's something also, I think, like a thread that you and I both resonate with, it's like a little bit twisted. We both can really sink our teeth into a character. That's a little bit. Richard Wait, are you talking about you or me on this? I'm just, Alicyn Both of us. Were like, a little twisted. Yeah. Well, I mean, it truly is such, your career has been, you've had such a significant body of work. I mean, most people cannot speak to something like that. So you, you know, you've been doing just to take it back, you were doing a lot of voice acting. And then how did you segue then to just getting so many director gigs? Was that an intentional career path? Or was that Richard I honestly kind of fell into that too, in a way. I mean, as I said, they you know, they offered me this, the first thing I think I directed was a, there was this animated feature from Hungary called Captain Schnauzer. It was beautifully animated, really beautiful. Look like something from Disney. You keep going dark on the hierarchy having to lighten you up. And they asked me if I would do it. And the reason they asked me because they asked every director in town, and everyone turned him down, because it was, it was a very talky movie, it was really long and very talky and it was about the economic situation in Hungary, which, you know, as you know, American kids would just love that right? That would be hilarious. So. Yeah. And I said, the guy said, Would you, if they wanted me to write and direct it? I said, Will you let me change it? And they said, Yes. So there was a there was a company called Quinn Tex back in the day. I don't think they're around anymore. But it was on the Family Channel. And they, I took the show, and I threw all that stuff about the economy and all that stuff out. And I made it in, I put in jokes. I put in all these jokes. And it was a big hit. They loved it. And they they came back to me with a series they said we have this series, Swiss Family Robinson that we'd like to do for the Family Channel. Will you write and direct that? I said, Sure. So I wrote and directed that. And honestly, after that, I just I think, Alicyn That was animated? Richard Yeah, it was an animated series, cartoon series. Yeah, it was really cool. I wonder if you could still see that or not. I don't know where that is. But it was really a sweet series. And we had a great cast. And, you know, we just after that, I just I started getting live action movies, I got a lot of stuff from Miramax to write and direct into English and I got a lot of Academy Nominated, Academy Award winning films that they asked me to write and direct and I did a bunch of those and then I you know, I just went on and did that and I started directing games. I directed a huge game for, Oh my god, I'm trying to remember who it is, over a Technicolor. We did it for Microsoft called Blue Dragon. Alicyn Blue Dragon. Have you worked, on was it XCOM that you cast me in many years ago? Richard Yeah, I should be, you should bug me more because I should cast you more. Alicyn I was Perichi. Did you remember that little cat? Richard I don't. Don't feel bad. I don't even remember my characters. Alicyn That's okay, I played somebody's cat. And I don't think I've ever played a dog. Richard Well, it's like that energy you give off, you're talking about that we both have this energy. Well, you have a feline energy about you. You do. Alicyn That's so funny. Richard I've seen you do all your twists and turns and stuff so that you're like a cat. Right? Alicyn Yeah, yeah, exactly. Wow. So theb, you know, I mean with all these voice at, you know, with all this depth of work, what is next for Richard Epcar is there, is there a particular Avenue you're looking to explore more of? Richard I just picked up another series animated series. I can't really talk about it yet, but I just finished a feature, Lupin III feature. Also, there's another Lupin III feature, which I wrote and I played Jigen in, called Lupin III: The First, which is going to be out in theaters in August. So go see that if you get a chance. It's all CGI. And it looks amazing. It looks like, incredible. I mean, it really is beautiful. It's a beautiful movie. And it's a lot of fun. And even if you don't have any prior knowledge or background with Lupin, it's a great film to go see it's a lot of fun. Alicyn Can you tell us a little bit about about Lupin the series? Richard Lupin is really an incredible show I started doing directing the red jacket series about about 15 or so years ago. And when we did it I said this is such a great series I hope I get to do more, well be careful what you wish for because now I've got Lupin coming out of my ears. It's unbelievable. But what happened was I cast this show I brought in the actors for the characters and then several years later like I said about 15 years later there was this other blue jacket series of Lupin and they asked me to direct that and cast it and then Ellen and I co-directed it because they needed it really quick, we had to do a really fast job on it and that did really well and then they brought us another Lupin series which we did and in between all this we were doing a bunch of Lupin movies which are, you can find from discotheque if you go on their website you can you can rent all those but Lupin to answer your question, I know I really didn't answer your question. But Lupin is a gang of thieves, Lupin is a master thief. His grandfather Arsene Lupin was a legend apparently, he really exists. And there's a French, a live series right now called Lupin, which is loosely based on Arsene Lupin. But anyway, the guy, monkey punch is the guy who created Lupin. And he and I share an affinity for James Bond, you can see by my posters in my office, that we both love James Bond, so he put a lot of James Bond elements into the series, there's a lot of fast cars, car chases, beautiful girls, you know, exotic locations all over the world. And they're all about these, this, this team of crooks trying to do this mission impossible jobs to steal, you know, the the jewels or whatever they're stealing that week, you know, but they