Jeff Nimoy: Digimon Adventure, Tri, and Data Squad (Full Interview)

0:00 so to begin I suppose I should explain what's happening for your many adoring fans who will be listening to this yeah please I'd like to hear more about what you're up to your website all everything that's going on with the these role-playing games which I have very little knowledge of that let them know about it okay I'll introduce myself in hello Internet I am the nerd known as the ponder scourge online yeah I'm a lot lifelong Digimon fan as demonstrated by my Digimon the movie DVD I have right next to me with Jeff Nimoy written on it oh did I sign that for you fine no I know it just it has your name plastered all over it oh okay you you did like all

0:45 the roles director writer voice um I it actually came with this nice little loss mall poster too anyway so I mean here Digimon fan what tell did you went crash ah sorry what what tell me you in where do you live what whoa I'm on the east coast in Connecticut I go to college Pennsylvania however I'm currently taking a semester off to focus on other things so now I'm home and I'm working and I'm actually working with a publishing agency at the moment well if I'm ever at a convention near you bring that poster in I'll be happy to sign it that would be awesome I've had that thing for over a decade now awesome

1:32 so what I've been doing recently is about a month ago I was like you know what I just thought it's really touching teen with Tantallon and Digimon and it really is warm my heart and like I've loved Digimon all these years and I've never like been able to interact with anyone about it like all of my friends growing up liked it but they would never talk about it so it was like up for me yes so I was like I bet online I bet someone out there online would like to do a role-playing game I haven't done one of those really in a long time uniting it back into it so I started it off as a couple people I had like two people willing to play with me and then over the course of a week I had like 10 thousands views I was confused where all of these people came from

2:17 that's what's incredible I love it so the game is it's actually kind of interesting I I was like I don't want to like oh you're the hero and you know you're going to win the day I was like you're going to be the rival you're that guy who constantly has to face the hero and get kicked off that you know hey they get all these plot devices to make them win at the last moment and you're actually trying here okay so it's kind of like a flip of the normal thing and it it took off so I'm surprised I'm happy I'm content I'm glad I'm glad any time I mean it's a long time now since Digimon started to me back in I'm guessing 99 98 I don't even remember to

3:04 take it the truth so really long time so I'm glad that people are you know still into it and that you can get that kind of response from something new you know to keep to keep it going and of course you know we just started digimon try again so digimon will not die and i'm very happy about that you know a finger prop that trying to go as well like i don't know if you've been keeping up with their like for movies in in japan right now and we're playing a joke well you know i don't know that much about it because i'm no longer writing and directing Digimon I just quote unquote just acting just playing tent Amman and probably carry mom alright I was

3:50 actually going to ask you about that in all the listings that only says tent Oman so I was worried no commentary Mona I've already voiced him in the first session I don't think he was in my second session but I've only had two sessions so far and as you Mon try and they both went very well and it was nice hearing my friends talking back to me over the speaker's like Tom Fong playing Agumon and Coleen O'Shaughnessy from Sora it was very nice hearing them even though I don't get to sit and direct them all again you know which was always fun for me but you know I'm still glad to be involved even though they didn't ask me to write and direct I have no idea who's writing try but whoever's doing it all I

4:37 can tell you is they've nailed tenth Imams dialogue I'm glad to hear that yeah you know I used to you know be accused of writing tend to model the best lines because I planned and I say well you know you write you can give a writing job if you put a great better lines for your character but um whoever's doing it I think gentleman's lines have been very funny so far in ten two months almost like you know comedian and so far in that in the two sessions I've had so whoever's writing them is doing a great job as far as I'm concerned I that was actually always one of my favorite parts about the original digimon series 10 Tommen and gamma mom especially out of all the partners really felt like they had the most personality and humor to

5:24 them especially a with Gollum on playing off of Joe and yeah 10th imam playing off of Izzy because depending on wasn't like a dummy but it was nice having someone to reign is he in every now and again like better there was even a line off somewhere where it was like earth to Izzy can you explain that in a way that you don't have to be an engineer Thomas there can be no speakers yeah so it was always nice having the Digimon partners that have more of a contrasting personality versus more supplementary right right my voice is a little hoarse today so I can't really quite get up to the tent Amon but uh you know I'll give you a little bit about hey come on

