Welcome to A Comic Conversation! a podcast brought to you by The Team at Distance NERDing!
Have you ever thought, dang if only i had a way to listen to an interview at a comic con that i missed even tho i had no way of being there? well think no further!!! Jahmez 5000 and Yung Phil of the Distance NERDing podcast thought the same thing and started recording their interviews for you, The NERDs, to listen to at home!!! You may be revisiting an interview that you attended and wanted to hear again, or maybe hearing it for the first time!! were here for you!!!
In this episode we had the absolute pleasure of talking with the incredibly talented and ridiculously cool Griffen Puatu!!! We talk anime, video games, acting life, and how he manages to bounce between soft-spoken characters and total badasses like it’s no big deal!! So sit back, Relax, and Enjoy a Comic Conversation!!!!
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Alright nerds, grab your swords, your spellbooks, and your anime
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merch because today's guest is bringing the full might of
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animation, action and awesome voice acting too.
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A comic conversation we had the absolute pleasure of talking
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with the incredibly talented and ridiculously cool Griffin Puatu,
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voice of Kanki Lee and Spider Man, Miles Morales, Louie and B
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stars Michiro and Demon Slayer, and the electrifying voice of JP
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and Street Fighter Six. That's right, the big bad with
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the psycho power drip. We talk anime, video games,
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acting, life, and how he manages the bounce between soft spoken
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characters and total badasses like it's no big deal.
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So fire up your Nessuco box, swing through the city with your
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best friend Miles, and charge up that drive impact.
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It's time for another a comic conversation.
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Well, ladies and gentlemen, let's jump right into this.
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So our guest starting off right here is an actor, a singer best
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known for his role as Ganky Lee and Spider Man Miles Morales,
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Louie and B stars Jericho and Deathstroke, Knights and
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Dragons. The movie and Bosch in Street
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Fighter, which I've I nerded the hell out last time we talked
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about this. His long line of credited anime
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and video games also include Elder Scrolls Online, One Punch
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Man, Fire Emblem Heroes, Legend of Nine, Tales, Warrior, War
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Warrior, Wear Gold, Mobile Suit Gundam, NT Narrative, Yokai
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Watch and so much more. Ladies and gentlemen, put your
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hands together for Griffin Puatu.
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Yeah. Thank you for having me again.
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Again. Yeah, that is, that is not
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acceptable. So there you.
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Go. There you go.
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Just the amount of acceptance that I have.
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My goodness. After good stuff.
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I know we've been battling the wind all day long.
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We're battling California weather.
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Yeah, exactly. High winds.
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Yeah. There's no fire.
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So we're good. We're good.
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Yeah. We'll get things done.
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So welcome. Antioch, CA Powerhouse Comic
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Con. This is your first time to
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powerhouse, right? This is my first time, yeah.
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Welcome. That's awesome.
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So we have a little segment on our show.
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OK Distance starting shout out. Shout out to myself.
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That's weird. Called growing up geeky.
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So what did you geek out on when you were a kid?
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A ton of stuff. Spider Man for sure.
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That's Avatar the Last. Yeah, Avatar the Last Airbender.
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What else did I geek out on growing up?
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Star Wars. Star Wars, for sure.
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Yeah, I grew up on the prequels. OK, Yep.
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Yeah, those are the main ones for sure.
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I was gonna say I'm like, now I know your age like Pokémon and
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prequels. That makes so much sense.
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It's my age. Yeah, exactly.
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You kids, you whippersnappers, you kids and your.
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Wacky Pokémon and Gundam and stuff.
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Yeah. So before we jump into like,
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your entire career, that's amazing.
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And every kids dream these days is to be like a voice actor and
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you're living that dream. What was it like getting into
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acting? Like, how did this all start?
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Like, I know there's so many people that we meet at all these
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cons that are always like, what do I need to do?
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I want to become a voice actor now because I didn't know what
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it was like to be like that was even a thing you could be back
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in the day. So tell us what it's like
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becoming a voice actor. Becoming a voice actor when I
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was young I did acting like in school plays and church plays
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and stuff like that, so. And where was that?
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Where's that? I grew up in Southern
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California. I moved.
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I lived up here actually for a little bit in the East Bay for
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four years, went to high school. That's my best friend from high
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school right there. Yo.
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So you're familiar with Antioch then, if you were in the East
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Bay? I didn't.
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We didn't hang out in Antioch. You didn't frequent the
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fairgrounds at Antioch? No, no, I don't think so.
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We're coming to the County Fair all the time.
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We. Went to the Contra Costa Fair.
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Yeah, yeah. There you go, that works that.
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Works, Yeah, yeah. But I was like, yeah, so did
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that. And then growing up I watched
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tons of cartoons and Disney movies and then anime.
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And that's when I kind of figured out like, this is a job.
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Like I started noticing like the same voices for like 1 character
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in one show would be in then in another show and then so on and
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so forth. And then, and then there were
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conventions and stuff and that's, and voice actors would
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go to those. And I was like, so like, these
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are the people who do it. So at the tail end of high
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school and going into college, I was interested in, I was doing
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musical theater and improv. And then I, I ended up messing
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around with like some online projects.
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I got like AUSA mic and was recording in like my closet and
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then did online projects and then ended up learning about the
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industry. I got an internship at a studio
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in LA that recorded anime and video games.
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Got to work on a couple of shows there doing like background
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voices and stuff. And then from there, I just
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started doing online, like indie video game projects and
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animation projects and then moved out to LA, got an agent
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and then, yeah, that's. Now you're living the dream.
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Yeah, living the dream. Yeah, that was kind of the
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journey of my career. That's amazing.
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You know what, it's so cool because going to these
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conventions, like I didn't get to go to them when I was a kid
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because I may or not may or may not be a little bit older than
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the rest of you, but. Cons have been around since the
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60s man. I know that, but not around
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where I live. Are you just so old that?
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Dirt is Are cons older than dirt?
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Is that what you're saying? No, but I didn't know about
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voice. I didn't even think to become a
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voice voice actor. But you're you were just going
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to cons and you're like, you can be a voice actor.
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Yeah, there is the actor right there.
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That's amazing. Yeah, English dubbing and anime
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got really big when I was growing up in the early 2000s,
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and then so anime was becoming more mainstream.
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I grew up on Pokémon and Yu-gi-oh and tons of video games
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of voice acting. So yeah.
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What was your first big Oh my gosh, I've made it role or
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project? You're like, I can't believe I'm
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part of this. Probably when I worked on Wario
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Wear because I was a Nintendo and I was like, oh, this is this
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is kind of a big deal. I remember going into audition
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for that and seeing a bunch of like famous voice actors sitting
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in the room waiting to go into audition.
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I was like, oh, OK, this is this is kind of a big deal.
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That that for sure was a big one.
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And then after probably Gundam after that.
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Gundam was a big deal for sure because I grew up watching
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Gundam and getting to be the main character in a theatrical
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movie, like doing a red carpet and all that, that was crazy.
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How surreal is that as you grow up watching something and then,
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yeah, now you're the main character.
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Super weird. I just did another one.
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I was in a thing. It's not out yet.
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It's gonna be out in June. It is June.
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It's gonna be out in a few weeks.
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Are we allowed to talk about it? I don't think so.
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I'm not announced for it yet, but that was another one I grew
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up watching. And so that's crazy to be in.
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It's always I I've gotten good at kind of separating like just
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the job from the right, the enjoyment of it.
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I kind of experienced those things separately.
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Yeah, but no, it's it's really cool.
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And all the Pokémon stuff has been really cool too.
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Yeah, OK. What was it like being part of a
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World of Warcraft man? World of Warcraft was crazy.