usually wind up, they're kind of like Robin Hood, in a way they wind up helping people generally more than they do stealing. So they're actually, they actually have good hearts, you know, they're criminals, but they're, they're good hearted criminals. And I played this guy Jigen, who's a very tough, no nonsense guy with a very dry sense of humor, and he's a crack shot. So he's a lot of fun to play. Alicyn Awesome. Now, you've led several voice actor workshops, as well, do you have anything like that coming up? Richard I did. My, my, well, they want me to do another one. You know, I told them, I said, I can't do any more until after October, because that's the deadline for this new series. And honestly, it just, you know, you know, what it's like, it takes a lot of effort and time. And, and so I may be doing more, you know, the only reason I've been doing these workshops is because so many people have asked me, you know, to help them and that sort of thing. So I had this company, Strawberry Hill Music approach me and say, can, you know, teach these classes? And I said, Okay, you know, so I've been doing that for a while, and the classes have been really going well, and the people seem to really enjoy them a lot. And it's, you know, it's really fun to help people and, you know, in our business, there's not a lot of, you know, great information sometimes on how you can start doing this and what you can do to help yourself. So it's kind of nice to have that, you know, that platform to help people. So that's what I've been doing. But I'm not I honestly don't know if I'm gonna be doing any more of those or not, because they're very time consuming. And they're a lot of work, you know, honestly. Alicyn So what do you hope that people that take your voiceover workshops take away from that? Richard Well, hopefully, they'll take away, they'll be better voice actors, they'll be more professional, hopefully, they'll understand what it is that's asked of them, and that, you know, really what we're hired to do when we go into a studio or a booth, what we're hired to do is to take that written word off the page and bring it to life. And many times you have to do that in a cold reading, because we don't get to see the scripts until we're in the booth. So that is a real skill that even a lot of film and you know, movie actors and TV actors that don't, they don't have that skill. So you know, it's something that you really need to work on it. If this is the kind of work that you want to do, then you really have to be proficient at that, and be, you know, be good at cold reading and be able to read without stumbling and give a good performance right off the bat. Alicyn But the good news is, you don't have to learn to memorize. Richard Well, that's true, too. I mean, in many ways, I prefer that, that's kind of nice, you know, you run the gamut of emotion and knowledge to the scenery and do all that stuff. And you don't, yeah, you don't have to memorize, which is kind of. That's why they say it's easy, though. But it's not easy. You know, that's why everybody says it's easy, because you have the script in front of you, but it's really not easy to make it come alive. And sound like you're, you're saying this for the first time and not reading something? You know, that's the trick, isn't it? Alicyn Yes. And I feel like it's the type of thing that takes 20 years to develop. But then you're working off your instincts a lot of times, you know, you're working off the character that you've created and just living in existing as them so there's almost like an improv-y kind of, cold read-y slash improv-y quality to it sometimes that, yeah, and it's not necessarily, it's a part of one's acting toolbox, but not necessarily an on camera actors forte. So, it really runs the gamut on how people transition and vice versa on camera. Richard I kinda liken it to well acting in general, I kind of liken it to you know, how, when you first start playing piano, for example, you know, you're looking at the notes and you're thinking about hitting each note on the keyboard, and you're being very conscious of that, aware of that. And, and then you get to the point where you don't think about it, and you can just sail through it, and you're just playing it. And that's, that's to me, it really that's what, what great acting is, when you're when you, you know, you've done the work and you, you know, assimilated all those qualities, and then you can just fly with it and not even think about it. And forget all this stuff that you learned, really, you kind of forget everything, and you just jump in and do it. And that's, that's what I'm trying to teach them when they take my classes, that sort of thing. Alicyn Very much your voice very much is an instrument, you know, even if you're not singing, you're using different resonance canals, you're bringing it up and you throw it or pitching it, bringing it down working, reminded of that right away. So it's like, Richard Yeah, we talked about that. We talked about the head voice, and chest voice, talk about saving your throat when you're screaming and that sort of thing, and how to scream without hurting your instrument. And those things are really important, particularly when you're doing these game jobs because there's a lot of screaming and some of the stuff you know, you gotta protect that instrument. Alicyn Keep it protected, guys. So I'm curious if there's any upcoming projects that you can talk about or tell us? Richard Okay, talk, there's, you know, I'm like, I'm, my mind is like mush. There's just been so much stuff that's been thrown, thrust at me in the last few days. It really does. I've just completed this really wonderful show called Danny Who that's going to be on the Paramount platform. I believe. It's a very cool show. It's I believe it's from Mexico. And I was the ADR director on that. And it's a really interesting show. So that's going to be coming out soon. Alicyn Is it live action or animated? Richard It's a live action, and it's very cool. We did, I believe we did a really great job on it. And it looks great. And then you know, just