Voicing The Clone Wars

Have you been watching Star Wars: The Clone Wars on Cartoon Network? This past Friday was an episode called “Rookies” which features a group of clones standing guard  alone on a distant listening outpost.

But did you know that that entire troop of clones was all voiced by one person?

Dee Bradley Baker is a veteran voice actor with hundreds of credits ranging from American Dad and Avatar: The Last Airbender to Ben 10: Alien Force and My Friends Tigger & Pooh. But for Star Wars: The Clone Wars, Bradley had to find a way to voice a number of similar characters, while still giving each of them a unique identity.

Bradley says the not-so-simple trick is to make all of the clones sound the same … but different.

“We start with a basic core voice like Rex, then we take into account the personality traits that are built into that character,” Baker says. “Some are younger and rougher around the edges, or older and more cynical. So we attach an adjective or two to each one, then we record each one separately, giving each character a different feel.”

While Baker already has a library of thousands of voices in his head, he says it’s not difficult adding to the catalog and quickly referencing those intonations – even when there are so many clones, each of whom is subtly different.

“As you go through the recording sessions, you become familiar with the different feel of each character, so they really become individuals and it’s surprisingly easy to recreate each one once you’ve done it for a while,” Baker says. “When you paint a picture or write a book, each character you create becomes this little polished thing, so when you come back to it there’s this immediate familiarity. To that end, voicing all the clones is not as difficult as it seems.”

While most of Baker’s clone characters are recorded separately, he sometimes voices multiple clones at once, depending on the complexity of the dialogue and the number of clones in the scene. Baker says he wants to ensure there is enough separation for the viewer to make the distinction between the characters’ voices.

“It’s a great acting challenge to give these guys an individual sense of humanity,” Baker says. “One of the outstanding things about this series is that we’re giving the clones a sense of identity that they never had before. I think humanizing the mass of soldiers is  really interesting and a wonderful addition to the storytelling.”

Watch Star Wars: The Clone Wars Fridays at 9:00 on Cartoon Network.

TM & © 2008 Lucasfilm Ltd. All rights reserved.