6:10 digivolve to that's about as high as I get today so uh so that's good I'm glad to hear what's going on with you and I like what's happening and congratulations on the great response yeah but thank you you get your corn oh yeah actually uh one of the most popular characters in the entire thing is Pentagon that's fantastic so know it's funny I used to have this little stick I used to have a lot of kids come like to the recording studios because it was quite a popular show back in the day and this is why it was still first run airing you know before you see and people who worked at Fox Kids would bring their kids into the recording booth to see behind the scenes and might

6:55 have this little stick where I'd always ask the kid like you your big fan of tents of Digimon and they all say yes I go who's your favourite digimon and they say almost all would say something like Agumon are minimal statement then I say why don't we stay like Testaments your favorite though right and they'd always really know almost every time you say you know and I just big laugh by you know pretending I was angry and all that football but I'm glad to hear he's actually getting the popular good hey I will note though that I kind of hit him because Digimon shift formed so much he's not like when people saw him they weren't like oh that's 10 toll on they were like oh I like this character but I was actually paraphrasing and quoting 10 to mom's

7:41 dialogues bit for that I researched them meld like okay I want to hide Penta maan amongst the cast and people people loved him and he's actually kind of the driving force behind our current plotline that's great I love it do you remember any of the dialogue um I have some of it up somewhere um hey someone was I eventually revealed I was like this attenti Mon and they're like oh could you like tell us what this man like I gave them like a page Oh Mike yeah ah this is this is all or dear 10th Imam um this is just a petition superhighway as I read stuff I've got to go bloody good I have the yeah game is

8:33 so fast-paced because so many people are taking part in it I actually for like hunt for the page 404 oh all right all right well if you have any questions if you happy to answer them okay so let's start things off with something pretty simple your voice acting and directing which is what almost Digimon fans know you for when you were voicing Penta Mon in his other forms what was the most memorable moment for you as a voice actor oh you know the other forms first of all I was not the original tender mom I don't know a lot of people don't realize that realize

9:18 that your mom Joshua says he played Thai and still plays guy was the original tenth Amman because he was also the original mode Iman so what happened was after I don't know a few episodes maybe six or seven episodes they started realizing this is before I came aboard at all I had auditioned for the show at that point but that didn't get any like main role so uh do you hear that dog barking suck yeah no it's all right I you might get a TV in the background or something as well so I my apologies in advance so what happened was uh the producers started realizing that everything started to sound like Joshua set because he came is playing so

10:04 many rules and they thought let's since I is such a huge role let's not give Joshua anything else it's just that then completely do tired and then leave it at that so they called me in just to do some incidental roles like is he's bad and I think Wendy Lee was directing that day and she said can you boys match what Joshua did here and it was tential model and he was doing something like this so buying a little higher register mms but it was something like that sort of a cross between a Jackie Gleason character and Johnny Carson imitating a Jackie Gleason character so I did it you know

10:53 and they said yeah that's pretty close so I started doing gentleman and eventually this became my own after a few episodes it started becoming my alum which most it happens to most voice acting same way actually you know their voice morphs a little bit if you listen the first episode of the sentence Homer sounds a lot different than what he eventually started to sound like you know I actually uh funny no I just randomly started watching symptoms about a month ago from the beginning and yeah if you kind of get to see the yeah things evolve you know things evolve a little bit as you get a better grasp of the character so then when it was time to play when MODY mom showed up again they were like well you know Josh played

11:39 MODY mom so you might as well do modem on two and if I could not do that voice that Joshua did that I don't even know what you would call it the way he sort of manipulated his voice can your own Iman might act you know I can't do it nearly as well as you did but luckily mode Iman didn't have too much dialogue when I did it but cometary mom was my own because by the time he did evolve the first time I was already playing well into playing gentleman so I just you know I came up with some big gravelly voice you know and you know carbo Terry Mon which is about as high as I as loud and gravelly as I can go so but you know I didn't leave myself any wiggle room to go bigger because I

12:27 didn't know nor did any of us that he would eventually go to Mega Cab uteri mom and now mega combo Terry mom shows up and I'm like I've got nowhere to go I can't go bigger I can't be like you know you know just come on digivolve to Kabu Terry Mon I can't be like like what so yeah so what I thought of was to go with more whispery to keep it big but to make it whispering so it so went to Cabo Terry Monza G mom to Mankato Tammy you know that was the only thing I could think of to keep him large in size but

13:12 you know keep it monstrous without going bigger so that's why mega cometary one has a little whispery so that's what I remember most trying to figure out what mega cobble cherrymon could possibly sound like without me killing myself that would be quite tragic and unfortunate yeah in the news today voice actor Jeff Nimoy guys trying to do mega cobble Barrymore he wouldn't make good headlines just not for you um okay so was there ever a character you would have like the voice in any of those digimon series you know not to diminish whoever did voice them of course but like a character you thought you could have brought something to the table for well you know why auditions for everybody at the beginning I said every actor in town and I auditioned for Matt