a lot of other stuff. I mentioned the Lupin III stuff that's coming out. There's a few games that I've worked on recently that I can't talk about those yet, sadly, but it's those are a lot of fun. And I get to play a lot of cool characters. I was just in this grand, what's the grand blue something something grand little existed that which is a continuing character that I've been in a bunch of those and Monster Hunter, I'm in that, I play the admiral in that and those are coming out. So in a way, that's a game, that's actually a game. I played this crazy Admiral who'd actually uh, Ron Perlman is playing him in the movie, they're doing a movie of this thing. So he's playing my character, that rat, I should be playing it but. Alicyn He's probably doing a bunch of research on you right now. Promo Hey, guys, this is Alicyn Packard. Sorry to interrupt, but I just wanted to let you know that if you like the show, please, please, please remember to subscribe to this podcast, and leave us a review on iTunes. It really helps us to get heard by more people. Thanks so much. Richard Well, you know, what's fun? When they did the Ghost in the Shell movie Levely called me in and said Hey, would you come in and introduce Ghost in the Shell because they were going to do a screening of the original Ghost in the Shell movie with our cast. And I said yeah, that would be awesome. So I introduced the show and I talked about how it was the number one selling video and all that in the year came out and then after the show, I get up to leave and this man comes up to me and he says, Can I meet you? I said of course. And he said I'm forgetting his name, but anyway he played Togusa in the movie, he played, you know, with the Scarlett Johansson. So he said to me, so he said to me that they would watch our shows. That's how they would get their characters, they would watch our shows. So I thought that was really cool. I said, Well tell your director, I'm mad at him. He goes, why are you mad? I said, because he didn't bring me in for an audition. So but you know that was really cool to meet him and then talk about that, that they really got their kind of their inspiration from, from watching our shows. So I wonder if that the same will be true for Ron Perlman. And I wonder if it is, you know, when he does his research, if he's going to look at any of the stuff that we did? Alicyn I'm sure. I'm sure he will. Who's that handsome man? Whoo. You know, I was gonna ask, since you voice, you know, 600 different characters? If it's a challenge, keeping up with all that? The answer is, yes, it is. But how do you, when you attend conventions and different events, and fans come to you? Because they're fans of X, Y, or Z? Do you ever struggle to to remember? Richard I can't remember what I had for breakfast this morning. So yeah, it's tough sometimes, you know? When I first started doing the conventions, I, you know, wasn't that I didn't take it seriously. But you know, just there was so much stuff that we did back then. You know, when we first started doing this work, we didn't realize there would be conventions, and then people would quiz you on your shows, now we're a little more savvy. And you know, when I do another show, I'll write it down or make a note of it, or, you know, try to update my resume a little bit to kind of, you know, keep it up to snuff. It's still not easy to do but you know, now I know a little bit more about some of these characters that I played, and I, you know, I try to stay on top a little bit more, obviously, I can't remember all of the characters. And there's always one or two guys in the audience that knows some show that I did back and, you know, a million years ago and asked me stuff about and I honestly don't remember some of those shows. But you know, the, the main ones, the ones that really, that really moved me, I remember, I remember there was one great series of games that I did called Xenosaga. And I played Ziggurat 8, Ziggy was his nickname. And that was a really interesting game, because this was a character who's kind of like Robocop, he, his family was killed, and he killed himself. And then they came in, they reanimated him and made them do his bidding. And he had this really sense of pathos and sadness about him that made him really interesting to play as an actor. And that's one of the things I love about the games is the writing is on a lot of these games is so good. They've got screenwriters for movies, writing these games now. It just, it's, it's wonderful as an actor to play these characters. You know? Alicyn And just, I mean, there seems like there's just been more and more of an uptick in conventions over the years. Are you, are you experiencing that as well? Is it tough to juggle all that you have going on with attending conventions? Richard Yes, it is sometimes, you know, there's not been that many I've got, I've got a couple coming up. I actually have one in in August, towards the end of August in I believe, Oregon. And then I have one coming up in New Mexico sometime. I don't remember it's the New Mexico Comic Con. Alicyn October. Richard Is it October? Are you going to be there? Alicyn Haven't been invited. Richard Well, we should see we can correct that. But anyway, it's, it's you know, I love the conventions because, you know, we're in these dark booths all day. And we don't get to talk to people. And it's not like when you do, when you do a show on stage, you, you have the immediate reaction of the audience and you get that, that thing, but when you're you're doing these characters, you don't really know. So when you meet these fans that are really excited about what it is you're a part of, or what it is you're doing, it's really nice, I really enjoy and I love meeting with them and talking to them. They usually know more about the show than I do, to tell you the truth. But you know, it's great. And I enjoy it a lot. And I hope that I hope this COVID thing gets under control. So we can all go back to the, to the conventions and meet everybody and have fun. And there are a lot of fun. You get to fly around and see places of