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That one was I. I voiced the Volpera playable
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character in that and the the session for that was super cool.
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The director is this guy named JB Blanc.
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He's the he's in everything, but he's the one of the main
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characters in Arcane, and it was fun.
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We just did a bunch of different voice lines basically covering
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all the stuff you could possibly say, all the emotes and stuff in
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the game and stuff. That was really cool.
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Yeah. World, I didn't grow up playing
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World of Warcraft, so for me I was more just like, oh, cool,
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this is this is fun. Were you?
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Playing it at the time or no? No, I tried.
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I I can't do Mmos. They're so boring.
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You just grind and the combat's not fun.
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Like if you have, I'm sure it's fun if you have friends who play
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it, but I just, I, I can't. I don't.
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I don't. Or if you're like me and you're
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playing alone at 3:00 in the morning by yourself, that's
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fine, I can. That's fine, I can.
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I'll do Pokémon if I'm doing that.
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OK. All right.
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That's a game you can grind, right?
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They're trying to get missing though, yeah.
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Yeah. And get all the rare candy file.
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Yeah, exactly right. That's funny cuz I wasn't bored
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with World of Warcraft. I loved it.
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Yeah, it was back in the day. That was so cool.
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Anyway, so before we get into Spider Man, Miles Morales or
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Street Fighter or you want to talk to Pokémon, sure, let's get
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into some Pokémon. So tell us about working on
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Pokémon, because I think it's kind of like Star Wars, where no
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matter what age you are, you kind of have Pokémon in your
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zeitgeist. For sure.
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Yeah. I mean, every generation has
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their set of games. My first game was Pokémon Ruby
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and then Emerald is what I grew up playing the most and then I
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played every game since then. He is younger than me, yeah.
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I was a red and blue guy, man. So I mean, yeah, yeah, yeah.
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Skip those. That was a little before my
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time. But no, it was great.
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The first thing I got to work on with Pokémon.
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Actually, that's a good question.
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I don't remember the first two characters I did was I played
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Hop in Pokémon Twilight Wings, which were a set of shorts that
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came out with Sword and Shield. So these little short animated
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episodes on YouTube and then I also voiced Lucas, who is the
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protagonist in Diamond and Pearl in Pokémon Masters, which is a
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mobile game gotcha game kind of thing.
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So those were a ton of fun. Those are very different voicing
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for anime. You're basically it's a story
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with beginning, middle and end voicing.
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For a video game, it's you're just voicing all the combat
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lines. Ask you about that.
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Yeah. And then you do generic lines.
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So if if a video game has like dialogue portions where there's
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it's not fully voiced, but they want the characters to kind of
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emote. They'll have you.
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Record a set of like generic sounds.
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So if like it's a happy reaction, like, and it's it'll
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be like, yeah, that's great, man.
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I'll blah, blah, blah. Like there's text on the screen,
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but the character's not saying the text.
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So we record a bunch of that and then we'll record for any
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special events that may happen. So those are the first two
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things. And then I got to work on the
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Pokémon anime. I got to play a couple of
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characters in that. I played a shiny hunter named
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Shane Seeker who has a shiny side up and is trying to catch
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just only shiny Pokémon and fill his Pokedex with that.
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That was really cool. And then I got I got to voice
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Volkner who's the electric gym leader from Diamond and Pearl in
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Pokémon Master Journeys, which is like this big like tournament
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with all the different gym leaders and like champions from
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all across the different regions.
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And I think Ash won that one. Or did he only win the Alola
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championship? Spoiler alert for anybody.
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Out there, He won that one, OK? He won both yeah, yeah, a very
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poor winning like career for Ash, but.
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So that's kind of cool. You've voiced characters for
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Pokémon in the game and the anime.
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Yeah, that's pretty cool. So you kind of touched on it,
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but like, can you tell us a little bit of what's it like
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recording game versus recording anime and like, I don't know.
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Yeah. Cuz there is a style difference,
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right? Acting wise, it can depend.
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It can kind of be similar or the same.
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If it's a more AAA video game, they'll they'll want a more film
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filmic sound. So it'll be less exaggerated and
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more like closer to just how I normally sound or something you
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would get on camera. What you actually record is more
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of the difference anime and and cartoons.
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You have a script, you have the entire basically story and
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you're just going through the dialogue and the different like
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effort sounds you would make. So if you you punch someone or
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something like that, but you're, you kind of do it in order.
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And with video games, you're covering a lot more.
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You're covering the story, you're covering side quests,
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you're covering combat, you're covering whatever other mini
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games and stuff. There's DLC and expansions.
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So there's a lot more a. Lot more, which is part of the
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fun of working on video games like as a as a job is that it's,
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it's a lot of hours of recording.
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So it's a lot more pay for sure. And then sometimes a video game,
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you'll just come in, it's a 2 hour session and you're done.
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And the whole video game, like you just record for one
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character. It's 1 little portion of the
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game and then you're done. And then for some, if it's more
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involved story and all this other stuff like you'll do 20
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plus hours on a game. Tales of a Rise.
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I think I did at least 20 hours. Is that your like longest?
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Might that might be my longest. Is that my longest?
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I think so. That's the one that that sticks
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out in my head. Spider Man was a lot as well.
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Yeah, I can imagine. Yeah, you're.
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A pretty major character, so I mean, yeah.
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For the somewhat I Genki is is more involved in Miles Morales,
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but it's a shorter game. And then Spider Man 2 I'm around
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is how I put it. I'm telling them where to go.
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I get stuck in a train car. With the guy in the chair.
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Yeah, yeah. So, but for sure like those are
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longer days too because we're doing performance capture.
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So we have on these motion capture suits.
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With the dots. And the the big face camera rigs
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and stuff and you're interacting with the other actors.
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So those are longer days we do each scene will probably.
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Whoa, that does not want look at you and he's got reaction times,
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but he's got spider reaction. Yeah, but he is Bosch, so.
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Oh, there you go. But each of those scenes will
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take about like an hour. Like we'll do a couple of takes
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on like 1 scene, maybe like an hour to two hours per like, you
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know, could be like 30 seconds of the game.
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But yeah. And they have to also set up for
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motion capture anything you need to interact with.
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If there's like a building or a toll booth or a door you're
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opening, they have like these sort of makeshift like platforms
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and like pipe things that they that also have like little dots
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on them. And so they place them, they
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coat it into like Unreal engines.
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So they know like, OK, this is where like a physical thing is.
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And then when? This so it's the door open way
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more acting than it is just voice acting.
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Yeah, it's memorizing your lines and you have make eye contact
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with the different actors and stuff.
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Yeah. That's interesting.
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It's. Almost more like on screen work,
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yeah. It's exactly that, yeah.
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And they have multiple cameras too capturing for like behind
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the scenes stuff and also reference for the animators and
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stuff later on cuz they capture all the data from the motion
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recording but there's fine tuning and hand animating that
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goes into it as well so. That's really cool.
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Everybody we've talked to for the most part has been like, oh,
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you know, voice acting used to be so much fun.
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We were all together in the studio.
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But now it's become these solo. Yeah, acts of like whether I'm
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at home in my booth or I go into studio, but it's usually just
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me. Yeah.
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Yeah. And now with this, well, it's
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it's. So for for video games like AAA
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ones with motion capture, yeah, getting yeah, you get everybody
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in the same room. But yeah, before before COVID,
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especially for like prelay animated stuff, original
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animation, they usually try and schedule at least the main
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actors who are going to be interacting with each other on
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the same day, get them all in the same studio.
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They each have a mic stand and a microphone and be facing each
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other and recording all their lines at the same time.