14:02 and I happen to know that the producer one of the producers at the time who later became deeper dooster Carrie O'Malley she fought for me to be met but it just didn't happen you know so so I would have loved to play in any of the digidestined really Joe was probably my favorite to write for and he just had so much going on in his life that I would love to play Joe but I doubt I could have done any better than Michael Lindsey who was just fantastic I'm not saying I would have played a better match than Michael Reese I'm just saying I would have loved to play any emember but but you know what I'm very happy with what happened eventually becoming the writer and director I had much more

14:47 you see much more of my creative stamp on Digimon from that angle than you ever would have if I only played one role on Digimon so I'm glad the way things worked out well but that's great to hear I'm personally right or myself so I always loved that in the things so when you were scripting Digimon it kind of related to this did you ever leave the room for or end up having people ad-lib any of the dialogue I'm sure I repeat that when you were writing and scripting for Digimon names in some series and some things the writers will be like interactive here says something funny oh I know unfortunately when you're when you when you're doing it a dubbed anime and meaning is the footage

15:35 already exists you have no wiggle room in fact you have to write every syllable down that the actors like to say because you have only so many lip flaps that they have to fit into you know so you have zero room for improv but every now and then like the just do reactions like you'll you'll see this big action sequence and you'll just tell the actor to just desculpe chase just chase it and they'll they'll just watch the scene and and react as it's happening a big fight scene you're running you know things like that so that is that's about the only time in progress is happening there okay how did you go about coming up with the humor in digimon did you have like a special practice for it

16:21 no you know Bob buckle tonight who me like the bulk of the series together we had a lot of practice doing this kind of thing we both won Emmy Awards for our work with NFL Films and just we basically we both worked a lot with comedy dubbing so we took a lot of old movies and took away all the sound and just created a brand new movie and it was based on what we saw rather than what the script says so everything was based on the physicality you know now so so we had a lot of practice with that now digimon board had a story that already happened in Japan so we followed the story but for the humor a lot of times was either based on something

17:07 physical that we were watching or it was based on just the personalities of the characters which is what a sitcom really is a situation comedy is really working on the characters making these very strong characters and putting them into situations and seeing how they would react in those situations so you know that the better we would build the characters and of course you know Japan built the same characters sometimes we made them slightly different you know personality wise or enhanced so uh so you know the humor would always come out of one of those two things the physicality of what we're watching were the characters until okay

17:52 and now related to that was there anything you can share about was your fellow voice actors which made you laugh like in your recording question oh yeah you know uh countless Steve bloom who everybody knows Steve Mumma this is his second season not the second season one cycle no good season Digimon Data Squad he would just set me up like for dirty outtakes all the time and like like we'd rehearse it once and then you know an actor gets these three beats and then they speak on the fourth imaginary be

18:38 able to take up a timing mechanism so uh he could practice with the line when I wrote and then come out with something completely dirty and just dropped me on the floor laughing so I Crispin Freeman used to do that a lot too in a different show called fetch Belle Oh I grew up loving that smell yeah that was a me as well I think I read every episode Oh what you earned even more replacing my heart I know I directed every episode but I'm pretty sure I wrote either all of them or just maybe one or two that I didn't but but uh yeah and I redirected all those cast all those guys and that was you know that was that was not a I would say it's not

19:24 the best series from the world but we had a lot of fun you know and even at times we would make fun of it you know we were able to like make fun of it and I got to hire all my the people I loved working with you know over and over again and and then I carried that right through the Digimon Data Squad you know brought all my favorites back and did you want - quaddle is probably my favorite series of them all correct and it gets very little love because not a lot of people saw it I'm going to be perfectly honest I have barely seen it it is like a lot of the newer digimon series i a I grew up with some as they were airing and I didn't have the ability to really watch Digimon Data Squad

20:10 so I've seen episode since it's not like I've been 50 yeah that's about well I would encourage people to do that actually because it's got a nice storyline from beginning to end which I kind of like you know really it was the first series also that I got to watch all episodes before I even started writing the first one so I knew where I wanted to wind up in episode 50 before I started where as Digimon they would only give it to us like you know little pieces of the time we could see the end you know so we didn't really know where it was going sometimes we couldn't right out of the box if we wanted to because we didn't want to you know like if I write a different storyline from the