either the country of the world that you you haven't been to before. So that's always fun, you know? Alicyn Yeah, yeah. And have you noticed over the years doing more and more every year and being invited to more and more and more and more as you get popular? Richard Yeah, I mean, there was a period I was doing about 14 of them a year which I guess adds up but you know it you know, after a while that does get to be a little rough too. There's there's people that do a lot more than that, and they're like almost every weekend or somewhere and you know, God bless them. That's great. I don't know that I could do, I think I would jump off a cliff if I had to do that all the time. But it's nice. It's really fun. It's, there's a lot of fun and like I say I love meeting with the people and hearing how they enjoy the, you know, we don't realize that when we do the show sometimes and they really impact other people's lives, you know, in many ways. And you know, so when you hear that, it's like, wow, that's, it's nice to you feel like, well, I'm working on something worthwhile, you know, that's really helped somebody or impacted somebody. Alicyn Yeah, of course, you know, I did northeast Comic Con a couple weeks ago. And usually I just go and do panels, and then I don't stay for the signings, but they, you know, they invited me, because I didn't know that was there. I mean, it. I didn't know it was a thing. And I think, I mean, a lot of my shows are, have been preschool and stuff, too. So I think it's starting to shift. I mean, I absolutely loved it. I mean, getting to meet people one on one and be that light for somebody is just the best feeling in the world, you know? Richard Yes, absolutely. It is. Alicyn Yeah. So what's it like? Because I know your wife is also, does a lot of similar things that you do, voice acting and directing as well. What is it like being married to somebody in the same career as you? Richard Terrible. You know, it's okay, we help each other. And you know, she's, like I said, we've partnered up on a few projects where we've co-directed stuff, and she helped me cast this last thing that I did, that I just finished with, and you know, she's been, she's been really great. And we travel together, we do a lot of the conventions together, which is really nice. So we get to go together to some of these conventions. So that's, that's fun. But yeah, she's, she's been very busy. She just finished a thing for Netflix, called School Nurse Files, which is kind of a cool show. And, and it was, it was a Korean, who's kind of like Stranger Things, you know, really bizarre kind of weird stuff. It didn't have the upside down, but had all this weird stuff happening. And she cast the entire thing with an all Asian cast, which I think was great. And it sounds amazing. And she did an incredible job on it. So, you know, she does a lot of this stuff, too. And she voices for me in a lot on stuff. And you know. Alicyn Are there any challenges with you guys both being in the same industry? Richard No, I don't think so. I mean, we get each other and we help each other. She does drive me crazy sometimes because she does a lot of on camera auditions. And she's always asking me to help her set up her lights and be her reader and all that stuff. And, you know, I just want to relax after a you know, a full day of voicing or directing. I just want to come home and crash or do something. And she's always got me running and doing so, Alicyn Set up my backdrop. Richard Exactly, exactly. It's awesome. Is your husband in the business? Alicyn Yeah. So he thinks, he thinks what we do is cool, which is amazing. And he's super supportive. The downside is, he doesn't know anything about self taping. He can't help me with the light. He'll help me like physically set up things. But he's, you know, not going to read sides with me. But that's okay. I always you know, Richard What do you do when you have to have somebody read sides with you? Alicyn Usually a coach, usually I work with a coach or something. Richard Oh, I see. Okay. Alicyn To work with me. But I mean, that happens less for me, because most of what I do is voiceover. So if there's like a Pecap or Mocap thing, I'll have to do that. But yeah, yeah. And that's so cool. You have just one son, right? Richard I have one son, one daughter, our daughter is, yes, she is an amazing, amazing singer, songwriter. And actually, Ellen and I are working, we're trying to get this series produced that she created called Life's a Bitch. And you can see it, it's with Ellen Stern, me and Stephen Tobolowsky. And we're all in this show together. And you can see we've done two teasers already. So if you go on YouTube, and you put in Life's a Bitch, and with my name, or Ellen's name, and you can see the teasers, and they're really, really wonderful. And the reason I bring this up is because our daughter does the music for them and sings the song. And she also directed the second teaser. Alicyn Great. Well, yeah, I mean, let us know, do you have a link in your bio or anything? Or where we can see that? Richard I absolutely should. But I don't. But you can like I say, you can go onto YouTube, and put in Life's a Bitch and Richard Epcar or Ellen Stern. And it'll come up and you can see the two different teasers. And they're, they're really, they're really funny. I think you'll enjoy them. And so we're trying to get a series deal for us so that we can we can do our own series. Alicyn Good luck with that. Yeah. So I'm just wondering, you know, throughout your career, you have voiced a handful of iconic characters, specifically, I'm thinking of the Joker, what was it like having to approach a character that you know, people before you have played and played well? Richard Well, you know, a lot of people ask me that and they go, are you intimidated? And Mark Hamill has done it for so long, and he's so great, and everyone loves him, and honestly, to this day, I have not heard Mark's Joker. And it was, this is kind of a funny story too. But some guy kind of accused me of trying to sound like Mark Hamill, on my Joker. And I said, Well, thank you for the