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Since not just COVID, but also like like project like and
00:15:41
production timelines have like shrunk and shifted and there's a
00:15:44
lot more to record. It's harder to schedule
00:15:47
everybody for the same 4 to 8 hour block yeah on a day because
00:15:50
they might be working on another project.
00:15:52
They might be unavailable. So now a lot of projects, both
00:15:55
original animation anime and video games now just do solo
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record. It's you, it's an engineer and a
00:16:00
director. So, and there are benefits to
00:16:03
that. Like I, I don't live in LA
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anymore. I mostly work from home, right?
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So I don't like, I, I get the kind of ease and comfort of kind
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of being able to live wherever I want.
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I have a travel booth that I bring with me sometimes that's
00:16:18
just like in a little golf bag. I did a whole video game
00:16:20
recording session from a hotel room all the time.
00:16:24
Yeah, and how cool is? That, yeah, you wouldn't even
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know I was on on a call with a client they had.
00:16:29
Oh my gosh. Yeah, yeah.
00:16:31
So that's awesome. Yeah.
00:16:32
So that's that's one of the benefits of things becoming a
00:16:36
little bit faster and more one-on-one is that you can take
00:16:40
on more work and you can kind of be more flexible about where you
00:16:43
do it and stuff, right. So.
00:16:45
So have you done a lot of like in person acting?
00:16:49
You say you did some improv and stuff back in the day.
00:16:51
So what's it like getting back into that acting role?
00:16:54
Because it's interesting. Like we've talked to Speaking of
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Avatar, we've talked to Jesse Flower, Michaela, Michaela
00:17:02
mostly. And she was like, oh man, yeah.
00:17:04
And, and Olivia Hack, by the way.
00:17:06
Yep. And she was always so like, oh,
00:17:08
we miss being in that Nickelodeon studio.
00:17:10
We'd be crazy together. You know, like she's like, I
00:17:13
miss that. And so I guess you get to kind
00:17:16
of do that with, with some mocap type stuff.
00:17:19
So yeah, yeah, Mocap. And then I did a couple of
00:17:22
theater productions recently, which are really cool.
00:17:24
I do a little bit of on camera here and there, but not a ton.
00:17:27
But yeah. And then for some projects,
00:17:30
we'll do ensemble recording remotely.
00:17:33
It'll be everyone on a Zoom call.
00:17:35
Or. That which is nice, it's nice to
00:17:37
be able to work off the other actors.
00:17:39
It's just one less thing you have to trying to worry about as
00:17:44
if you're doing one-on-one voice acting, you're basically filling
00:17:47
your entire imagination with everything.
00:17:49
What are the other actors like saying?
00:17:51
What am I reacting to? What's going on over here, blah,
00:17:53
blah, blah. And then if you have other
00:17:54
actors, then you OK, I don't have to worry about how is this
00:17:57
person going to react. And then if you're there with a
00:18:00
set and and with props, you're great.
00:18:02
I don't need to worry about what it's going to feel like picking
00:18:04
up this while I'm saying this line or whatever.
00:18:06
Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah.
00:18:07
So it's but it requires a lot more focus due to that.
00:18:11
You have to know your lines. You have to approach the scene
00:18:14
is if you don't, you don't know your lines and you don't know
00:18:16
what you're about to say and that you're touching and
00:18:18
interacting with doing all these things for the very first time,
00:18:21
even though this is take 6-7 or eight.
00:18:23
Yeah, right. So yeah, oh, hey, real quick, if
00:18:27
you guys have questions for, you know, come on up, we'll we'll
00:18:31
get them going. We have a few more questions,
00:18:33
but I don't want to ignore you guys.
00:18:35
We're gonna have questions for you.
00:18:37
I know you have all the questions.
00:18:38
All the questions we want, we want some dirt stories from you
00:18:44
so. We want all the high school
00:18:47
dirt. Oh, no, that's very good.
00:18:53
We had a conversation before this.
00:18:56
I slipped him a Benjamin. You're doing great.
00:19:00
Is that a new name for roofies? Oh no, I'm kidding.
00:19:04
I'm kidding. So I slipped him a roofie.
00:19:07
Oh no, it's a Benjamin. Oh.
00:19:10
So let's get it's dark. I'm, I'm yeah, I'll see myself.
00:19:13
Out it's morning time we haven't even had breakfast yet let's get
00:19:17
into some Spider man Miles Morales.
00:19:19
Sweet What OK cuz I'm assuming that is got to be like the next
00:19:25
level of you know gaming, recording, acting when you get
00:19:30
into marvel. What was that NDA like?
00:19:35
What were you like? Oh my God, I got, I'm ganky,
00:19:39
yeah, but it's like I can't tell anybody.
00:19:43
I guess caveat to that, how familiar with Spider Man were
00:19:46
you? Super familiar.
00:19:47
So I grew up reading the Ultimate Spider Man comics.
00:19:50
I read all of those up through the 1:50 When Peter dies
00:19:54
spoiler. In 10 years, it's for 15 years.
00:19:57
Spoilers. Because that's how we get miles
00:19:59
anyway. So, yeah, exactly.
00:20:00
So I read right up to Miles, and then I read a little bit of
00:20:04
Miles, but that was still when the comics were coming out.
00:20:07
So I grew up with that. I grew up with all the movies.
00:20:11
I remember I did a workshop with the voice director for Spider
00:20:15
Man, Chris Zimmerman. She also does Metal Gear Solid
00:20:18
and all of those games. And so she remembered me from
00:20:21
the workshop, sent me an audition for this character.
00:20:27
It was code named. It didn't really know what it
00:20:29
was. Wait, what was the code name?
00:20:31
What was the code name? Off the top of my head I can't
00:20:33
remember. I can't remember but they
00:20:35
changed all the names right? But from what I was reading, I
00:20:37
was like, this feels like this feels like a Spider Man.
00:20:40
I was like, I was like, it's not, I don't think this is Blue
00:20:42
Beetle. I don't know.
00:20:43
It's, it's like it's a young superhero character like, so
00:20:48
anyway, so I, I sent in the read and then I got a callback
00:20:51
audition to go in in person to record some lines.
00:20:54
And that's when I found out it was Spider Man.
00:20:56
So they already had a scene blocked out, and I was kind of
00:20:58
whoa. Hey.
00:21:03
For those just listening to the podcast online, the tent almost
00:21:06
fell over. It was bolted dead on the
00:21:10
traffic. Yeah, they they did this for us,
00:21:12
so oh boy. Can't really.
00:21:13
Stick it on the foot. The foot's too.
00:21:17
Tiny Yeah, we'll get something. Everyone's fine.
00:21:22
It would have been better if it. Went we're fine.
00:21:24
Hey. Maybe somebody's spider sense
00:21:27
needs to tingle before that happens next time.
00:21:29
That'd be great. But it's going to be great for
00:21:32
the video. So thanks.
00:21:33
I appreciate that. But.
00:21:36
Anyway. So I went in, we there was
00:21:39
already a scene that they'd animated and I was recording my
00:21:42
voice to the character kind of to see if I can match the
00:21:44
physicality. And.
00:21:46
It fit the character and it went very well.
00:21:49
They were very positive. And then must have been a couple
00:21:52
of week was a couple weeks, a couple months, I don't remember,
00:21:55
but I got cast in it and then we just.
00:21:58
What did they tell you? Sometime in 2019, I think over
00:22:01
the summer, and then I start, we started recording, recording and
00:22:04
it's spaced out because, you know, they're doing little
00:22:07
slices of, I think they call them vertical, vertical slices.
00:22:10
In video game development, they're doing slices of the
00:22:12
game. So that basically so that they
00:22:17
can kind of approve each part of the game and kind of assemble it
00:22:21
and see what pieces they need to move here and there.
00:22:23
And then there are different teams.
