Elijah simply pitch-perfect for animation

Published Oct 12, 2015

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Debashine Thangevelo

WHEN you have a knack for voices, exploiting it gives you an edge in the entertainment industry. That explains why many Hollywood giants have happily aligned themselves with big and small screen projects.

And Elijah Wood – who is no stranger to voiceover work – returns to the genre for Patrick McHale’s Emmy award-winning animated TV series, Over the Garden Wall.

Although the 34-year-old planted his feet in Tinseltown as a child actor, he remains more renowned for his role as Frodo Baggins in the epic film trilogy, The Lord of the Rings.

He has done voiceover for a host of videogames ( The Lord of the Rings franchise, The Legend of Spyro franchise, Happy Feet, God of War III and Broken Age) and TV animations ( Robot Chicken, Family Guy).

Tonight got an EXCLUSIVE with the actor, who shed light on Over the Garden Wall.

He says: “It is the tale of Wirt and his brother Greg and how they get lost in a forest called The Unknown. It’s about their journey home and the characters they meet.”

Commenting on what appeals to him about voiceover work, he shares: “ It wasn’t something I was looking for, but I’ve always loved animation and the idea of playing characters and coming up with a voice and identity for a character in the animated world was exciting to me. It’s based on the project, more than anything else.

“I was sent information about Over the Garden Wall. Some examples of the animation style, in fact, it was the initial imagery, that struck me. It seemed so different to what we have seen in animation for a long time. The fact that Cartoon Network wanted to make this mini-series, was very unique. It evoked a different time, both in the animation style and storytelling.”

Wood goes through the crucial factors when considering exploring this field: “The primary facet is that you are often doing it alone. You’re creating a character in a vacuum to a certain degree; not at all relying on yourself physically. Sometimes the character might experience something physical that you are not, so evoking those things can be challenging but that’s also part of the fun of it. It’s mostly very liberating – you’re not having to memorise dialogue. I haven’t done many voices where I change my voice a lot – it’s always a variation of my own voice and the performance really comes out in idiosyncratic ways. This is a good example of that because Wirt’s pattern of speech isn’t at all like mine; he gets anxious and will stumble over this words. He will start to recite poetry… so there are ways to play with the voice while still keeping my own timbre.”

Interestingly, he has just come off Wilfred, a TV series. He admits: “It was an incredible experience. It was the first time I was in a TV series and I got to play a character over four years. It was also the first time I had ever done comedy and it was sad to let it go. It was also a new experience in my life – I have never experienced such job security before. I would like to revisit that again.”

In the interim, he has myriad big screen projects in the bag. Wood reveals: “There’s a film that I shot last year called The Last Witch Hunter with Vin Diesel. It’s an action adventure that comes out in October. I just finished The Trust with Nicolas Cage, where we both play evidence management cops who perform a heist. I have a production company called Spector Vision and a film we produced called, The Boy, should come out this year. And a movie I was in called Cooties, it’s a horror comedy that premiered at Sundance a year ago, is coming out this year. And we’re about to go into production on Greasy Strangler. It’s really funny and kind of disturbing.”

By the way, Melanie Lynskey and Collin Dean do the voiceovers for Beatrice, a foul-tempered bluebird, and a carefree Greg, respectively, in Over the Garden Wall.

l Over the Garden Wall, Cartoon Network (DStv channel 301), October 17, 9.20am.

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