Voice Acting in Anime: An Interview with John Swasey

Back in April, I released a video about the history of Darker than Black. And, in it, I briefly touched on the English release, but I wanted to learn a little bit more about what happened in the creation of the English dub. So I reached out to John Swasey who plays Huang in the first season of Darker than Black. He was gracious enough to agree to an interview, and that’s what I’m here to share with you guys today. In it, we talk about how he got the role, what his mind set is, and a bunch of oth

er things relating to not just Darker than Black, but voice acting in general. So I hope you all enjoy it. Thisvthattv: Recently I did a feature on the creation of Darker than Black and I mainly went over it from the production side of things. And, now, I’m trying to get more information about exactly what happened when Funimation licensed it and the English dub was released. So, my first question is: when did you hear about Funimation’s plans to dub the series or when they obtained the license?

Because I believe they first got the license in June of 2007. So, I’m wondering, when you started talks about that or when you heard about that. John Swasey: Really, with regard to that kind of stuff, actors aren’t really involved in the in the licensing and the negotiations and things like that. Now, what we do now is, we can read online, social media, trades, whatever, that, “Oh, so-and-so has acquired the dubbing license, or the whatever, for a show.” And, if there’s a show that you’re inter

ested in, and you find out about it, um, people will generally contact you and go… or you can contact the directors and say, “Hey, I understand ya’ll are dubbing this. Is there a chance I can get an audition. I love that show, blah, blah, blah…” And that’s certainly happened to me as a director with Sentai Filmworks. Where people contact me when they find out that we’re dubbing a particular show and they want to get in on it because they love that show. With Darker than Black, the director--the

ADR director--is a guy by the name of Zach Bolton. And Zach and I had been working on a number of things together and just had a really good actor-director working relationship. And, to be honest with you, I don’t remember even auditioning for that. I think that Zach just said, “You know what, Huang needs to be John Swasey because he’d be perfect for that.” So I didn’t really know a whole lot about the show itself. But, when I went in to start working on it, I was blown away. I mean… I love wor

king on all shows, but I particularly love doing stuff that’s very...has a more realistic bend to it. You know what I mean. Like Darker than Black. Where it’s not your typical anime where there’s, you know, goofy eyes, and, you know, silliness. There’s more realism to it. And, uh, so when I started working on that, I was immediately drawn to it. And really fell in love with it. I mean, because I loved the stylization of it. But as far as like the proceedings of, you know, when did I get involved

, I got involved when they said, “John, we want you for this role.” Thisvthattv: So that’s really interesting. So, my first question--well my next question--would be… Since you didn’t really aud-- this wasn’t a character that you’d looked into or that you’d read anything for, you were just kind of picked for the role. So, how did… When did you first learn about Huang, and who he was as a character and how did you connect with him? Swasey: Well, I learned about him when I got to the studio. Um, f

or a lot of different reasons, there’s not a whole lot of, “hey I want you to...I’m gonna have you play this character in a couple of weeks, so I need you to read up on him, read all about him, learn about him,” all that kind of stuff. You just… In this industry--the anime dubbing industry--we just don’t have the luxury of that happening. Because, usually, there’s no time. So now sometimes there might be, but, for the most part, we usually get something--we just get it kind of handed to us. And,

um, you know, the first thing that I would do--or I did-- was listen to what the--what the actor was doing. The Japanese actor. And, and, and, try to capture his essence on... On how his performance was being handled. I didn’t want to mimic his performance, but I certainly, you know, I was not gonna go in... I don’t go in there--but I didn’t then and I don’t now--you don’t go in there with this, “Well, I’m gonna make this my own and I’m gonna do,” you know? You have to stay pretty true to what

the original actor did. So, um, when I did it I listened to the actor and I-- When I watched it, I just remember the nuances that this actor did and kind of his, [Gruff Voice] “you know his sort of gruff attitude and his voice was sort of like this [End Gruff Voice].” Um, I just I really loved that, personally. That’s something that’s right in my wheelhouse, I love that kind of character. Um, but, uh… I just kind of approached it from… looking at what--listening and looking at what the original

actor did and trying to capture that essence so I can present a reasonable, hopefully acceptable, English adaptation. And I did a little bit of reading about the show, stuff like that. Again, when we get in there, we might do a couple of hours worth of stuff and we might not touch it again for months or a couple of weeks--depending on what it is. Now, Funimation, in particular, does dub-casts where all of their shows are released weekly. So, if you’re in a show, you’re doing one episode at a tim