00:22:24
We're going to do parts of it. So we, I did a little bit of
00:22:29
recording of it in 2019 and then COVID hits and now we're, you
00:22:32
know, we can't go record in person anymore.
00:22:35
So I'm recording from home. We, we did a big cast read
00:22:39
through of the script. They had a finalized script.
00:22:42
So I got to see like the entire cast, Naji, Troy Baker, Yuri,
00:22:47
everyone involved. And then we recorded all of it
00:22:51
through the rest of 2020. And then the game came out in
00:22:54
October or November of that year.
00:22:57
But that was Miles. That's pretty fast.
00:22:58
Yeah, Yeah. And then Spider Man 2, which
00:23:00
just came out last year, that started, not started not too
00:23:05
long after. I think we did the very first
00:23:10
little kind of test portion of the game in probably early 2021.
00:23:16
And that was the the Craven, the Hunter hideout in New York.
00:23:22
He kind of rents out this building, right?
00:23:23
And we're kind of helping to infiltrate it.
00:23:25
So we recorded that and then a little bit of the River Chase
00:23:29
and then that. And then we just started
00:23:30
recorded up through 21/20/22. Was that just a straight
00:23:34
recording that like mocap? No, that was just recording at
00:23:37
that time because there was nothing.
00:23:38
Nothing was really finalized. They, they just had, they were
00:23:42
in the early, early parts of kind of developing the game and
00:23:45
figuring out what the story was going to be.
00:23:48
So they were just getting a couple of scenes.
00:23:49
And then 2021 or probably 2022 onward is when we did the
00:23:54
majority of the like motion capture and stuff.
00:23:58
And then we did that all the way up through the end of 2022.
00:24:02
And then 2023 I did the rest of the voice recording.
00:24:05
And then the game came out September, I think.
00:24:08
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's so odd to me because you
00:24:12
know, we when we see people where I was like, Hey, how you
00:24:14
doing? Like what have you been up to?
00:24:16
And that's a question I assume people ask you and you're like,
00:24:19
I can't tell you anything. I can tell you what.
00:24:21
I'm working on a. Game.
00:24:22
I'm working on a video game. Yeah, I can say I'm working on a
00:24:25
video game. Can't say what.
00:24:26
Yeah, but and it comes out and it's like, yeah, Spider man.
00:24:29
Yeah, some of them they'll announce like way before, like
00:24:32
Fatal Fury, City of Wolves got announced a couple months back
00:24:36
and that's not coming out till next year.
00:24:37
So yeah, but yeah. But it's announced, so you can
00:24:41
talk about them. OK.
00:24:42
All right. Why don't we talk to some Street
00:24:44
Fighter? Cool.
00:24:45
So, Bosh. Yeah.
00:24:47
Tell us about working on that project.
00:24:48
I mean, you played Street Fighter.
00:24:50
I played Street Fighter, I played the story mode on on
00:24:54
stream. Nice.
00:24:55
Yeah, So, you know, I got to see all the ups and downs.
00:24:58
Yeah, exactly. Like all of the you know when
00:25:01
you first meet Bosh in the in the gym all the way to him
00:25:05
becoming a psycho, you know? Yeah, yeah, yeah, no.
00:25:11
Just know that there is a massive evolution of his
00:25:14
character. Yeah, he goes through a lot.
00:25:16
Yeah. Yeah.
00:25:17
Street Fighter was fun. I auditioned for that.
00:25:22
That would have been probably 2021 or early 2022.
00:25:26
I could tell from the artwork that was Street Fighter.
00:25:29
Yeah. They didn't say what it was, but
00:25:30
I was like, they're like, it's Capcom.
00:25:32
I think they said it was Capcom and then they saw the art.
00:25:34
They're like I'm in. I got it.
00:25:35
I got. It and then I went through two
00:25:38
rounds or yeah two rounds of auditions for that because Bosch
00:25:44
has a transformation in the game and they wanted to know like,
00:25:48
OK, can you do this can we hear more of this voice and how
00:25:51
you're going to kind of distinguish the 2 so but no that
00:25:54
one that one was really fun We did a couple of sessions to get
00:25:59
all the all the recording done and it was cool I I'm the rival
00:26:02
character in the story mode so for whatever character you
00:26:05
create you meet me at the the 1st gym you go to learn we fight
00:26:10
and then we end up like hitting the town and kind of a.
00:26:15
Weird mentor too. Yeah, kind of.
00:26:18
Not really I. Wouldn't say he was his mentor,
00:26:20
but like, in every step of the way, there's like, you know, a
00:26:22
guy or something like that. There's like, yeah, there's like
00:26:24
a reason that you need to go chase.
00:26:26
Yeah, or something like that. Yeah.
00:26:27
He kind of like forged the entire story.
00:26:29
Exactly. Yeah, we end up splitting up
00:26:32
kind of at the 1st at the end of the first act, and then we keep
00:26:36
kind of meeting up in weirder and weirder circumstances.
00:26:39
And then there's a big finale at the end where things happened
00:26:45
between us, but. Your your middle transition
00:26:47
character was so weird in that. Yeah, yeah, I have AI think I
00:26:50
have a bag on my head at some. Point a box a box.
00:26:52
Yeah, yeah, there's like a gang of people who have boxes on
00:26:55
their heads. I think it's a reference to a
00:26:57
different fighting game. It is to a speech fight, final
00:27:00
fight. Final fight.
00:27:01
Thank you. Yeah.
00:27:03
So yeah, no, but it's it was super fun because.
00:27:07
Did you have to mocap a box on your head?
00:27:09
No, no. So for the Japanese video games,
00:27:12
a lot of the times they're doing all of the first recording and
00:27:16
animating in Japan and then we're coming in and doing the
00:27:20
English stuff over it. I think for this game we were
00:27:22
kind of doing it in tandem. So, but yeah, it was fun because
00:27:27
it was kind of a balance of the cartoony nature of Street
00:27:30
Fighter and and all that. But also, I think they wanted
00:27:34
the acting to be a little bit more serious, tone serious and
00:27:37
all of that. It was the first time Street
00:27:38
Fighter really did a full story mode.
00:27:41
Yeah, so. I thought, I thought it was well
00:27:44
done. Yeah, really well done for what
00:27:46
it was. I wasn't expecting it to be
00:27:48
something that had like a full on open world, yeah, story mode.
00:27:52
But then like, I was like, so how does this become Street
00:27:54
Fighter? And then you fight somebody and
00:27:56
it's like this makes sense, OK. Yeah, no, it was great.
00:27:59
And they just did their first. It's been out for a year now.
00:28:02
I think they're putting in some new fighters.
00:28:04
Bosh isn't on the list. I'm I'm still not a playable
00:28:07
character, which is whatever. Which is weird because it's kind
00:28:09
of like he had the one move in there that was like unstoppable.
00:28:14
And really hurt your ass. Every time that's sick cuz
00:28:16
there's there's a part. I'm not gonna spoil it.
00:28:19
Never mind. I really want to get into it.
00:28:22
But it's like, yeah, no, there's there's an unblockable move that
00:28:25
he has. Wait.
00:28:26
Yeah, yeah. Like a crane kick, like Karate
00:28:28
Kid, like an unblockable move. No. 2nd unblockable move.
00:28:33
No, yeah, it's, it's it's one it's like a super move that like
00:28:36
drains all of your health. Yeah.
00:28:39
Yeah, that's so cool. That's so cool.
00:28:40
Yeah, that was summer of 2022. I did all the recording for
00:28:43
that. I do appreciate how a lot of IP
00:28:46
nowadays are, are growing with us.
00:28:49
You know where we go from, Like, hey, this is something we loved
00:28:52
as a kid, but now it's like everybody has grown up.