compliment I said, but honestly, to this day, I've never heard Mark's. And Mark Hamill came on and said, well, I've heard yours and it's wonderful. So I thought that was really nice of him to do that. He's, he's a really nice man to do that, he made my day, I'll tell you. But you know, there's, there's a, you know, I, like I say, you know, I was trained in the theater. So there's been a million people who have played Hamlet, you know, and everyone's going to play Hamlet differently. And everyone's going to put their own spin on it. I'm a James Bond fan, there's been six James Bonds, and they all add a little something different to the character, and, you know, everybody's going to bring something of themselves to the character. And, you know, I honestly, I'm not, I would never try to play an actor playing a character, I'm playing a character. So I don't, I didn't really, I don't really think about that stuff to tell you the truth. And it doesn't really, that doesn't worry me, or intimidate me, or I don't really worry about that. I just, I just jump in and, and do the best I can and hope for the best and hope that it turns out well, and it's well received. Now, when I took over Ansem from Billy Zane. He was in the first one. And then I did the rest of the series. He did one, I did, like eight of them. So I got a lot of flack for that in the beginning. And then as I went on, you know, I think the fans kind of came around. And same with the Joker. When I first started doing the Joker, everyone kind of went busy with this. But now I have a lot of fans and a lot of people, you know, really like my Joker a lot. And I really appreciate that. So, you know, you just you do what you do, and you try it, try your best. And that's all you can do really, you know, you can't worry about you know, if Laurence Olivier played the character before you did you know, I mean, you can't worry about that. It doesn't matter. You know, I'm saying this, and I'm thinking the people out there going, who's Laurence Olivier? Alicyn I don't know. Yeah, I mean, that may be true, but I feel like our audience is not as young as, you know. Richard As I would think, you know, the other day I said something about George C. Scott, the engineer turned to me and said it was George C. Scott. So I thought, Oh, boy, here we go. Here we go. Alicyn Well, I want to give the audience time to ask some questions. I see we already have 25 questions in the question box. Richard Let's answer their question. Alicyn Guys. Go ahead and put some questions in I might not be able to get to all of them. But I will do what I can. Richard Should we do it quickly? So we answer everybody's question? Alicyn Well, well, not all the questions will be good. Richard What? What kind of questions your people ask for God's sakes. Alicyn Some of them are gonna be repeats. I mean, okay, so Looneytunage is asking seen as how your big Bond fan, who's your favorite Bond and villain? Richard Well, it's Sean Connery, of course. You know, the shot. Yeah. Sean, right here. Sean Connery. I love Sean Connery. But I also love, I also love like I say, I love the other guys. And I love what they brought to the character. I think they're all, you know, fun to watch. They all do a nice job. My favorite villain. Well, I mean, there's so many good villains. I mean, Goldfinger was great. I love Red Grants, and From Russia with Love is a great villain. But there's there's so many of them. There's just so many good ones. You know, there really are. Alicyn They all made Bond their own. They say? Yeah, we haven't talked about Joseph in adventure how could I forget that. A million, million fans. What was it like voicing Joseph, especially when Avdol and Joseph gets stuck together? Richard Oh, my God. Was that the funny? Did you see that same? Alicyn I haven't No, tell me all about it. Richard Oh, my God, this was well, first of all, you know, I do a lot of these shows. And, and I honestly, you know, well, you know what it's like you go in sometimes, sometimes it's a job. You just go in and do the job and you forget about it. This show really was intriguing to me. I would go in and go oh, my God, because every episode, they would paint these characters into a corner. And you're going to go you're going, how are they going to get out of this? I mean, it was really kind of brilliant. And I had to watch it. So it was one of the few shows I actually sat down and watched the show. Usually I don't have time to do that. But I just said, I've got to see the show. It's just so crazy. He was so much fun to play. And now originally they had us do a like a test of the series. And they had everybody do English accents. And I'm not really sure why they had us do it that way. British English. Yeah. And so I'm glad they kind of dropped that after they did that for a couple episodes. And then they went back and redid it all with, you know, regular American, but he's a really fun character to play. He's, he's super strong and super smart. But he's kind of a bumbling fool sometimes. And he kind of screws up a lot sometimes, you know, which makes him very human. You know, he had an affair on his wife and he, whenever he always wants to pilot the plane, but whenever he does, they crash, you know, so I mean, he's, he's kind of a nut but he's really a fun character to play and I just I absolutely loved playing him. He's one of the most fun characters I ever played. But his voice is like Oh my god, you know, he's like, he's always screaming and he's always big and blustery. And so you know, that was hard to do that for hours and hours at a time. But he was he was really a fun character to play. I really love playing him. Alicyn Yeah, I learned about Jojo's Bizarre Adventure, huh? Richard People love Jojo's. They really do. Alicyn It's so cool to see. Okay, this is a bit of a general question, but we can go there and maybe write a little more. But how do you feel about Lord Raiden in Mortal Kombat 11. Richard I love him. I love Lord Raiden. He's one of my favorite characters. He's, like I say he's a he's a very noble, honorable character. And I love that about