e--maybe two if you’re at the tail end of one recording cycle and the beginning of a new recording cycle. But, for that show [Darker than Black], we were doing, you know, four or five episodes at a time to get the season done. And, so, we would record stuff and, you know, come back a few days later--or a week later, whatever. But there generally just isn’t a whole lot of time. And, also, to be perfectly honest, when… In those days especially, the actors that were seasoned--and I don’t mean this

with any disrespect to new actors, but I’ve been doing this since 1997--and the actors that were seasoned, were doing a lot of shows. So there just wasn’t time to, you know, “I’m going to take the day and just study all about Huang and learn everything I can about him” because I’m busy working on other shows. And I have to jump from one show to another show--a lot of actors had to do that. And so, really we just find our niche or our groove, once we’re there. And Zach Bolton, the director, is ve

ry very good about guiding you into that groove, and then keeping you in that groove. He did it with Huang, he did it with Soul Eater with Lord Death--with me. He’s really just tops on that. And… But, once you get in there, then you’re kind of in a… I don’t want to say a coasting pattern or autopilot--it’s nothing like that--but you kind of know where you are so as long as you stay in there, you’re good to go. Thisvthattv: Are you… It looks like you also played a supporting role for Naoyasu Kiri

hara. I’m just wondering exactly how that went and how much of a… a shift that was and how long that may have taken to record as opposed to Huang. Swasey: You know, I’m going to be brutally honest, I don’t remember that character. You know, again, back in those days, there just weren’t as many actors. So, it would be… It could have been something like, “Oh, I finished early.” Like let’s say that they booked me for 15 hours to do Huang, and I finished in 10. “Oh, well we still have five hours. Yo

u know what, let’s do this character over here. He’s not in any scenes with Huang, he’s different.” You know, I’ve been very blessed to have sort of a chameleon type voice where I can do a lot of different characters. So, that was one that was probably that case, but I really don’t… Huang is the one that I remember from that show the most. And that’s the one that, you know, when you say Darker than Black I identify with Huang. You know, he’s the… In fact, if you go to my website and look up my d

emo, he’s the first character on my demo. That’s one of my favorite voices I’ve ever done. Thisvthattv: Interesting. You said that… they would reserve your time, basically, for different blocks. So did you record… You said--I think you said--earlier that you recorded things in like five hours sessions or so? Or something like that? Swasey: No, it wouldn’t be five hour sessions. If, you know, usually, an actor doesn’t do more than about--it depends. But, generally, you do about a two or three hou

r session and then you’re done for the day. Really, anything more than that could really hurt your vocal cords or you may start to lose your voice. And it depends on the character. [Haung Voice]: “I mean something like Huang I can do all day long [End of Huang Voice],” but something like Salvador from Borderlands 2 where [Salvador Voice], “Everything is like this [End Salvador Voice]!” I can’t sustain that for more than an hour, maybe two. Um, so, but they would, you know… it’s just a formula. Y

ou know, you have X amount of cues that means you gotta be booked for Y amount of hours. So, um, you’re just, you’re booked for those times. It’s… Sometimes it’s in one day, sometimes they’ll spread it out over a couple of days--it just depends. Thisvthattv: So, um, based on the way that you’ve described how the process works, it doesn’t seem like there’s very much, if any, interaction with other voice actors. Is that the case? Swasey: Oh, there’s this much [Zero]. There’s zero. Um, you… When yo

u’re in the studio, you go in, uh and this is even pre-COVID, you would go in the studio and you’re in the booth and the director and the engineer are out in the studio portion in the control room. And you’re doing your stuff, and actors, we all work one at a time. Because we’re laying in the dialogue, we’re ADRing. So, there’s no way that we could have multiple actors in there at the same time recording a bunch of lines--even on different microphones. Even if they’re in different booths, becaus

e the engineer still has to lay it all in. And it would take forever for them to have to lay in three different, or four different, you know, voice actors after recording something. So what we do is, we go in and in a script, let’s say I have 50 cues, I’ll do, uh, it just depends on who the director is, and what studio you’re working for… They all have, kind of, different--slightly different methods and idiosyncrasies and methodologies and such. But you go in and basically you record one line at

a time, they lay it in there. Make sure it fits, and it sounds right, and it fits right. Not only within the mouth flap context, but also within the context context. You know, it has to fit within what’s going on, was the line delivered correctly to make sense in that scene. So, yeah, you never run into the voice actors. And, of course now, with the pandemic, we’ve gotten into such a remote situation--where everyone is recording remotely--it’s very rare that you run into other actors. Every now

and then you might see somebody at the studio, but, again, with the pandemic, we try to avoid that. By keeping people scheduled differently as opposed to, you know, the old days where… you know, people come in they’re like, “Oh, hey! How’re you doing! I haven’t seen you in forever!” You know, kisses and all around, you know, that kind of thing. Yeah, that’s definitely changed, but we never worked with another actor. Unless, at least in the old days--they don’t really do this anymore--unless you