20:55 Japanese in episode 1 I could be in a lot of trouble in episode 52 when they went a different direction but Digimon Data Squad I knew where I had to wind up so all I have to do is stay on that path you know and like it go away a little bit you know which I did a lot you know I would say it's probably the most different from the Japanese of all the series and you know also like I put a lot of Easter eggs you know what Easter eggs are but yeah kind of like how I hid tent them on in plain sight you hit easy in plain sight right there you go so I had a lot of little Easter eggs going on and Digimon Data Squad that a lot of people weren't

21:42 aware of as little sort of tribute to the four seasons of Digimon that preceded it and you know I I couldn't actually come out and say it because I couldn't get approval or didn't want to ask for approval from toei animation because it you know wasn't something they needed to know because I thought would not have gotten approval but once it was over I can talk about it to show you that if you're looking for these things you'll clearly see them like at the end of Digimon Data Squad in my mind like I don't want to give anything away but the final bad guy in Digimon Data Squad was voiced by Mona Marshall who voiced is he you know and I

22:31 did that very purposely I can ask Mona to play like an easy type of computer voice because my idea of the whole thing was that the whole season was just a computer program that is he created to test some theory to save the real world versus the digital world that we're not aware of which is also a little tribute to season 3 where it was all TV show right yeah in Japan it was like a nameless TV show but well I think when it got brought here they actually named you know the actual Digimon show as taking place there right so so my idea

23:17 that it does never does come out but if you're a fan and you know to look for it you'll see the entire thing was just a computer program on his laptop you know and and the whole reason behind that was a tribute to all the seasons and a lot of people are like oh that explains why this character is able to do those things because a lot of people like what makes no sense that Marcus can do these things well Kenneth is just a computer program that makes perfect sense you know yeah I was actually going to bring up the market thing later on like what your thoughts on humans fighting directly or you know taking a more proactive role in a series was like because not in the first few seasons

24:02 they kind of sat on the sidelines right but now you can see you know I had to for a writer it's all about justified you can write anything you want as long as it's justified you know so if I couldn't justify it that way how else am I going to justify it so I made it this character that he wanted to be an ultimate fighter which was becoming very popular at that time now it's called MMA you know mixed martial arts what the times was called Ultimate Fighting and so he was you know I just had him in training to be an awesome on was this also like ready to fight guy and then Marcus seems to be holding his own a because he's a

24:48 really good fighter would be because you know he's just a program is he's testing out you know what I made yeah there you go I know we got off the original subject of that more perfect perfect actors stories about actors in the basement you know these things go off on tangents when you're having a conversation kind of going to your point about being able to plan for data flog if you're in charge of writing a completely new digimon season with full creative control built from the ground up to no executive meddling what do you think you would do like what elements would you bring back what well I sort of had that with Digimon Data Squad another reason why it was my favorite you know I I cast who I wanted I got this in you know I

25:34 couldn't pick the like obviously I couldn't write the Japanese the Japanese was done already for me but I got to adapt it any way I wanted to I really had no interference at all you know I got to select everybody I wanted a lot of times for my casting choices they they wanted to hear what they sounded like before approving them but I always got them trained and but you're talking about like if I was doing an original did you know to like like if you were the Japan you know you're the one who write write a bill is ever iris I would do it very similar to the way I did Digimon Data Squad you know to there is certainly going to be humor but it's not going to be a comedy series it's going

26:20 to be a drama series where with a lot of comedic elements just like my favorite show of all time Breaking Bad you know Breaking Bad as serious as it is hilarious TV show is so much comedy going on it you know what they know when to pull back on that you know but you know use comedy as a release sort of thing you know after this big action you know you just do something that's character based that is so you know it's just like in the Godfather when they shoot a guy and when they say leave the gun take the cannolis I love that line that actually goes back to my ad libbing bit I mentioned before we're set that was the actor just thinking

27:05 back yeah it's just sort of used as a release mechanism the comedy so I would do that of course I would have monsters fighting you know that's classic Digimon what it's all based on and you know the human interaction with them you know the and the team-building you know which is also the climate so I would keep it pretty classic I wouldn't mess too much with the UH with the formula you know I would just try to have you know some crazy kick-ass characters some slightly dim characters and from some super genius characters you know I think the porno is great mean I wouldn't mess with it too much and when you have a franchise like that that has so many fans you know you don't