00:28:55
So even though I loved it as a kid, now that I'm adult, it
00:28:58
speaks to me a little bit more as an old like Street Fighter.
00:29:01
Like it's it's a little more serious to tone, but it's still
00:29:04
playable. Yeah, I think it works well for
00:29:06
video games because as the technology evolves and gameplay
00:29:11
mechanics and what people expect from video games changes doing
00:29:15
like, new additions and updates to like the same franchise, it
00:29:18
makes a lot of sense. Yeah.
00:29:19
I think in movies it can get a little tiring to be like, oh,
00:29:21
Ghostbusters, the Arctic Freeze, Hooray.
00:29:24
Like, yeah, I get a lot. I'm not into that.
00:29:26
I'm like. Is that the name?
00:29:27
I told you it totally isn't. Something like that, I don't.
00:29:29
Know it's a Gatorade. I don't, I get, I get sick of
00:29:33
those things 'cause I'm like, to me, it just kind of cheapens the
00:29:36
first movie. It's just like, like they just
00:29:39
keep going on and on and on. Yeah, yeah.
00:29:40
And I don't, I just, I don't know what this generation of
00:29:44
like young people like if they even care about Ghostbusters or
00:29:48
would care it seems. More for us, though, that's the
00:29:50
whole. Thing but that.
00:29:51
But that's my thing. Yeah.
00:29:52
Like, like we, entertainment can't only be for the generation
00:29:55
that's making the entertainment. Yeah.
00:29:57
Because it seems like they're they're doing it for us, but
00:29:59
they're trying to make it appeal to like the newer generations, I
00:30:02
guess. Yeah.
00:30:02
Yeah, you know, be like, hey, here's a reason to like
00:30:04
something that we liked. Yeah, Finn Wolfhard's in it.
00:30:07
Yeah, there's reason. Yeah, yes.
00:30:09
That's 100%, yeah. Unless it's bluey, that's the
00:30:13
only thing that is cross generation is bluey.
00:30:16
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That is a kids show that that 30
00:30:19
year olds have gone. No, this is ours now.
00:30:21
Yeah, exactly. You can have cocoa melon
00:30:23
exactly. I fun fact for everybody here, I
00:30:27
refuse to watch Bluey for the longest time.
00:30:30
And I watched it by accident. Yeah, right.
00:30:32
And I was like, oh, I understand why parents like this, but do
00:30:35
you have kids? I don't.
00:30:36
That's why I had no reason to watch it.
00:30:38
I see. But he always was like, you need
00:30:39
to watch it. It's fun.
00:30:40
You need to watch it. I got three of them.
00:30:42
I get it. The parents are very relatable.
00:30:44
Yes, it's so much. Fun.
00:30:45
It is a good show but, and don't take this the wrong way, I do
00:30:48
judge people who watch it who don't have kids at a certain
00:30:52
age. I watched like 2 episodes and
00:30:54
that was just basically it. Like OK, I understand.
00:30:56
Now, yeah, not bad, OK. Yeah.
00:30:58
And you can judge Philippe all you want.
00:31:00
That's I do it on a daily basis, everybody.
00:31:02
Judges me, it's fine. So I've got a, I've got a.
00:31:05
Oh, you want a question? Go.
00:31:06
Ahead, OH. I was gonna say I was gonna do
00:31:08
the audience questions. But I was, I was gonna say, so
00:31:11
is there anybody in the audience that is an aspiring voice actor,
00:31:14
Anybody who wants to be a voice actor?
00:31:18
Don't be afraid to raise your hand.
00:31:19
Group of young people out. There.
00:31:20
Yeah, that's weird. Usually we have at least three
00:31:23
or four, right? Cuz I was gonna, I was gonna ask
00:31:25
you if you know, if there's any exercises that you can show us
00:31:28
or anything, any tips that you have for anybody that's like,
00:31:31
you know, wanting to get into voice acting or just kind of
00:31:34
like, you know, something you can do every day to help like
00:31:37
hone your skill. Yeah.
00:31:38
I mean, it's, it's an independent contractor work.
00:31:42
So you're, you're basically honing your, your skill set
00:31:46
getting better and better and then kind of just putting
00:31:48
yourself out there trying to get new clients and stuff like that.
00:31:52
You can get an agent as well who can kind of help connect you to
00:31:55
bigger studios and auditions like that.
00:31:57
But for the most part, you're kind of on your own navigating
00:31:59
it. Just acting like take acting
00:32:01
classes. Traditional acting classes are
00:32:03
always going to be the best because all of the skills you
00:32:06
learn there are going to translate to what you do as a
00:32:08
voice actor now. It's just you have to translate
00:32:10
the physicality of the character.
00:32:12
If they're walking or running or, or, you know, getting up
00:32:14
from a chair or whatever. You have to put all of that now
00:32:17
into just the vocal performance rather than being able to just
00:32:21
do it with your full body. But you know, tongue twisters
00:32:24
and singing warm ups and just traditional acting classes will
00:32:30
do really well. And then just there's tons of
00:32:32
projects to audition for online and recording equipment is very
00:32:35
cheap. Record in a quiet place without
00:32:37
echoes. So like a walk in closet or
00:32:39
something like that. Or make a little like PVC frame
00:32:43
and put like moving blankets on it and you can make a little
00:32:45
makeshift booth. That's about it.
00:32:47
Yeah. Other than that, it's, you know,
00:32:49
there's tons of resources online to learn how to do it, but I
00:32:53
don't casually recommend it. It's, you have to have the right
00:32:56
kind of temperament for it. You have to be very diligent
00:32:58
about setting your own hours because you're you're your own
00:33:00
boss. It's like, oh, I can get up at
00:33:02
7:00 AM or, or 1:00 PM in the afternoon, right?
00:33:06
Like, oh, I can do these auditions or maybe I don't want
00:33:09
to do them, like, or maybe I don't feel like it.
00:33:11
So it's really all on you to manage your time and your effort
00:33:16
and, and, and all of that. And, and just faced a ton of
00:33:20
rejection and not even a lot of nose, just a lot of radio
00:33:23
silence and then just kind of work through it.
00:33:26
So yeah, that's that's. Kind of what it's.
00:33:29
Yeah, Cold reading. That's, I mean, that's your
00:33:30
entire, our entire job. For the most part, we don't
00:33:32
really get scripts ahead of time.
00:33:34
Maybe if it's a movie or an animated TV show, they might
00:33:37
give us the script ahead of time.
00:33:39
But for the most part, you're you're going in and you're
00:33:41
seeing it for the first time. Yeah.
00:33:45
I will say this, Griffin has a great YouTube channel as well
00:33:49
and he shows off his reels and different, different types of
00:33:52
reels like hey, this is my reel for like anime.
00:33:54
This is my reel for gaming, that sort of thing.
00:33:57
So it's actually pretty cool. You said one thing on there was
00:33:59
like 90% of voice acting. Is is the working to get the
00:34:05
job? Working to get the job doing.
00:34:06
For jobs, yeah, like 90% of what I do I'll never work on.
00:34:10
So I've auditioned for everything under the sun and I
00:34:15
get about 10% of it. Maybe.
00:34:17
Probably less than that, but yeah.
00:34:20
That's so interesting to hear. Just because you know, like, oh,
00:34:23
you were in Street Fighter, you were in Spider Man.
00:34:26
You know, it's like, that's great to be like, I don't get
00:34:28
90% of this, but like that 10% is so amazing.
00:34:31
That's awesome. It's like the 10% of the roles
00:34:32
he gets are like badass roles. So yeah, exactly, exactly,
00:34:35
exactly. Questions.