’re doing Wall-A. And wall-a is like group noises, you know, a crowd scene. And they would do things at Funimation, and Sentai, where they bring in numerous actors all at once, and put ‘em in a booth and just “be in a crowd. And it just sounds like a bunch of noise. It’s unintelligible vocal fodder. Thisvthattv: A couple of times, you mentioned, “cues.” Could you explain exactly what you mean? Swasey: Sure. So, the lines are delivered... there’s a script. And every script, there’s an actor, or m

ultiple actors. So, the lines are divvied up into what we call “cues.” So, for instance, if my scene was, “Now, listen to me. I mean what I say and I say what I mean. So get your butt down there, and get the job done.” Theoretically, that’s one line. But, it could be broken up into multiple cues. It could be one cue, uh, with pauses in it. Or, which we use with showing an ellipses, that demonstrates a pause or it could be broken up into cues. And then, the reason they do it into cues--which is l

ine, by line, by line--is that the whole thing is timecode. There’s timecode. And, so, it helps the engineer go, “I need to go to timecode 01:05:25.” And you plug in, in your computer, where that is. The computer goes there, you hit record, and that’s where your line is. But a cue, and, again, different studios do it different ways. Funimation, and, uh, by the way, no way is better than the other--they’re just different. Funimation does it by cues, but then they also have it by lines. And I thin

k it’s like every five words equals one line. So they may say, “Hey, you have 150 lines,” but it may only be 50 cues. Where as, at Sentai, we just call every time there’s a line in the script, that’s a cue. So, you might have a line that’s like what I just did, and then you might have an “effort.” Where it’s a, like a, [Grunt], or a [Tsh], or a [Mumble]. Or, you know, in anime, everytime you turn your head, your character makes a noise. Or, you know, in anime, everytime you turn your head, a cha

racter makes a noise. You’re sitting there looking this way, and somebody goes, “Hey, John” and you’re like [Breath]. You know, there’s always some noise being made. So, we just call those cues. And, um, it just gives a more scientific and calculated way to be able to place the lines accurately in the script--or in video. Thisvthattv: How much of that is… because trying to match what the voice actor says to the lip movements. Or is that just--is that just standard industry practice for voice act

ing in general, using timecodes. Swasey: That’s industry standards. I mean, timecode is stuff they use in film. Any… Every script has timecodes. Because when they’re editing--it’s all for the editing--when they’re editing they need the timecode to know where stuff goes. So, that’s an industry standard issue. Thisvthattv: When it comes to the script itself, is it just you see exactly what the words are and you read those? Or, is there any room for interpretation, or ad libbing, or anything like

that. Swasey: When you read a script, you read what’s there. Sometimes what’s there is not enough words. Sometimes it’s too many words. Sometimes the break isn’t exactly in the right place. Sometimes the words aren’t written as well as the director would prefer. So, it’s not so much ad lib, but there is a lot of, uh… It’s a organic process. It’s not a, “read those words, those are the words,” it’s not that at all. It’s a very organic process. I was working on a show today, directing with a dear

friend of mine, David Wald--who’s a very talented actor. And, but he’s also directed, he’s written, you know. And again, we’ve been doing this so long, and lot of this is just like second nature. But… A line didn’t fit, and he goes, “You know what? Hang on, I can make that fit.” And he went in, and when he did the line he actually changed some of the words. Not to change the meaning. That’s very, very important. You can’t change the meaning. But if it’s like, “he went that way.” He. Went. That.