him. And I think we need more characters like that, quite honestly, I just think, I think so many of these characters now, there's so ambiguous there's, you know, not to sound like old man McGee, but you know, it's like when, you know, growing up, you know, the shows they were there was there was good and evil, and good and evil was struggling and good would always triumph in the end. Well, we don't have that anymore. They kind of threw that out. And I just feel like some of this stuff is really ambiguous. And I, I hate to say it, but I think it kind of reflects in our society right now. I think it you know, I think it's affecting people because, you know, there's not that sense of right and wrong anymore. I don't know, I could be, you know, talking out my butt at this point. Alicyn So you think that because we're not seeing truly moral characters in represented in TV and film that our moral compass is sort of gone astray? Richard I think there's a lot of that, this thing keeps going dark. I mean, I think there is some of that I yeah, I don't want to I mean, I don't want to sound like you know, the church lady or anything like that. But, you know, I just, I just think, I think it's important, sometimes in some of these epic dramas, they have good people, but, you know, obviously, you know, if a character like, like Joseph Joestar, for example, who's a hero, but he's a very flawed hero. And I think that that makes them more human. And I understand that. But what I'm talking about is that, you know, there's a, there's a sense of, do whatever you have to do to get to where you need to go or whatever. And I just think, I think people don't care about what's right or wrong anymore, you know? I think they just think about, let's just get to where we need to go and screw everybody else, basically. And I think, you know, yeah, I just, exactly, do the right thing. And I just, I think there's not as much of that. And I, I think that there could be more in the entertainment world. I don't know, I'm going off on a weird tangent. And I don't want to sound like I'm proselytizing or anything like that. But I just think, hallelujah. But anyway, you know, I just think it helps when you do have a little more defined characters. And Raiden is one of those characters. He's a very noble, honorable character, who, who is a man of his word, if he tells you he's going to do something he does. He, you know, he, he's got a really good heart. He wants to help people. He's the protector of earthrealm. He protects the entire planet. You know, and he's like I say, he's a very, he comes from a good place. And and then I then I have the Joker in there. Also. Who's it's like Yin and Yang, you know, who's the most despicable character. And this is what what's kind of interesting to me is people love the Joker. But when you think about it, he's really a despicable horrible character, you know, he's awful. Alicyn And we do need bad guys, right? Richard We do need bad guys. And he is, he is definitely one of the worst. And I think the reason people like him so much, is because he has a sense of humor. But I think they let him get away with a lot of the stuff he gets away with because he's funny. And I think that's an interesting, interesting idea. But I just, I just think it's really interesting that and for me, as an actor, it's really fun to play both of those characters, obviously. And I really enjoy it. And there's, there's scenes in Mortal Kombat 11, where Raiden and the Joker are talking to each other. And that's really kind of a fun thing to see, you know, and to do. Alicyn That's amazing. Let's see what other questions we have. Richard Ask me one of the bad ones. Alicyn All the good ones are just popping to the top. Although this is my second question for Looney Tunes, I believe. What were your thoughts on the new Mortal Kombat live action film? Did you see it? Richard I have not seen it yet. I have not seen it yet. Yeah, I don't know. Alicyn Would you like to be cast by Gene Vassilaros for DC Superhero Girls? Richard Absolutely. Alicyn Of course, who wouldn't. This is a really tough question that I'm going to ask from StephenF. Who is your favorite brother? Richard Let me think about this for a while. Who's my favorite brother? Alicyn Do you have more than one? Let's start there. Richard No, I don't. So let me think about this, who is my favorite brother. Alicyn Sorry, folks. We're out of time. Richard I don't know probably the guy I'm going to Vegas with in August. Alicyn That'll be fun. Richard We're gonna tear up the town. Alicyn I love it. Mr.Richard. When you started out? Did your agent ask you to do any Disney or Warner Brothers cartoons when they're holding auditions? Richard No, he didn't, that rat. I should fire him, right? Alicyn Definitely. Okay. This is a question. We've been asking a lot of people that have come on the show, since we launched in September. So Jeff, thanks for asking this. What's it been like adapting to working from home during COVID? Richard That's a great question. You know, in many ways, it's kind of nice. I keep poking you because you go dark. Alicyn It's the settings on your phone, it's like going down. Richard I'm sorry, I'm terrible at this stuff. Alicyn It doesn't make us go dark. It's just an Richard No, I know, I know. It makes the thing go dark. What was the question? Alicyn And how has COVID? Richard Yes, oh, well, you know, it's kind of nice, because you can roll out of bed in your jammies and just kind of come into the booth and do your stuff. Or I can come in and just, you know, write my stuff. And I direct, I directed an entire show here in my office, which was, you know, in a way, it was kind of nice. But honestly, I really missed the camaraderie of going in a studio and hanging out with the people and seeing all of our friends and all that I just so much more fun to do that. I know a lot of people really like this at home stuff. And it's going to be continuing on for a while now. As a director, it was tough, because there's a delay, no matter how good your setup is. And even if you source Connect, and all that stuff, there's a