27:52 want to change it completely because the fanbase will be disappointed so dance with the date that you brought to the dance you know yeah I think that's one of the things that Digimon season for frontier ran into where it was kind of it was taking like the Marcus idea and then making it the entire main cast where they were basically like Power Rangers transforming into Digimon rather than you know the normal formula of human Digimon partner yeah well I never saw it English that might be for the best because even its ardent fans are like yeah I only watched the first half so this one's actually a multi-part question who is your favourite human

28:38 protagonist your favorite villain in your favourite digimon from each of the series you you know been a part of uh well like I said I love Joe I thought Joe is great you know it's not you so much fun to write for Miller from directing him but time is the man you know Joshua said that I'm very close still talked to the same fact I'm the reason he's in try oh really he heard from me that I was doing digimon again and he's living in Florida were Florida the rest of the world who's not from Brooklyn say and I he said what you know how come I'm not involved in

29:23 like will you quit the business Josh that's why he's become a very popular hypnotist he's got a very large sort of Vegas style show where he's a hypnotist and he sort of gave up on voice-acted mostly because he live in Los Angeles anymore you know so so he said well you know I've got kids now though and I would love to see I would love to have them see me do a new series you know they could always watch the Digimon DVDs but they they don't have anything new that daddy daddy's in so he he decided to uh he flies in every time they do did you mom try so he flies in and does it so he heard about it through me and I

30:10 told him who to call knew to contact to see if if they'd be interested in using him piece about they makes himself available in Los Angeles and he did so uh some you know I'm sure the fans are gonna be happy Josh's back oh speaking as one when I heard he was coming back I like did a fist bump in the air I was like yeah I was like it won't be the same if you know ty doesn't come back yeah you know well well you're welcome well thank you I I also always found it a bit funny that his last role in Digimon was actually from that series I mentioned frontier where he plays a wizard who uses hypnotism like stuff ah there you go so like when I like heard his voice out

30:58 and then I heard what he was doing these days I was like is that's the best coincidence that could have happened he did a favor for me and and get a guest mimoto on Zach bell but he that legalized I have rejected him so that was season one time kind of either die season two's got to be Davis you know played my buddy Brian Donovan uh you know Davis's alters are so full of you know piss and vinegar and he fought his own intellect you know we do with courage and was able to succeed I just love Gables to death and I mean Digimon Data Squad you know Marcus was really the only protagonist

31:45 from that you know Thomas was also there but those who 2.0 Computer Group oh he was much smarter than that I mean Thomas was it and plus he had a lot more to play off of the ad that whole family history that he was completely competing with you know and Thomas and Marcus together I cast those guys very specifically as well with Quinton Flynn and Christmas fleet Freeman who both both their personalities fit those characters so perfectly and like at conventions you can see there was a tension between them because they fought for the most fans at the convention female hey so I wanted to

32:31 just completely model that dynamic in the shell and I certainly got that so anyway and somebody Dylan's first season had to be ed Amman all played park I Richard had car my buddy Richard who uh played poker with a million times we would take out some buddies together and when we really enjoy working together to this day my character I brought back and what I'm doing as well this because you know how could you not use the Elvis Presley monkey exactly I mean come on that's that's why I use my favorite season two um I don't know mummy mom

33:19 plays like Kirk Norton I'm not sure I my memory got a little she in season two because we were doing a movie at the same time and it was a lot of work doing a 52 episodes season at the same time as doing a major really age of film like that year of my life is almost people are you know I was like exhausted when it was over I was ready to leave Digimon lookup time I was a little worked out um season five did you mom was you know all of the end was the you know the nights in the server king drazen all that built into because I

34:08 knew it was going to wind up as Izzy you know so I knew it was coming already it wasn't something that just came to me I really planned it out so so it was just like really fun to pull off my vision of it at the end you know gee it really come out the way I had hoped it would and it did well glad to hear it so any particular frigimon you like from each of them uh well you know tens a month horses my favorite there's no any close to second on that one on the second season V mine was a lot of fun to write for because he was like exactly

34:53 davises Digimon you know clone you know and season five uh you know I changed Agumon quite a bit Agumon was no longer the Tom Fong Agumon from season one and two I changed because his character was so different I decided he needed a new voice which broke my heart cause complan and I are like brothers and I had to tell Tom you know he's not getting it but I didn't have an audition I gave him every benefit of the doubt I did an audition as both the Agumon we knew and loved and a new voice but in in he just wasn't right for what I was