Way. There’s four syllables. Every syllable represents a lip flap, essentially. Let’s say it’s short, so it’s like, “He went that way”... You know, with two more lip flaps or something. So you might say something like, “He took off and went that way.” So, I mean, it means the exact same thing, but we just added a few words. A friend of mine has a phrase for that called, “Flapspackle.” You're basically just plugging holes and flaps, but you can not change the meaning. You know, you couldn’t say,

“He went that way” and that doesn’t fit. So you go, “Well, I don’t know where he is.” Well, that might fit, but that doesn’t mean the same thing. So, you can’t do anything like that. But, um, when you record like this, you’ve got the engineer, the actor, and the, uh, director--the ADR director. And, um, it really is a team effort to get it done. You’re the three guys--or girls--in the booth, working together. It really is a team effort to get the finished product done. Uh, before it goes off to

mix and QC [Quality Control], and printing and all that kind of stuff. We tend to let each other have some leniency and some, you know, leeway. At the end of the day, the director is kind of the captain of the ship. So the director gets to make the final call. You know, a lot of us have been working in this industry for a long time. And we’re all friends, we all know each other, you know. And I think one thing that’s very important to remember is that: You know, if I’m directing a show, this is

not my creation. I did not create this. I’m simply dubbing this into another language. And I want to make it sound as close to the original as possible, and to keep, and maintain, the integrity of the original. Now, if I have to change a couple of things to make words fit, that’s fine. But I’m not going to change things like: meaning, intention. An example of that would be, if something’s whispered, I’m not gonna go, “Well, I want you to yell it.” Yeah know, that doesn’t make sense. Or visa-vers

a, you know. If it’s whispered, you have to whisper it. That’s why it’s really important to listen to what the Japanese actor is doing and watch what’s going on. Thisvthattv: When everything was done, and finish, and everything. Do you--specifically with Darker than Black, but also in general--did you go back and did you watch it? And, if you did, what did you think of it? I know that you said that you liked the show, but maybe your performance in general? Swasey: Well… Ah, so, usually when you

watch something, or when you perform something. Ah, the actor doesn’t really get a chance to go back and look at it and say, like, “You know, man I’d really like to change that.” You really have to leave that in the director’s hands. Because you’re hoping that the director makes the right choice. And 99.999% of the time, they do. But, actors can also be very fickle, and very, uh, self-deprecating, and self-criticizing, and things like that. And it’s, you know, very common for an actor to go, “Oh

, man, I really sucked at that.” And, the fact is, no you didn’t. No, I didn’t. It’s just I’m being too hard on myself. But, uh, so we don’t really get a chance to look at it again. And I don’t really watch a lot of what I’ve done. I don’t have time. I just, plain frankly, do not have time and most actors don’t. But, uh, you know, when you do get a chance to see it when we go to a… Like we’ve had--you know, back before the pandemic--we’ve had screenings and stuff at movie theaters. And you show

up, and there’s a crowd. And, as a director and as an actor, watching the film product, I’m just like, “Oh…” Not all the time, but sometimes I’m like, “Oh, man, I really missed the mark on that. I shouldn’t have done it this way.” But that’s art, too, you know. You can second guess yourself for the rest of your life, you know. There’s never… It’s never finished like, “That is the best that it’s ever gonna be.” You’ll never feel that way. So, it’s kind of a mixed blessing, I guess. Anyway, we don

’t really get a chance to see what we’ve done other than the final product. Thisvthattv: My last question is if you had any interesting anecdotes from your time working on the show? Swasey: Wow, working on Darker than Black? Man, I got to tell you, brother, that was so long ago. That was… you know, 14 years ago. [Laughter] I mean, I don’t, I’m sorry. That’s a let down for you, I know. But I-- Thisvthattv: No problem. Swasey: I was racking my brain, man, trying to think like, “what happened?” I p

robably should’ve called Zach, but, even then, you know… He would’ve said something and I’d go, “Okay, but I don’t remember that.” [Laughter] You know, but um… I will say, though, that was one of the funnest shows that I’ve worked on. I just, again, I love, uh, working on shows like Darker than Black. Probably more than anything, just because of the realism. You know, the goofier shows are fun, you get to do funny, goofy characters, and stuff like that. But, at the end of the day, as an actor, I

really, really enjoy, um, being real. And, uh, those are things you can kind of sink your teeth into, which I really enjoy. And Darker than Black was certainly one of those shows. And I think… To just say this to put a final nail in it here: Darker than Black, the character Huang, while I’ve done other types of characters since then, he’s sort of the character that… I mean, it’s not exactly the same, but if you watch and shows that I’ve done now, lately, [Gruff voice] “It’s not quite as gruff l

ike this,” [Less gruff voice] “but it is certainly something like this.” Hoenhim, Fullmetal Alchemist, Gendo, from Evangelion, All for One, from My Hero Academia, they’re all kind of rooted in that kind of voice, just not as rough. But, certainly, that’s, you know, kind of--like I said earlier--that is right in my wheelhouse. And that’s what I love to do.