STARS-verse Dreamcast

Always fun to imagine who could voice the characters in your works, and that's what this post is for. I should note certain voice actors are different from the ones Evil Writer selected for his Quick Strike-verse, and that this is just how these characters would sound per my setting. I ended up hitting upon the idea of having different VAs for STARS, especially since some of the characters have gotten touched up for my AU.

Hoping to be able to do one of these for almost every story I have featuring OCs, or fics where a character doesn't have a voice actor for whatever reasons.

I'll update this list every time I post a story with new characters.

Lord Death: Oded Fehr
Roles: Ardeth Bay (the 1999 The Mummy), Ras Al Ghul (Young Justice).

I think he's done more voicework at this point than live action roles? My selecting him was a nod to the character's Middle Eastern roots in the QS series. I feel he could successfully portray a sinister, domineering, cold sorcerer. 

Lady Dread: Bebe Neuwirth 
Roles: Lilith (Frasier, Cheers, Wings), Mirage (Aladdin), Belladonna (All Dogs Go To Heaven: The Series).

Randomly remembering Mirage one day was what nailed Neuwirth as Dread's VA. Dread isn't as over the top the way Mirage is all the time, but I think Neuwirth could easily dial it back some as needed. She sounds playfully sinister and elegant, all the while relishing the idea of mowing down the good guys or any innocent people who get in her way for for kicks (yes, she will be a reoccurring villain). 

Zaygos: Robert Englund 
Roles: Scarecrow (Injustice 2), Freddy Krueger (og A Nightmare On Elm Street series).

If you're a horror fan, then you already know who this guy is. One October I was watching the (really fascinating) documentary Never Sleep Again, which is about the Elm Street movies. I thought "Y'know, t'd be a nice little nod and a wink if the OC bad guys in STARS had VAs who were known for being horror villains." The perfect Zaygos voice would be a mixture of Anti-Pops from Regular Show and the Khan in The Master of Orion.

The jury's still out on Kaymat, Vile, and Lustfox, though I have a couple of potential choices for Lustfox. 

Tyron: Liam Neeson 
Roles: Oskar Schindler (Schindler's List), Qui-Gon Jin (the Star Wars prequels). 

What else can you say about Liam Neeson? He was a shoe-in for Tyron all way back in the day thanks to the movie Rob Roy. The man's voice just exudes regal gravitas.

Aurora: Drew Barrymore 
Roles: Danielle (Ever After), Josie Geller (Never Been Kissed).

Another voice actor carried over from the QS-verse verse. Sweet, but not a pushover, with down to earth, and -- call me stereotypical for saying this -- girl next door energy. 

Cyan: Rob Paulsen 
Roles: Holy crap, just go and watch a cartoon, especially one from the late 80s-'90s.

I've already discussed this dude here before and why I like him so much. I think he's talented and versatile enough to devise a voice that could fit Cyan in this "What if my fanfics were an actual animated series" scenario.

Streetwise: Daveed Diggs 
Roles: Marquis de Lafayette and Thomas Jefferson (Hamilton), Andre Layton (Snowpiercer).

Diggs ultimately won out because his portrayal of Lafayette has such a cheeky, energetic vibe I thought fit Streetwise perfectly. He also succeeds in not sounding like an American putting on a corny French accent.

Dama: She's been more of a tricky character to cast, but a friend of mine ultimately landed upon these four actresses. Either Laura Fraser, Karen Gillan, Sharon Rooney, or Amy Manson

Laura Fraser 
Roles: Kate (A Knight's Tale), Lydia Rodarte-Quayle (Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul).

Karen Gillan
Roles: Amy Pond (Doctor Who), Kaylie Russell (Oculus).

Sharon Rooney
Roles: Rae Earl (My Mad Fat Diary) Lawyer Barbie (Barbie).

Amy Manson
Roles: Merida (Once Upon A Time), Maladie (The Nevers).

Looking over the profile EW wrote for Dama as well as reading the fics she's appeared in, I landed on her characterization here as someone who's inwardly torn about her heritage at times, but also fearless and ready to face down trouble with a can-do attitude and cleverness. So a voice actress would have to successfully embody those qualities. The only one I'm actually familiar with is Frazier and Gillan.

I don't have anyone for either Eric or Blades yet. For the latter, I'd prefer a authentic Japanese actress. I've had a couple of ideas for Eric, but am still in the process of sussing them out. Originally Tom Hanks was going to be Powerplay, but now I'm considering a younger voice actor who's a native Canadian. I have no shortages of choices there to choose from.

Oh, FYI, Professor Hubert's og voice actor, David Doyle, passed all the way back in 1997, so EW brought up the idea of recasting Hubie in the QS-verse. My own personal choice for STARS? Jeffrey Combs.

The context behind that scene is super unhinged (an understatement), but that's still like the standout line for me in that movie.

Sled dogs took me down a rabbit hole

Recently and very randomly I've been thinking about the movie Balto at work (when you're not having fun, what else is there to do but replay movies in your head, lol?). Such a good movie -- James Horner's beautiful score, animation, vocal performances, just about everything. 

I was also thinking about the characters, including three certain ones -- Nikki, Kaltag, and Star. They're my favorites, although I like everybody mostly (with two certain exceptions). Even though they gave Balto a lot of crap, their saving grace was 1) actually being funny, and 2) having their own thing going on between the three of them. They're like the movie's Greek chorus. Like in the scene where Balto and Steele are fighting, or rather, Steele is just manhandling Balto, I'm not laughing at what Balto's going through as much as I am Nikki and Kaltag's cold commentary on everything (before they realize both Steele's sanity and competence are highly questionable). I'm finding that I tend to be more forgiving of bully/antagonist type characters if they're actually funny and that humor isn't solely based around them making fun of another character (there's at least one other character I like that falls into this category I'm probably going to be talking about in the future. I have a feeling it's gonna be a somewhat controversial post). The trio's other saving grace was that they put the job ahead of themselves, unlike Steele, and they started really respecting and rooting for Balto after the "fight" scene.

That snowballed into my going on YouTube and watching couple of videos about the movie. Then I decided to see if I could possibly find any voice acting compilations (something I enjoy doing because it's fun -- I've always been interested in voice actors, and even as a kid would get excited if I recognized voice actors in the shows I watched) for Jack Angel, who voiced Nikki (the gold/cream-colored member of the trio). This led my discovering that he apparently died all the way back in 2021. 😞 This was the only thing my search turned up. It's... not very extensive:

 

There's also a lot of Transformers related stuff for him as well. I'm wondering if it's because many of the series and movies he was in aren't available online/or maybe they're copyrighted by whoever owns the rights and they don't want people posting clips? 

Whatever it is, it sucks. I dunno, feels like a lot of older voice actors from the early nineties and before that time don't get their dues these days. Also, I miss it when animated movies and shows would use professional voice actors alongside celebrity voices (and quite a few shows predominantly used professional VAs). Now just about all you see are celebrity voices. Did we really need Rosie Perez to speak only one or two lines of dialogue for a character that only ever showed up one time in Elena Of Avalor?

Well, here's to you, Mr. Angel. And dear reader(s), if you've never seen Balto before, go watch it.