00:34:37
You guys have questions, Come on up, raise your hand, do
00:34:39
whatever. There's a microphone for you
00:34:41
right there. I can't wait to hear young
00:34:44
Griffin stories. Here we go.
00:34:46
Oh, wait. I'm not gonna tell stories.
00:34:48
I have questions. Oh, yeah.
00:34:49
Come on up, come on up. Yeah, yeah.
00:34:50
What's your name? Garrison.
00:34:51
Garrison, That's right. Yeah, well, thank you guys for
00:34:53
hosting everything. Griffin, what's always impressed
00:34:57
me about your career is the range of characters that you're
00:34:59
playing and all the different roles.
00:35:01
Have you played main characters to side characters, even
00:35:04
characters that don't even really talk that much?
00:35:06
Yeah. So like, how do you, I guess,
00:35:08
identify these roles and how do you like interview or how do you
00:35:12
put your yourself out there for these roles if you don't know
00:35:15
how you're gonna embody the character just yet?
00:35:18
You kind of figure out the embodying part very quickly.
00:35:21
You get very quick at just doing that.
00:35:25
You'll usually I'll get an e-mail from my agent or from a
00:35:28
casting director or something with a PDF with an audition
00:35:33
side, which is just a portion of the script with a couple of
00:35:36
lines for the character and a brief description, maybe a
00:35:39
picture. And then from there you kind of
00:35:41
very quickly go like, oh, OK, he's, he's younger and he's kind
00:35:44
of shy and his shoulders are kind of drooped in and he's kind
00:35:47
of looking down off to the side. Or, or he's, you know, he's kind
00:35:50
of a gangster and he's kind of puffing out his chest and he's
00:35:52
got like, he's got bags under his eyes and maybe he's a little
00:35:56
bit more sleepy or slurry. You very quickly, you learn how
00:35:59
to very quickly embody the character and then you just, you
00:36:02
just start acting out the scenes, you record the lines,
00:36:04
you give a couple of takes. So yeah, as a voice actor, you
00:36:07
kind of learn to adapt very quickly to the circumstances in
00:36:11
front of you. That's why improv is a huge help
00:36:13
like as a training tool and also like to learn.
00:36:15
It's that like you learn very quickly to just take a couple of
00:36:19
details, hone in on them and and then just give a performance.
00:36:25
And the best thing you can do is try not to think about what what
00:36:27
is the casting director or what is this person want?
00:36:30
What are they looking for? It's like you'll never know and
00:36:32
they don't know. That's why they're auditioning.
00:36:33
If they knew what they wanted, they would have they would have
00:36:34
just like hired the person they were.
00:36:36
Right, right. So unless they're like we want a
00:36:39
Griffin Puatu type. Exactly.
00:36:40
Yeah, I have auditioned for a couple of things where the
00:36:43
reference character, like we wanted to kind of sound like
00:36:46
this and I click it and it's a character I did.
00:36:48
No way, that's awesome. Yeah, but.
00:36:52
Yeah, like I think I can do. That I think I can do that, but
00:36:54
no, for the most part, it's that you, you learn very quickly to
00:36:59
kind of adapt to whatever parts in front of you and just kind of
00:37:04
come up with things. And, and the, the big thing to
00:37:06
know is whatever sticks out strongly in your mind about the
00:37:10
character, focus on that because that's what's going to give the
00:37:12
strongest performance. Trying to think what other
00:37:14
people might do and what's, you know, what's the best move and
00:37:17
who would they want to hire for this?
00:37:19
What kind of sound are they looking for?
00:37:20
You're getting into an imaginary person's head.
00:37:22
You don't, you can't read their mind.
00:37:24
Good. So just focusing on like, what
00:37:26
you resonate with, with the characters gonna bring out the
00:37:28
best in you. And then they're just gonna pick
00:37:31
what, whichever version of that they like, whichever actor
00:37:36
portrays it in a way, they're like, I like that.
00:37:37
I like that. Yeah, yeah.
00:37:39
And then one more question. That's OK.
00:37:42
I'm not wasting your time hopefully, but I know that
00:37:46
you've been a director. How has been being a director
00:37:49
helped you? Being a voice actor, I guess in
00:37:51
like looking for roles, knowing what a director's looking for,
00:37:54
how to give instruction or how to take instruction.
00:37:56
It actually kind of had the opposite effect.
00:37:59
Being an actor helped me be a director.
00:38:01
Cuz I know that I know what actors respond to and I know
00:38:05
what actors don't respond to. Like there's tons of things,
00:38:08
times where I'm sitting in a session and a director is giving
00:38:11
me information that is useless to me that I don't need to know.
00:38:14
It's like, OK, so you this, this is the world of Andalasia.
00:38:17
And in Andalasia there was a war 100 years ago and blah, blah,
00:38:19
blah. Now your character has nothing
00:38:21
to do with that. But I'm going to tell you all of
00:38:22
that and then kind of touch on your character.
00:38:24
And it's like, I don't need to know these things.
00:38:27
Just tell me who my character is, what he's dealing with,
00:38:30
what's happening right now. Like a director's job is really
00:38:33
to keep an actor in the scene and then get them to try
00:38:35
different things. And then the director should
00:38:38
have a vision for the project. They should have an idea of what
00:38:43
they want this scene to feel like, what they want the show to
00:38:45
feel like, what they want the relationship between these two
00:38:48
characters to feel like. And because a lot of the
00:38:51
recording now is one-on-one, you're not getting everyone in a
00:38:53
big group. You're kind of accounting for
00:38:55
everyone's performance and what they're going to say and how
00:38:57
they're going to say it all at once while just you have one
00:39:00
actor in front of you. So if you have an actor make a
00:39:03
very specific acting choice, you have to remember, OK, that's the
00:39:06
acting choice the actor made. I need to make sure that the
00:39:09
character who's responding to him or is prompting him to say
00:39:11
that, you know, elicits that response out of him.
00:39:15
So you have a much more kind of broad vision of the total
00:39:20
performance of all the different actors and stuff.
00:39:22
So doing the directing really helped.
00:39:26
It also helped me kind of realize that, like every role is
00:39:31
really, really important. So even if you're stepping in
00:39:33
for a couple of lines on a character, like playing that
00:39:36
moment is so important because if it doesn't work, then that
00:39:39
moment's ruined. And it's, it ruins the, you
00:39:42
know, the, the momentum of the show.
00:39:44
I had one episode of a show that was one of my favorites.
00:39:47
It was kind of a a break from the action.
00:39:51
It's a mech show. These pilots go to this small
00:39:54
little kind of abandoned town where these refugees have set up
00:39:57
and they don't have any power, running water or food.
00:40:00
And so they kind of get them set up with all of that.
00:40:02
And it's a nice kind of relaxing episode.
00:40:05
And there was this one character that was really crucial to kind
00:40:09
of getting him to open up and to help and stuff and.
00:40:13
I got to make some of the casting direction decisions for
00:40:16
the show and all of them. So I ended up with this actor
00:40:19
thrown. This role never worked with him
00:40:20
before and he just was not hitting any of the marks that I
00:40:25
wanted for the character. I pushed him in a lot, a lot of
00:40:27
different directions. He wasn't really taking the
00:40:29
direction well. He wasn't obstinate.
00:40:30
Sometimes actors who don't take direction well, it's not a
00:40:33
matter of they're not listening to you, it's that they can't
00:40:36
change their performance either how they learned or what
00:40:40
whatever skill set they're working with, they're not good
00:40:42
at adapting. So it just ended up being kind
00:40:45
of a dud of a character in an otherwise really nice episode,
00:40:50
which was unfortunate. So yeah, that's kind of what
00:40:52
I've learned as an actor who then did directing and kind of
00:40:56
kind of all that. So yeah.
