Crispin Freeman Interview This interview was included on the U.S. DVD release of Slayers Premium. Please do not copy the contents of this interview to any other website; you may, however, use one or two quotes for good purposes. Sandra Krasa, the Producer/Director of the English language version of the movie, was the interviewer. -- Crispin Freeman: I guess I was scared a little bit, coming back because Zelgadiss was the first main character I ever played and because I did him so long ago and because so much has happened since then. I was worried that I wouldn't necessarily sound- I mean, it would be like Sean Connery now trying to go back and do James Bond, where you go "Ahhh....no, that's not gonna fly." I was worried that it might be sort of difficult and I was at home watching the old Slayers episodes before I came, trying to figure out, "what was I thinking?" because I'm a different actor than I was back then. So I got in the booth and I was like, "Okay, let's see what happens here." The first line came out and you played it back for me and I was like, "Oh yeah, I remember this." In many ways it was the same experience I had as when I was first dubbing, because the first time I ever dubbed, I was so used to watching anime in Japanese or with somebody else's voice, not MY voice- MY voice is coming out of that character?! It's sort of odd. The first time they played back me, having dubbed Zel in an episode, they played it back and it was like, "Oh my god! But he doesn't even look like me! But it's my voice! That's sort of strange, but okay, I can work with it." That was sort of the feeling I had here, it was like, "I did this once upon a time, and wow, it actually pretty much sounds the same. Well, that's good, it means I-" Sandra Krasa: You described it as putting on some old clothes... CF: Yeah! It was like going into your closet and finding these old pair of clothes that you remember wearing and putting them on and realizing that they still fit! Like, "I can wear these. These actually fit. All right, let's go party." That's sort of what's wonderful about Zel; we'd be doing it and I'd be either tired or something; sometimes I would be doing shows out of town, so I'd have to like fly in for the weekend to do Zelgadiss, and we were doing Irresponsible Captain Tylor, too; we were doing all sorts of shows, and they were like, "Okay we need to do two hours of Zel" and I'd be like, (crosses arms and makes grumpy face) "Okay." And you know, it was always the sort of stance (crosses arms again), and I know that Lisa says the same thing about when she tries to do Lina, that sometimes she's worried she's not gonna find the voice, so she sort of goes, (streches), and she goes, "All right!" and she's in it. It was sort of the same thing. I basically walked in the booth, crossed my arms, and was like, "Yeah. It's Zel time. All right, who wants a Ra Tilt? Let's go." SK: The CG animation was something a little different, I think. I hadn't seen it before, in Slayers Premium, so talk a little more about that. Did you like it? Did you think it added to it? Or did you think it was some sort of take off on other things? CF: It
was really cool because I think the Japanese are usually
pretty savvy about only using CG when it's appropriate or
when it's gonna get the effect that they really want. So,
I don't know... A similar thing happened with the GAINAX
studio that did Eva, when they did FLCL. It was like the
GAINAX studio finally got their hands on computers and
they said, "Let's push it; let's see what we can do
with these things." and FLCL is just an acid trip;
it's amazing. I think that's probably what happened with
Slayers; they said, "Oh cool, we have this new thing
that we can do." It's sort of like adding a
subwoofer to the mix; we can put this new thing in, so
let's see what we can do with it. They were really slick
in the way they were handling things like Gourry's bullet
time, and the whole underwater environments that they
could push through in some of the water effects because
that's the sort of stuff that CG's really good at. CG's
really good at doing complicated effects animation or a
lot of water stuff. Even though a lot of the water is
still done 2-D, when it's supposed to look natural, but
when it's supposed to look magical, then they bring in
the computer to give it this sort of otherwordly feel,
which I think is actually quite savvy of them. SK: That's what I'm wondering. How would Naga come into the mix. What would she do with the mix? CF: I don't know. That's the problem; it's sort of like putting together roast beef and sushi; it may be really good, but maybe it wouldn't be good at all, who knows? SK: You might vomit. CF: That might not be so good. But it would be sort of interesting and I think that's the power of Slayers, is the sort of inter-character dynamics between the different people in the show. That's what's interesting to see. SK: I agree with you, because generally in Slayers, the same type of action, the same plot is happening all the time. CF: What are you saying? SK: I know. But you love them. You want to go back and see them. They're like your friends. So I think it would be interesting to have a mix. Naga is the one we love to hate; she's got the obnoxious laugh, but there is something very endearing about her. I would love to see that. So if you could imagine, now, we're doing a whole new series of Slayers with Naga in the mix. Where would you like to see it go? CF: Oh my lord... You know, that's a hard call because they sort of started to exhaust the possibilities in the different worlds and the sort of missions they can go on. If we're gonna stick with the idea of relationships, clearly the next place it needs to go is I Love Lucy. It's that you've got two couples, I mean, because they pushed that off for so long, that it seems like the next step is to say, "All right let's say that Lina and Gourry are one dysfunctional couple, and Ameria and Zel are another dysfunctional couple, and then let's-" SK: We'd have Xelloss and Naga. CF: Oohhhh that would be a scary combination. But yeah, there would be some sort of thing going on there because... Well, that's what was cool from the second series was Martina; she would get very easily romantically obsessed with one character or another, and that sort of set off really good fireworks in people. So you could have all sorts of weird jealousies and bickering and who gets to be with who and da da da da da and yeah. Although you might end up jumping the shark, like they did with Moonlighting, where they finally get together, and then it's not so interesting anymore. So