One of the goals of this webzine is to feature some of the best achievers within their industry. This next entertainer is definitely one of the best in his industry. With a marvelous talent, Liam O'Brien really has a grasp on his craft. He also happens to be one of my own personal favorite voice actors too. In this recent interview, I spoke to Liam via email who was gracious enough to complete this interview with our publication. Let's see how the interview went.
Noreé: Let's get started by talking a bit about your upbringing.
Liam: I was born and raised in New Jersey, on a cliff facing New York City. I spent the school year home in Jersey, and the summers in upstate New York, on rivers and lakes. Which I guess is why I don't talk like a typical Jersey kid (think Tony Soprano). I had a good home, good family- certainly no major adversity in my life. I was very lucky in that respect. Then, there was the 14 years of catholic schooling. Those nuns were an angry lot.
Noreé: When did the acting bug bite you?
Liam: When I was hiding from the football players in high school, I was not an athletic kid, which left me with fewer options, so I wandered into the drama club, on a lark, and that pretty much started me down the acting path. I played Horatio in a 3 hour, uncut high school production of Hamlet. Yikes. That's too much of the Bard for a bunch of 16 year olds!
Noreé: What was your first gig and were you nervous?
Liam: My first paid gig was an Off Broadway production of a play called The Hothouse. It was about the staff in a mental institute, and I got lobotomized by the end of it. I had just finished the undergraduate acting program at NYU, and a teacher just plugged me into the show, which got my theatre career going. I was totally jazzed to get a real shot so early.
But I was more nervous on my second gig, playing the lead in The Cripple of Innishman in a 2000 seat theatre in Salt Lake City. That was big flippin' theater. 2000 people isn't an audience, it's a giant, laughing, gasping organism. That was nail biter.
Noreé: What was it like hearing your voice on a character for the first time?
Liam: Getting to work in the voice over world for games and animation is like running off to play fight pirates with Peter Pan. I often think that I've beaten the man, since I get to wear jeans and a hoody to work, and make a living in the way I do. I have a job that is really just structured play.
I love hearing my voice in roles that are just a perfect fit. It's still thrilling for me. Although I am my own biggest critic, like many actors, and I sometimes think of what I could have done differently.
But mostly, I'm just thinking "woohoo!"
Noreé: You have done many roles. One of your most notable roles is Gaara from "Naruto". What drew you to this character?
Liam: The look of him. A common misconception about our work, for some reason, is that we get to choose the roles we do. I always get asked at the conventions I go to how or why I picked the parts I voice. But that ain't how it works for actors. You show up at an audition, they hand you different characters to try, and you get one or you don't.
But Gaara was one of the few times I saw the character, and said "that one's the one I'm gonna get." I did my homework on Naruto, and checked out a few episodes before I went in to audition, and knew as soon as I saw him that it was a good fit. He's one of my favorites.
Noreé: What was it like playing Gaara?
Liam: It is always fun to get your pent up anger and frustration out while you're acting, and Gaara really delivered in that sense. If I had spent too much time stuck in Los Angeles traffic that day, I'd get to let out all that road rage in the form of a Godzilla-sized cookie dough raccoon. For 2 hours, I could go totally mad. Make believe is fun.
Noreé: Who was your most favorite character to play?
Liam: Oh, number one favorite is too hard. But the handful at the top are Gaara, Nightcrawler in Wolverine and the X-men, Shichigoro in Afro Samurai: Resurrection, and Fukuyama in Girls Bravo.
That's another reason I love the VO business. I get to play totally different characters in the same day. In the morning, I might be a blue teleporting elf, and then in the afternoon, switch to a Martian Marine. Other kinds of acting don't offer such constant variety.
Noreé: What was your hardest role?
Liam: Fukuyama in Girls Bravo; especially in the earlier episodes. Having fun and acting like a doofus is easy, but the unrelenting energy he took could get difficult after a while. But I never had more fun destroying myself; another notch on the belt.
Noreé: You also voice in a lot of videogames. Have you ever played any of the games you voiced in?
Liam: YEEEEESSS! Although less these days, since I am a father. Between work and parenting, my free time for games has slowed to a trickle. But I directed the VO for Resident Evil 5, as well as doing some VO for it, and I cannot wait to get my hands on the finished product!
Noreé: What advice would you give to aspiring voice actors?
Liam: There's no one way to do it. I could go on at length about it, but the bottom line is that you have to study to be an ACTOR, first and foremost. It's not all about funny voices, even though that comes into play. I direct too, and I know what casting agents and directors are looking for. Good actors. Other than that, figure out where the work is done, and then move to that city.
Noreé: Finally do you have final words to our readers?
Liam: Thanks for listening, guys! It is very rewarding for us to know that you all love watching these shows as much as we love making them!
Oh, and… sand kills. So be careful at the beach, folks.