00:40:58
Last question if it could be. That's a good question.
00:41:00
You're good man though. I appreciate it.
00:41:01
Yeah, if it could be for all three of you guys.
00:41:04
Since we're at a Comic Con, what comic book superhero do you guys
00:41:07
all identify with the most? Oh God, we all know Spider Man.
00:41:11
Probably, yeah. I'll, I'll, I'll give a second
00:41:15
because I've already said Spider man I, I really like Mark in
00:41:21
Invincible. Yeah, it's he's a very like
00:41:26
easily identifiable character. I will say though, it's the rest
00:41:30
of the characters I'm not super great on.
00:41:32
That's the one thing about Invincible.
00:41:33
I like him. Everyone else is kind of varying
00:41:36
levels of like all right or I don't like them at all.
00:41:39
So I didn't end up watching the second season, unfortunately.
00:41:42
But if I end up being in one of the future seasons then forget
00:41:45
what I just said it's. A great show and you can watch
00:41:46
it, right? It's actually really good, man.
00:41:49
It's good, yeah. It kind of watched some of the
00:41:51
clips. Yeah.
00:41:52
It takes another direction that you don't expect it to.
00:41:55
Yeah. Multiverse, Multiverse.
00:41:58
That's for one episode. Wow.
00:41:59
Yeah. Announcements on announcements.
00:42:03
I would say my character. When I first started bringing
00:42:06
comics, I was little and there wasn't a lot of characters for
00:42:10
me to identify with. But my character was actually in
00:42:14
the crowd right now, Robin from Batman, and Robin was the
00:42:16
character I identified with. I'm like he was kind of an
00:42:21
outcast with all these big superheroes and I was a little
00:42:24
brother. So it's like the one character I
00:42:27
identified with him and it broke into, as I grew up, it broke
00:42:30
into becoming Teen Titans. And I'm like, yes, this is so
00:42:33
cool. And then he became Nightwing,
00:42:34
this badass looking character. I'm like, that's my guy.
00:42:37
That is my guy. So yeah, I was, I would say
00:42:40
Robin in in Nightwing. I was gonna say so the six
00:42:42
Robins, it's it's Dick Grayson. Yes, I would say that.
00:42:46
What about you? Pretty obvious if you know me,
00:42:49
right? But Deadpool.
00:42:50
Yeah. And it's just mainly because I'm
00:42:54
extremely sarcastic. I, I kinda identify with a lot
00:42:59
of the things that he does. I mean, yes, that's why I
00:43:03
cosplay as Deadpool. And you got cancer all over your
00:43:06
face. Cancer able skin care.
00:43:08
Regimen this. This is all right here.
00:43:11
This beautiful skin that I have right here.
00:43:13
It's a facade. Yeah, Right.
00:43:15
No, this is all latex. Yeah.
00:43:17
But I mean, I'm mostly Deadpool. If I were to relate with anybody
00:43:22
else, probably Jaime Reyes. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:43:29
Another coming of age type thing.
00:43:31
Another coming of age type thing.
00:43:32
I got you just. Being, you know, a Hispanic kid
00:43:35
growing up, there wasn't very many characters that I could
00:43:38
relate to. You guys know that too.
00:43:40
For, for, for, you know, there's not very many Filipino comic
00:43:44
book characters. But I mean, like now there's,
00:43:47
there's a good amount of them. But when I was growing up, like,
00:43:49
you know, Jaime Reyes was barely coming in in, like, the late 90s
00:43:53
and then became a big thing later on.
00:43:58
Yeah. I mean, like, there's not very
00:43:59
many characters that I did identify with, hence why I
00:44:01
identified with Deadpool so well, because he wears a mask.
00:44:04
Yeah. So like that could be anybody,
00:44:06
you know so. Yeah, good questions.
00:44:08
You should be up here. Thank you.
00:44:09
Oh hey, I'm perfectly fine down here.
00:44:11
But thank you guys. Do you want a job?
00:44:13
Yeah, hey, wait a second. What's the pay like?
00:44:16
Wait, there is no pay? Yeah, even better even.
00:44:19
Are we having fun? Yeah, exactly.
00:44:21
We're having a lot of fun. I was like, if anything, I'm
00:44:23
paying out of pocket to do all this stuff.
00:44:25
So exactly, there we go. Griffin, do you have a favorite
00:44:29
franchise that you haven't been a part of yet or something that
00:44:34
you'd like to get into? Probably Star Wars.
00:44:37
I don't think I've been in Star Wars, right?
00:44:39
This is on the Internet, remember.
00:44:40
Do you have I been in Star Wars though?
00:44:42
I've not been in Star Wars. Star Wars would be pretty.
00:44:45
This is on the Internet, so we're putting it out there.
00:44:46
Yeah, we'll see. Yeah, there you go.
00:44:49
Kind of Star Wars stuff coming out so.
00:44:51
I mean, hey Manny Jacinto is in the brand new Star Wars series,
00:44:56
so yeah, Acolyte, so. A couple Filipinos in Star Wars
00:44:59
now. Filipinos are in the Star Wars
00:45:01
universe. We exist in port Canon now
00:45:04
because. We have another Filipino in soca
00:45:06
so. Exactly.
00:45:07
Exactly. Mandalorian season one.
00:45:10
Yeah, the swap episode. Any other questions?
00:45:13
Anybody me? OK, cool.
00:45:14
Then I got the questions. Thank you.
00:45:16
So what are you nerding out on these days?
00:45:18
What's something you're into? Arcane Season 2 is gonna come
00:45:23
out later this year. That's.
00:45:25
Right. So that announcement?
00:45:27
Trying to see. I'm trying to catch up on all
00:45:29
the Pokémon games I missed so I'm playing through sword and
00:45:32
shield right now. I'm enjoying it.
00:45:34
I didn't. I got distracted with like
00:45:37
competitive Pokémon when it first came out.
00:45:39
So I just got up to the portion where I could train A-Team and
00:45:42
then compete. And then I didn't get further,
00:45:45
and then I lost my save data. I had to start over again.
00:45:48
And then I lost my Switch, so I had to buy another Switch.
00:45:51
So yeah. So we're slowly getting through
00:45:54
that. What else?
00:45:55
What else am I doing? You're nerdy.
00:45:58
You're like acting. That's all I do is.
00:45:59
I it's a lot. It is a lot of work.
00:46:01
It's, it's work. And then I just kind of relax.
00:46:04
I'm not watching a ton. Movies are kind of right now.
00:46:09
I saw Furiosa. It was OK.
00:46:11
It was pretty good. I don't know.
00:46:14
It's, it's for me, it's kind of hard to be, well, no, for me
00:46:17
personally, it's hard to nerd out about a lot because it's
00:46:20
either. It's.
00:46:22
A lot of the same or it's like, OK, we we've done everything
00:46:27
with this franchise, but what about the multiverse?
00:46:29
And I'm and I'm I'm so sick of the multiverse.
00:46:32
I don't want to I don't want to see it in another thing ever
00:46:34
again. But we're going to in every
00:46:36
project now. Next month it's like.
00:46:39
That's when you know that a writer's run out of ideas.
00:46:41
That's also the problem, Hollywood, yeah, It's when it's
00:46:44
successful once, then they got to do it a million times and
00:46:46
write. It, but it's a it's a common
00:46:48
comic book thing too, I think you, you have a character, you
00:46:51
run them through a bunch of different story arcs and stuff
00:46:53
and then you run out and you go, what about a different version
00:46:56
of the timeline where this happened?
00:46:58
And you're like, all right, just reboot, reboot it.
00:47:00
And that's what happens a lot in comic books.
00:47:01
They'll have a big multiverse event that resets everything,
00:47:05
and now we're back to square 1, you see.