I don't know; it's really hard. I do not assume to be good enough to write for Slayers, but I'm sure people would love to see it. SK: Talk to me about your character, Zelgadiss, and particularly why it was so important for you to come here to Houston to do that, because that was a really big deal. CF: Yeah. Zelgadiss was the first major character that I ever played in dubbing anime. I'm sure many people have heard a million times the story about how I got into anime, and it's on my website and all that good stuff. Basically, what it came down to was that I finally got to audition, and the show that was up for audition was Slayers, and I actually had seen a little bit of it before, and wasn't really into it. I didn't understand it; I hadn't seen enough of it, and it was just for bit parts. I played these two little bit parts in the beginning of the second halft of the first season; it's all very complicated. Basically I played this guy, Prince Hallas, and then this actor, and I can't remember, I did something else. Then Zelgadiss came back; he had been gone, and they missed the actor somehow. There had been a two-year break between the first half of the first season and the second half of the first season, and in that two-year break, they'd lost contact with some actors, so Zelgadiss was up again. So, I didn't know Slayers very well, but I remember saying, "Oh, that's the blue guy, right? Yeah, he's cool, I wanna audition for him. I'll play the blue guy." So, I auditioned for it and got it and played it. It was a little weird, too, because there were people who were critical because I didn't sound like the original guy; you know, I sounded different from him, the original American guy. I was like, "Well, I can't sound like the original Japanese guy, I mean, he's in Japan." But yeah, it didn't sound like the original, they were upset, but after a while, they said, "Oh, we sort of like this; this works; this is cool." And I got really sort of attached to him. It was so long ago, now it feels that we've did that; I've done so many different shows since then, and I've moved to L.A., and I'm doing a bunch of stuff out there. When this sort of came around through the grapevine, it was like, "Oh god, I'd really like to go back and visit it." But I wanted to, too; I wanted to go back because he's sort of my boy. SK: So you came back here to Houston, a place where you have never recorded; but you have worked here before. CF: Yes, I was here years ago doing a show at the Alley Theater; we were doing Hay Fever at the Alley Theater. Actually, I was in contact with ADV at that time, and we had tried to work out me coming in and doing some work on a show, but the schedules never worked out because I was in the theater 24/7, so it didn't happen. So, I missed my chance then. SK: We love having you here, and you got to meet your costars in this cast last night. Talk about that a little bit; being reunited with Luci Christian, who you know, who plays Ameria, and then Cynthia Martinez as well. CF: Yeah, this will be the third Ameria. There was a first Ameria; the second Ameria was played by Veronica Taylor, and now the third Ameria will be Luci. Luci and I were in the show together, in Hay Fever in the Alley and there's actually a picture of us on my website which is very funny. She played this sort of young, ditzy flapper girl, and I played this sort of slightly effeat, slightly bored rich kid who basically starts using her as a pawn to torture my father. It was really great, since I hadn't seen Luci since that show, and I remember I was into anime back then, and she was like, "I don't get this sort of anime thing" and she wasn't quite understanding. And now of course she's deep in it; I got her on the Internet and was like, "Ah, you can't escape now; you've entered the anime world! There is no escape! Gravity draws you in; no light can escape!" It's done. It's over. So it was really great to see Luci last night, and to finally meet Cynthia, because I had heard about her, but had never actually met her. That's part of what was really cool about the TV show when we did it in New York, was I got to meet the other actors, and there was this sort of comradery chemistry, because we knew who the other one was. We'd leave jokes for each other in the booth; constantly, we'd leave dirty jokes as alternate takes to see if we could throw the other person. It was very nice to be able to sort of have dinner with Lina and Ameria and go, "Oh cool, so this is the new crew, here we go, let's go cast some Dragu Slaves." That was fun. SK: (speaking about a video clip) That segways nicely into the relationship between Zelgadiss and Ameria. For those people watching that don't really know, like the TV series, talk about that. CF: Don't know?! Who doesn't know the TV series?! It's true; people might not know the TV series. SK: Just refresh people because it's been a long time. Maybe their relationship has changed a little over these years. CF: Well, clearly something has changed, because we end Slayers TRY, the third series, with a shot of Zelgadiss walking- total spoilers; turn off the DVD now if you don't want spoilers -with Zel leaving with Ameria's little arm bandy-thingy on his sword, sort of indicating that the two of them are an item. And now I'm gonna be flamed on the Internet for like, days, because that is the big battle- who ends up with who? "Oh, no, Zel could never end up with Ameria, she's so blah blah blah blah blah" or who knows? I didn't write the show, I just acted. Clearly Ameria and Zel in whatever way they are, dysfunctional or otherwise, are some sort of complimentary couple- the girl who strikes with the hammer of justice- SK: But they seem to be butting heads, at least in Zelgadiss' world. She irritates him. CF: Absolutely. SK: There's that fire there. There's that passion that- CF: Opposites attract! (after clip of Lina and Gourry fighting over octopus) CF: Octopus doesn't do so much for me. I'm a big sushi eater; I eat a lot of sushi, but octopus... not so much. It's sorta chewy; a little tough. If we were dealing with vension we'd call it "gamey." Octopus doesn't do so much for me. So, I didn't have to research that very much; I can just sort of tap in to that dislike of octopus. CF:
Zelgadiss is part chimera. I have to get this right; he's
a third human, a third golem, a third chimera. And that's
where the stone rock thing comes from. He is also of
shamanistic magic, which is radically different from
Lina, who is black magic, which I think is very
interesting, having the main heroine of the show be
casting black magic. Whereas Ruuma is white magic.