35:40 hearing and seeing you know and I gave it to Brian peacock and I I loved that character that went along with Marcus they were both much like the beam on Davis relationship they had that same you know Digimon clone he was a fighter he was constantly hungry you know he's a wisecracker so you know I loved automata that season talking a bit more about your favorite what is there like anything like about each of the seasons that you've been a part of that you really like like you know something like some theme or idea or a character interaction that you know you could point to and be like this is what I love about this series ah I see what you're

36:30 saying I see what you're going for right it you know like I've done a lot of shows at this point and and to pull out one moment it's just it's hard for me to recall it just is you know I'm sorry I'm done over probably 500 episodes of TV at this point and you know I might I don't want to start a sentence in saying I love this we miss him and realize oh wait that happens in to show off the other that was I understand but you know that the general overall themes of teamwork was only something I I strove to keep consistent you know when in doubt always bring that back I used to pay you know when you're writing yourself and you don't have something to

37:18 say to for motivation bring back teamwork you know no one could do it alone keep bringing it back you know and that was Marcus's big thing in Digimon Data Squad he wanted to do all alone he couldn't he needed help you know so uh he could he wanted to pull the loner bit but he wasn't actually able to pull it off exactly you said it better than I did so along though like lines of the Digimon and Digimon Adventure two questions this is the last one I have for the but if you could continue the story of is the intent Amon beyond where they left off and Digimon in Digimon Adventure 2 what would you do with their characters friends all you're gonna have to remind me where they left off with

38:04 the energy okay I'm going to me there were seventeen years ago well I'm not sure I should bring up the ending of season two because everyone really seems to hate that myself included no no I got like how it ended but like the epilogue well I have to say I left with four episodes to go in last season so I don't even know myself in fact I don't even play dental mana those four episodes they replaced me with Bob Klein Robert M Klein who played yo mama so I have no idea what happens but I do know from the fans because it's one of the

38:49 questions I get asked most is did you know Matt and Sora were going to wind up together oh yeah I know that's a lot about to bring out fine yeah yeah and and my answer is to that no I had no idea nor did any of the Japanese writers by the way I come to learn that you know that was a complete it was held as a mystery by the creator of Digimon because he didn't want anyone to write towards that end he wanted it to be a surprise and I certainly as a writer would have loved to have known because I completely wrote especially in the movie I completely wrote that Matt at that time Sora were going to wind up married one day you know I I kind of grew up

39:34 with that being my hopes and dreams and yeah and I can the end of season 2 I was like what what hey it's like so big musician god this happened when did this happen why is the musician an astronaut right so uh yeah it bugs me a little bit too but you know I let it rest on tamam no Jeff Nimoy then I acted Destin bug but it's not something I could have changed anyway you know if I still in charge it was nothing I could have done maybe I could have you know maybe I could have alluded to the fact that ty and her broke up and she's going to eat Matt a while but in the end we know she's going to come back to die

40:21 maybe I could have gone that far but uh uh you know what can I tell you I wasn't there to be honest so it seems almost like the writers of trier almost rebelling against that ending because they it takes place years later but they haven't like brought off Sora being with Matt like at all they have you even like interacted so if it still happens it'll be like how did you two ever get together there was no build-up to this yeah I don't know the only part of try I've seen so far our tenth Amman dialogue scenes well okay well kind of since we're on the topic of it I have a couple questions related to try but but I know you don't know about the plot or that stuff so it's more like what's it

41:08 like moistening pencil on again well it's wonderful you know the first day though I came back and I had just come back from a convention I literally got off the plane and I went to this I think I was in Minneapolis I got off the plane and I went to the studio to record and it was very nice you know I had never met this director before nice guy named Ryan and but I couldn't do it my voice was gone so I actually had to come back another day and reavoice it again because it sounds like gentleman with laryngitis which which I'm getting right now as we're speaking so I'm just going to give you the 15 minute heads up here that I'm probably either gonna leave in

41:54 15 minutes so so it was great but one funny thing was Ryan did not know that much about the history of the season the series he knew I was involved but he didn't really know how and all involved I was didn't know I was mr. Digimon you know so this one heroes not high just me what so uh so it came time for ten - fun to digivolve and he said to me uh I'm not sure how they do it I don't know if they speak it or yell it or whatever and I go I got it don't worry I got this just just roll tape