delay. So I ultimately had at the end of it, I had to go into the studio and adjust all the sync on everything. Because then I had to take the engineer's word that everything was going to work, a couple of times, you know, it was touch and go, quite frankly, but yeah, you know, it's okay. I mean, there are certainly there's plus sides to it. Like I say, you can just roll out of bed and do your do your work. You don't have to drive anywhere, which is nice, because you know, I don't know about you, but those those drives to Venice in Santa Monica at nine o'clock in the morning are pretty rough, pretty rough. Alicyn Thank you. You're in the valley too, though, right? Richard Yeah. Yeah. Alicyn We're lucky. Most of the things are on our side of the hill. Richard Yes, on our side, but there are a bunch of stuff, there's a bunch of stuff on the other side, too. And Culver City and Santa Monica and Venice. I remember I was directing a game in Venice. And it took me two hours to get there in the morning and two hours to come home at night. So it's four hours every day you're driving. It's ridiculous. It's ridiculous. I know it is. But thankfully, they actually, they moved that game to Warner Brothers, which is about 10-15 minutes from my house. So that was great. I love that plus it you know, I was working on the Warner Brothers lot. Yeah, that's got to be the coolest thing of doing the Joker though is when we when we record at Warner Brothers. You know, I'm doing the Joker on the Warner Brothers lot. I mean that is like I'm going wow, this is, this is really something so that, those those days are really fun. Alicyn JohnBailey says I can't wait for Richard to direct me. Richard I know. I can't wait either. Alicyn We love your new commercial. By the way, John. Richard Yeah, he's great. Isn't he? So talented. Alicyn Super talented. Another question from the audience from MHernandez006, I wonder if there's a connection there, do you have any advice for anybody in here who would like to become a voice actor? Also, I hope your day is going awesome. I had to consult with the Elder Gods to send this. Richard Yeah, Raiden says that a lot. I must consult with the Elder Gods. It sounds like he never makes up his own decision. But he's just trying to check stuff out. That's all. You know. It's it's a tough, it's a tough business. And I think that if it's really something you want, you can certainly go for it. And why not? You know, a lot of people have just come here from all over the world and have had careers and done pretty well. But uh, you know, it's, it's not, it's not easy. And getting going is probably the hardest part. And, you know, my advice would be to study and take some classes and really hone your craft. And when you are competitive, then I would make some demo tapes, not tapes, but demos and I would send them out to some of the agents out there, and try to get an agent to represent you because the agents are going to be the ones that will be sending you the auditions. So you know, if you can get somebody to represent you and send you auditions, and you start start doing that. And then hopefully, you know, you just keep doing that until you till you book and then you know, the more you booked, the more confident you'll get. And you'll book more and more and then, you know, that's how it works. But I'm putting in a very simplistic terms, you know, as Alicyn knows, but you know, it's not easy. It's it's a tough thing, but if it's if it's something that you, you really have to do and want to do I say go for it. Why not? You know, years ago, people used to say that people go do something that you're going to make money at and don't follow your dream and all that. And the reality is I had a bunch of friends who became engineers and they got laid off and then they had no job. So My advice to everyone is to follow your dream because you know, we're here for a short time. And you might as well do something that you enjoy and that you love. And that makes you feel good. And do that because, you know, there's no guarantees in life, even if you have a degree or you study something, whatever it is, you know, there's no guarantee. So you might as well do something that you love and that you want to pursue. That's my advice. Alicyn I 100% agree with that. And will just add to that, that make sure that you're taking care of yourself physically, emotionally, spiritually, however, that whatever that means to you, make sure that you're taking care of your body and your mind and your spirit. Because there will be days when this career is hard, or any career path, even the safe one is going to be hard that hopefully you can fall back on a good community of friends and family. You can fall back on the, you know, healthy well-being and self-care habits that you've developed, so that when things get tough, you can take care of yourself. And it's an ongoing, lifelong process, but don't sacrifice your health and well being and mental health for this someday dream. Start taking care of yourself. Richard I think that's excellent advice. Alicyn And Jeff, JeffBurns had said, one more question, what's a tape, Richard? Richard Back in the olden days, Jeff, when we used to ride our horse and buggies. Alicyn You know, my old demo was on a cassette tape. Says how long I've been doing this. I want to be very conscious of your time, Richard, because I said we're going to go an hour and we're actually four minutes over. So do you have time for one or two more questions or? Alright, we'll do one or two more questions, guys. And just so you know, next week, we have Chip Beaman and is going to be our guest. He's from the Health Network. They do a ton of workshops, as well as casting and producing for video games. And they they they're on fire right now. So watch out for Chip Beeman. And the following week, I am going to be off on vacation. And then the weekend. Yeah, you know what. Richard What will we do? Who will we watch? Alicyn Maybe I'll pop in one of the old ones, actually. Richard Yeah, that's what you should do, they do reruns like they do like they do on the late, you know, the