Shamanistic magic differs in that shamanistic magic is
more concerned with spells that are on the astral plane,
or the ethereal plane. The most powerful spell that
Zelgadiss casts is called the Ra Tilt. The Ra Tilt is
designed to attack your astral body, not your physical
body. So, it's not as useful against say, humans, as it
is against monsters, or mazoku, or any other sort of
otherworldly being. That's where Zelgadiss sort of really
comes into his own, is when he's fighting something that
is not in human shape. But he's also got some other good
ones; he's got Digger Bolt; he's got Astral Vine, which
makes his sword look all cool and do slick stuff. He's
got some other tricks up his sleeve. SK: He beat Lina?! CF: It was that time of the month. I don't think they ever messed with it again, but it was basically that time of the month, and she couldn't cast spells as powerful as she usually could. Zel actually clocks Lina very early in the series. This was actually before I was playing Lina. A little interesting tidbit that never comes up again. SK: Talk a little about the Octopese that you had to speak in Premium. You had to make up this gibberish. CF: Yes! I had a little help from the script, a little guiding light here and there. "Rotten fish paste." But there's always room for improvement. But we made up some of them, you know, like, "vegetable aluminum siding sequence," which rolls off the tongue very nicely, I might add. I'm not sure what it means in Octopese, but I'm sure it's something very complimentary, clearly. Nothing about your mother, or anything. Yeah, we had to do a little Octopese here and there, and basically trying to come up with the most random Monty Python, whatever you might need to, you know, get the intention across. You know, it's like, when you watch anime in Japanese, you turn the subtitles off, you can get the feeling, even though you don't understand the words. In this case, you can understand the words, but you sort of have to ignore that in order to get the feeling. So it's sort of a different type of... sort of anti-dubbing. SK: Well, a lot of the actors had a lot of trouble with that. Actually thought it was so easy to just pull random words out of their head, and they were like, "Oh my gosh, I can't believe how hard this is." CF: It's tough. It's easy to do absolute gibberish, like (speaks in gibberish). SK: We should have used that for the octopus. CF: We should have. But that doesn't quite have the same effect as, you know, "butterscotch nose appraiser," which has a certain (French word Argy can't spell) that you can't just get around. SK: What surprised you? CF: One of the things is that Zel's been slightly redesigned. He looks slightly different in Premium, and mostly he's got that line that goes over his eye, which I thought was kind of cool, but would be very difficult, I'd imagine, to animate for an entire three seasons of a TV series. All the designs are modified. They're a little cuter. SK: Lina looks much cuter, I think. CF: Yes. They sort of cutesed them up a little, which I like. That's probably the major different. It does feel sort of like a slightly extended normal episode of Slayers that's just done really, really well, which is great, I think that's the power of Slayers, where you get these quick wonderful vignettes. The only thing's you've never had the smorgasbord of so many characters at once. We don't have Filia, who is in Slayers TRY; she never shows up, but Xelloss is there. Why, I don't know, I think he just likes watching us get the crap kicked out of us. That is probably the main difference is that it's a normal episode except that it's suddenly chop suey and everybody's there, and everybody gets to say they're sort of signature line and go off, which I think is sort of cool and there's nothing deeper than octopus trying to live together. SK: But Naga comes in at the end. CF: We've all been waiting... SK: To see Naga. She had some crazy carnivale-type thing going on on her face; the glasses. CF: Well, wouldn't you if you were underwater eating sushi? SK: I don't know what she's been doing underwater all that time, do you? CF: I thought she was eating. I thought she was having food. (End) |