42:40 well I'll mail it anyway so I went to come on digivolve to Kabu tear Iman and he goes are you sure that's how they say it I go yeah jr. I'm pretty sure there you go oh my attitude but I didn't call him that I just said yeah I'm pretty sure I came up with that so don't worry about it I got it so uh that was fun you touched upon it earlier with tenth Imams lines but I was going to ask what it's like voicing a character that someone else is writing now that you use the right for it well first of all it's a load off my mind because it's a lot of work writing and directing and then voicing it but you know obviously you don't have a feel for

43:25 it like as you wrote your reminds you you know exactly the way you're supposed to say them and the rhythm and all that and you know what the other people are saying around you as well if you wrote all their lines so you know you know everything about it and you usually you know only take you know need one take but you know when you don't know what other people are saying or the context of your scene so you need several take some times and you need the director to explain this thing so it was a little weird you know the whole thing of being directed into Iman it's it does get it does take some getting used to you know yeah and I find myself spending most of the session asking Ryan questions like oh is a this an accord you know back to play this character is Laura summer back to play

44:12 this character and and then I leave them little you know they say he says yeah like I said stomp on back to play on the Monty goes yeah he's coming in right after you so then I leave Tom a little notes in the script so that when he gets to that part maybe he'll laugh you know Allie one more old joke with something well it's great to hear that you guys are you know still that close my next question was actually like how what's it like being back and seeing familiar faces you know any heartwarming gradients we should know about well again on Digimon Data Squad we had a lot of that because I was the director but on this it's just me and Ryan you know you only go in one at a time so I haven't seen everybody I haven't seen any by this time around but on Digimon

44:58 Data Squad it was six years later since I had been part of that franchise and the first day we even got the our old engineer Kevin using back and so Kevin's there and even though it was a different studio than the old Fox Skinner Fox kid studios I think Paul st. Peter was my first actor that day we played one episode in season two Paul st. Peter was the actor and we all just looked at each other like can you believe we're doing this again do you boy did he was back in our lives and that was great and that actually started not with Digimon Data Squad what am I saying you see a dull job I'll forget it was actually Revenge of D of warm on so so

45:46 that's what the the actual first my return to Digimon was and it was just kind of crazy how we were all back and just shaking our heads and we were all very happy to be back you know police sampler myself and who else was part of that person and everybody was part of that first revenge of Tia for a mom pretty much and it was just so much fun you know having everybody back at that that was a nice little yuge it's always nice to hear the nice size of the behind the scenes because we always hear about the oh they are censored this they made ex-director use it XYZ or you know all the bad stuff but it's kind of nice hearing you know the human side of things

46:31 the yeah for one yeah there's there's a big elephant in the room that I know people are going to yell at me if I don't bring up what is the third movie and try heavily involved tensilon and Izzy I know you don't know much about the stuff but do you want me to mention it to you so you can get your flops or would you rather wait you know it's still another time in the future when you you know gone through that script yeah I haven't even seen it so we have anymore quarter to get so uh I don't know what happens and no I'd rather not know I'd like to be surprised so I could have a fresh reaction when it happened okay it's perfectly fine I just want to

47:17 touch up on the topic so I don't get lynched later Oh you know if I had written it already and you know was planning on directing it maybe I could comment because I'd know something but I really don't know anything well okay so yeah no it's perfectly fine on another note as we start on a line down here from what I've seen a lot of longtime digimon fans are super happy see you and the other returning cast members come back and reprising roles so is there anything you would like to kind of like say fit on now that you're back uh yeah you know it's great that Digimon just even still has a life you know and it's a long time now it's it's 17 years for me right it's

48:04 more than that it said 19 years for me you know and I think 15 years since the movie is it was the movie had an anniversary recently something had an anniversary yeah I thought something about that um what I'm looking at the movie but the business mode I think last last year was the 15th anniversary so yeah see a thousand it says on you right so this will be alright so the series was 15 years last year yeah um we're two years whatever getting something like that I keep hearing 15 years where that's all yeah I don't know where they're getting that number from but yeah I think I started as early as 98 maybe 99 on series and the movie was definitely in October 2000

48:51 release we worked on it released and nine months before that so you're actually supposed to release that in the summer but we didn't want to go up against some big movies so we removed it she walked over anyway it's just great that it still has a life it's great that it still has a fan base and not just an old fan bases people that watched it first run but we're too young to watch it back then and they're all watching it now for the first time and we're getting a whole new foundation you know it's great that I have a conventions now I have both seven-year-olds and Freddie rolls coming up to me and say hey like I love Digimon