the talk shows. Alicyn I could do my very first interview with Earl Kress. It was like five minutes long, rest in peace. But I that was my from 2009 when this was originally a web series on YouTube. My very first interview was Earl Kress. So and then we have Christina Vee from Miraculous Ladybug and Genshin Impact, she's going to be our guest in, Richard Well, tell her, give her a big hug for me and tell Chip I said Hi, please. Alicyn I will. I will. So you guys, if you have any last minute questions, go ahead and put them in in the box. And we'll try and get a couple more. Thank you so much. We're so grateful to everybody that's tuning in live. You don't know how happy it makes us that you're here with us. Richard It's my pleasure. And thank you for, thank you for asking me and having me on. I appreciate it. I was like, when is she gonna ask me on for God's sake, but I appreciate it. Thank you for having me. Richard Linuxo is asking Who's your favorite Jojo character? Is it yourself? Richard Yes, of course. Yes. I always choose my character as the favorite because you know, he's the one I know the most about. And I'm most invested in but I do love him. He's great. Alicyn Yeah, a lot of questions about do you know who's gonna voice Raiden in the next incarnation of Mortal Kombat? Richard Who's gonna voice Raiden? Well, hopefully it'll be me. Alicyn That's right, Davey. Let's keep this party train going. Yeah. Okay. Let me see if I can find. Yep, more questions about if you're voicing Raiden, we covered that, we covered that. We did not cover this one though. Richard Okay, good. Alicyn What was it like voicing Armorhide? Richard Armorhide in Transformers. You know, that was kind of interesting, because my father was in the military parts business. And he had a bunch of tanks in his yard. Where his business is or was and I used to, as a kid, I used to play in the tank, so he was crawling and playing there's so Armorhide is a tank, he's a transformer that's a tank. So that was kind of weird, you know? But actually, that particular series he's talking about Transformers Robots in Disguise. I wrote about a third or a half of that series for Hasbro. So that was, yeah, that was a long time ago. But yeah, I wrote, I wrote a lot of those shows. And I was I was Armorhide and then I got to be a Skywarp in War for Cybertron which was a transformer game. And anytime I get to be part of the Transformer universe, I love it. You know that's, it's a great franchise. Alicyn My son just got his first, well actually, his second Transformer he got an Optimus Prime at a flea market once, a vintage one and then he just got a new Transformer he's very excited. Wow, that's amazing back again kind of circling back to the whole recurring theme of this that it you know, tanks apparently are in your DNA. Richard Yeah. Yeah, you said that you need a cat cast you. But you know, it's interesting there are, there are I guess you do give off vibes, you know, I mean I, I play a lot of military guys, I play a lot of authoritarian characters I play, you know, it just kind of interesting how you know you give off a certain essence or whatever it is. And you know, because I am a tall guy, you can't really tell from this picture, but I am very tall. And because of that, I think that they cast me as big, large characters a lot of times so it's kind of worked in my favor, whereas, you know, on camera, you're, you are more relegated to the way you appear. And sometimes, you know, I'll tell you another funny story real quick, when I first came out here to be an on camera actor, they said to me, you'll never work, you're too tall. And then I started working all the time. They said, Oh, you're working all the time, because you're tall. So let that be a lesson to everybody in this business. Don't listen to these idiots and just if it's something you want to do pursue it and go for it. Because there's no reason why you can't do it. You know, if it's something you really want to do, and you want to put your mind to it and put in the time and the effort and the work and become competitive. There's no reason why you can't succeed and have a career in this, right? Right, Alicyn? Alicyn Yep. Richard, before we go, do you mind saying you're listening to Alicyn, my name is Richard Epcar and you're listening to Alicyn's Wonderland. One day, I hope to edit them, all these little clips together into a little promo. Richard My name is Richard Epcar and you're listening to Alicyn's Wonderland. Alicyn Thank you. Richard You're welcome. Thank you. Alicyn It's been such a pleasure. I really hope we get to cross paths in real life again, the last time I saw you was at the Garry Marshall theater. Richard Yeah, it was at a show. I saw you at the show. So did you have anything to do with the show? Or were you just in the audience? Alicyn No, I was just googling Joey McIntyre first crush ever. Yeah. No, I didn't even know he was in the play until I got there. And then I was like, Oh, my God, shut up. Really? Richard You know, your husband watches these shows. Alicyn I know. I know. He's the one that gives. It's probably weird. It's a bunch of words. But yeah, thank you guys so much. Tune in next week for Chip Beaman. And then we're off and then Christina Vee. And oh my gosh, I have Ellen Sue, the artistic recruiter for Titmouse is coming up the week after that. So we have a whole bunch of awesome guests coming up. And if there's someone specific you want to see on the show, DM me and I will do my best to get them booked. And so guys, also if someone knows Nancy Cartwright in person, you know, I'm gonna get a lot of requests for her. So yeah, yeah. Okay, guys. We'll see you next week on Alicyn's Wonderland. Thank you, Richard. Richard Thank you for having me. Bye, everyone. Thank you. Thank you for tuning in. Alicyn Thanks for tuning in. Outro Thanks for tuning in to Alicyn's Wonderland, where we explore the wild and wonderful world of animation and video games. Please remember to subscribe and leave us a review. For more episodes of Alicyn's Wonderland, please visit us at www.Alisonpackard.com. See you next week.