00:47:06
Desi like every 10 years. Yeah, well, well, they're
00:47:08
movies. It's like every three now they
00:47:09
can't. So yeah, we.
00:47:12
Just accept it. Yeah, it's right now.
00:47:14
It's hard to kind of nerd out about a ton, but there's some
00:47:18
cool stuff coming up that I'm interested in, so we'll see how
00:47:20
that Avatar movie is. The Deadpool Wolverine looks
00:47:25
good. So excited.
00:47:27
Yeah. I kind of hope that that resets
00:47:29
the universe. I don't know if it will,
00:47:31
probably won't, but. From what I understand it's
00:47:34
supposed to be Deadpool kills but he's killing off like the
00:47:37
entire Fox universe. Well, that's not what we want.
00:47:41
I'm OK with that. But I don't know, I liked X2.
00:47:46
Looking back, that original trilogy of X-Men movies is
00:47:49
better than most of the Marvel stuff coming up, right?
00:47:51
No. No, man, the X-Men movies, and
00:47:53
we're gonna get into a philosophical debate here, but I
00:47:56
mean, the X-Men movies to me felt more like mutant movies
00:48:00
that were not related to the X-Men but shared the names of
00:48:03
the characters. I guess.
00:48:06
That's a little harsh. It was stylistically very
00:48:08
different, I mean. Not only the style, like there
00:48:11
are a lot of characters that were not the same or like
00:48:14
Jaggernaut was an actual mutant in their universe.
00:48:17
Jaggernaut's not a mute. But that's nitpicky.
00:48:18
Come on, man. It's.
00:48:19
Not just nitpicky, that's like all of X3 was terrible.
00:48:23
Easy, easy. But then we got.
00:48:25
To our Phoenix and they've never made the Phoenix correctly.
00:48:28
They've never done Phoenix. Right.
00:48:29
Well, they just did X-Men 97. Right.
00:48:31
Well, that's different though. I'm saying live action.
00:48:33
Right, right, right. Yeah, OK.
00:48:34
Live action X-Men 97 is a masterpiece, yeah.
00:48:38
A little weird to bring back a show that's 27 years old.
00:48:40
Yeah, but they did it in the right way though.
00:48:42
Sure, but also like if the boomers brought back I Love Lucy
00:48:46
not a reboot like a new season, wouldn't we all be like what
00:48:48
it'd. Be that'd be weird because
00:48:50
there's no Lucy. No, it'd be like a new actor.
00:48:52
And yeah, yeah, OK, I guess we're just picking up where we
00:48:55
left off. Like, yeah, X-Men 97 is not for
00:48:58
me. It's I I'm sure it's good.
00:49:00
I hear it's great. Yeah, as an X-Men fan, cuz it
00:49:03
picks up, it does pick up exactly where it left off, But
00:49:06
they start incorporating all the new storylines since then.
00:49:10
Yeah. And they do it in a way that
00:49:12
honors both the animated series and the comics.
00:49:14
Yeah. Which is very rare.
00:49:16
Yeah. And then the voice actors that
00:49:19
did become newer characters 100%, like honored those
00:49:25
original voice actors. So it's like, yeah, it's great.
00:49:29
All right, let's wrap this up because we gotta get moving.
00:49:32
If you wanna talk more with Griffin about any of this stuff
00:49:36
or talk about his projects, which you're in this building
00:49:39
over here, every building right here, anime building, that's
00:49:41
what we're calling it, anime building.
00:49:43
All right. So that's some difficult
00:49:45
questions for you. You've answered these ones
00:49:47
before in the past. OK, follow up on this one too.
00:49:49
Sure, right. Just kind of change it up a
00:49:51
little bit. What is your favorite kind of
00:49:54
Taco? Crispy Taco actually at Los
00:50:00
Panchos Tacos in Pleasant Hill, where which I'm gonna go get
00:50:03
later. Today, there we go.
00:50:04
It's been a couple of years. Yeah.
00:50:06
Yeah. Crispy tacos for sure.
00:50:07
Nice. It's a awesome question on that.
00:50:09
What is your favorite kind of Filipino food?
00:50:12
And. Where are we gonna get it around
00:50:14
here? We'll find it around here.
00:50:17
We'll find. We'll head up to Marin County.
00:50:20
What's? Oh gosh.
00:50:22
Favorite we'll go to see in your Seasick Man like an hour away
00:50:25
from. Here.
00:50:25
Oh, is there OK, man? Probably Afizada.
00:50:31
Afizada, probably. Really.
00:50:32
Yeah. Yeah, it's pretty great.
00:50:34
I got some bunsit right there. Not I don't like bunsit.
00:50:36
It's too sour for me, yeah. I gotcha.
00:50:39
I gotcha. All right.
00:50:41
So what's some what's some advice you might have for
00:50:44
anybody trying to get into the industry aside from the stuff
00:50:46
that we've already talked about? Reconsider.
00:50:48
Reconsider. It's so good, it's.
00:50:52
Not for you. Yeah, it.
00:50:53
Might not be. You might be happier doing
00:50:56
literally anything else but. It's good.
00:51:00
Yeah, who wins in a street fight?
00:51:02
No Holds barred, Jericho or Bosch.
00:51:06
We had the same question I feel like last time.
00:51:07
Jericho. Jericho has Psychic, he'll
00:51:11
destroy Bosh. It's not even you.
00:51:14
Got to pick another character next time.
00:51:16
OK, YY, who's going to win? Yankee?
00:51:18
No. Powers.
00:51:19
Yankee has no powers, dude. Yeah.
00:51:21
That's why don't. You he mentioned.
00:51:23
Underestimate Gankee. He made, he mentioned earlier,
00:51:25
he's like, yeah, well, you were in Spider Man, so, you know, you
00:51:27
can save yourself. I'm like, yeah, but Gankee has
00:51:28
no powers. Yeah.
00:51:30
Gankee's just a kid. Nope.
00:51:32
He's a smart kid, but he's just a kid.
00:51:34
Jericho's probably the most powerful character I've.
00:51:37
You ever played? Probably.
00:51:38
Yeah, probably. He has a he has a bad ass dad
00:51:42
too. What's what's next for you man,
00:51:45
Kong wise or anything that is not under NDA?
00:51:48
I'll be at Anime Idaho in July 4th of July weekend.
00:51:55
What's coming up that I can talk about?
00:51:56
St. Fatal Fury.
00:51:58
City of Wolves is coming out in 2025 which is a while from now
00:52:01
but play that when it comes out. Blue Exorcist season 3 just
00:52:05
wrapped. I'm Lucifer in that, yeah, Demon
00:52:13
King Academy is streaming right now in Crunchyroll.
00:52:16
I'm in that. That's the only thing on the top
00:52:19
of my head. OK, All right.
00:52:21
And then where can everybody find you, follow you, if they
00:52:24
wanna keep up on all things Griffin Platu?
00:52:27
You can just search up my name at Griffin Puatu on Twitter and
00:52:30
Instagram, Yeah. YouTube, YouTube.
00:52:33
Follow them on YouTube. We do.
00:52:35
I'm going to tell you guys, do it.
00:52:37
It's worth it. Awesome.
00:52:38
Thank you so much. Thank you so much for.
00:52:40
Having me again. Yeah, absolutely.
00:52:41
Let's get a round of applause for Griffin.
00:52:42
Yeah. Thanks again brother.
00:52:45
Not bigger, bigger. Well, we hope you enjoyed this
00:52:57
week's comic conversation. This was the production of the
00:53:03
Distance Nerding podcast and Time for Tacos Media.
00:53:06
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00:53:11
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00:53:14
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00:53:17
Thanks and keep nerding together.