49:37 you know so it's great it does make me feel a little older when a 30 year old comes up to me and says I love the G mom when I was a kid I'm like oh my god you have kids yourself now that's crazy yeah I run into a couple of moments like that myself where I saw this restaurant the other day that it's called the wayback burger or something like that and it was like established 1991 I was like I'm only like a couple years older than that that's way back yeah so that's a little shocking when when adults come up to me said I loved you when I was a kid but it is just great I love the fans I love that you're acting with the fans I love seeing them at conventions I love going to conventions so I'd like to ask

50:24 your fans if they're a fan of mine to please recommend me to a convention near them because that's they listen to that quite a bit and you know you they all have guest recommendation pages you just recommend me and and then they invite me and I show up it's very nice it's nice to reach out it's nice to tell the old stories again and and do some voices for the fans it's great I'll definitely reach out afterwards and you know ask everyone you know to do exactly that I could if you even want I could send you like a list of things so that you might know what might be coming visit let me make my best yeah convention that they've recommended oh you know that's

51:09 all right you know they the conventions all know where to find me I'm well represented for bookings as most of the prosectors are so you know it's not hard to find me at all you found me yeah yeah no I everyone was actually asking about that and I I didn't want to give away the secret so I just said I'm magic well the Convention says agile shoes if someone really cares I'm sure they cannot Internet's losing people exactly exactly for me it was Thursday night and I was like you know what I have my voice back now are we cool to reach out to this person I want hurry and then here we are yeah thank you thank you again for

51:54 taking part in allowing for this conversation well it's my pleasure I don't want it I don't want to make it seem like anybody who can just call me up and and get an interview like this you know you do have a you do have a voice too or I should say a portal to many other fans and that you know so I saw that you had whatever you told me a hundred thousand daily and whatever yeah it's a pit 180 thousand today there you go is fantastic so that makes that makes it easier for me to do something like this because I know I'm reaching a lot of people if I'm only reaching three people I'm probably not going to be doing this I do get a request almost daily just doing 101 interview and it would pretty much be me talking to four fans you know that's what the dimensions

52:41 are for you know so anything I can go out there and speak to many people at one time like this I'm happy to do it it's been great having you and you know I have to thank you on behalf of all my readers for chilling this night when I was like hey guys I contacted him and he got back to me and thought we might be doing an interview they're like holy Sh [Laughter] they were like what arcane magic have you committed here that's cool you know I just recently went back to voice acting I had not done it in many many years I just decided about two years ago to do it and every now and then just the other day as being directed by someone and they said you know I nailed the line or something like that you know and they said wow

53:27 that was really impressive I said thanks but you know I've done a lot of this in my life and they're like oh I know I was a huge 51 sad and it turns out like they were trying to be cool they were trying to be really you know suave and that geek out on me not fanboy me but it's okay I like it it's fun you know it's like it's sort of you know when you do these things and all these voice actors will play those we do them in these little dark rooms with no windows you know and we don't know anyone's out there listening so it was really nice to know that not only are people listening but it made an impact in their lives will change upon Digimon then like take a premier thing for me growing up I have always loved it more than Pokemon and

54:13 that's not the flame Pokemon of course it it's always been the centerpiece in that realm of my life like it was I I was into it rather than like pokemon or yu-gi-oh not that I didn't love those but when late all the games I grew up on it and now to see it coming back and like I said I I expected like three people to respond when I reached out online I was like hey does anyone want to interact in a kind of role-playing world of Digimon and here we are I have never expected any of this keep up the good work and keep keep the torch burning for Digimon and say hello to all your fans for me I will and again thank you for doing this for us and if you

54:59 ever care to come visit us in the forum you know you're more than welcome to do so well I understand that you know you have a busy life and yeah well maybe one day we'll do like an hour live chat now answer questions on the email form but but let's let's go at some time let's let this interview thinking well ya know that sounds like a great idea thank thank you again thank script ah good luck with all whatever it is you're working on these days and all of your future endeavors I'm working on a show called crazy wheels it I don't have a network yet to tell you about but there's a lot of episodes and a lot of fun it's a reality show you take clips of people crashing and doing all things funny on wheels and we write some funny narration to it and this is a

55:46 lot of fun but it's a lot of work I'm supervising producer and the writer on that so invoice director so it takes up most of my time but I was lucky enough to have a day off today if you caught me in a big pack well I'm glad to have you know I've been performing it and I hope to see you and everybody at a convention near you soon as though I'll make sure to make my way over someone's the next time you're around right on okay man take care you too have a nice day and hope your voice feels better thanks I appreciate it lovely but