Voice acting may be a difficult and mysterious profession, but for Robbie Daymond it’s been the natural extension of a lifelong passion for performance. At this year’s Anime Central, we had the opportunity to sit down in conversation with the prolific voice actor.
Robbie Daymond is a voice you’ve definitely heard across anime, video games, animation, and audiobooks. Shonen fans will recognize him as Megumi Fushiguro in Jujutsu Kaisen, Persona fans will recognize him as Goro Akechi in Persona 5, and Dungeons and Dragons fans will recognize him from his performances on-camera with Critical Role — and there are countless more roles to pick from in addition to those.
We discussed multiple aspects of his career, including the kinds of genres and mediums he prefers to act in, how he got his start in the industry, and the sorts of characters he’s had the pleasure of playing over the years.
Portions of this interview have been lightly edited for clarity.
Getting Started in Voice Acting
To start our conversation, I wanted to understand Daymond’s history in the world of acting and what the progression toward voice acting looked like. While he graduated with a BFA in theatre performance (and later an MFA) before moving to Los Angeles, he was doing work in the world of acting and theater far before that, even as a child. When it came to explaining the progression to voice acting, Daymond was happy to give some additional details.
“I was an actor for a long time. When I was a kid, I went pro in theater when I was like 10. And then I did it all through high school, but normal high school stuff too, you know, driving around, messing around, sports, all that kind of stuff. And then I ended up going to college for theater. And then I stayed and did graduate school. But all through, so I graduated right when I turned 25.”
It was after graduating that he found the touchpoints for getting into voice acting specifically.
“And then it was in those days, this is like 2007, it was pretty much either New York or LA if you wanted to try to do bigger sized projects.” Daymond said, continuing. “I ended up in LA and did some on-camera stuff, did a little more theater. And then I’ve always been an undercover nerd. I wanted to bring my acting to something that I loved. So video games and cartoons and then also anime were where it was at for me. And once you start finding some success in something, you kind of just ride that wave, you know.”
Crossing Genres and Styles
Given the wide spread of genres that Daymond has participated in (both on-camera and as a voice actor), and the number of different character personalities and energies that come with those genres, I was curious how exactly he approached that differentiation in performances.
“That’s the fun part, right? When you do bigger stylized stuff like anime, you have an opportunity to play characters that are larger than life. You can do slice-of-life stuff — like one of my favorite projects ever is a movie called A Silent Voice. I was the lead in that along with Lexi Cowden, and it was just the most enjoyable film I’ve ever done. But then you go and do something like Demon Slayer where you’re Mr. Haganezuka running around screaming all the time. It definitely makes for an interesting work week, that’s for sure. But I love it. I love this stuff. I’ll blow out my voice just to do something fun and good if I get a chance to be funny. Comedy is my passion for sure.”
I followed up, asking if Daymond had a particular preference for comedic characters or characters that have the chance to be a part of a lot of comedic scenes.
He added: “Yeah, I mean, I love the meaty acting stuff, of course. Like A Silent Voice and other stuff that I’ve done before. And I play a lot of stoic characters like Megumi in Jujutsu Kaisen. But my heart lies with the funny stuff, man. I love it. I work a lot in Western animation. So anytime I get to go over to Nickelodeon or Disney or Cartoon Network, those are some of my favorite days of the week. And the funnier anime stuff, too. Because these days the comedy is really landing. I love the big over-the-top stuff. I love pratfalls and physical comedies and all that stuff. So yeah, it’s my favorite.”
With all of the ways that characters can be portrayed across different anime, I was curious what other genres or qualities Daymond finds himself drawn to or is adamant about being involved with.
“I really love the comedy, like I said. I really love this small stuff. The really subtle acting stuff is really enjoyable. You don’t always get to do that much of it in anime because the characters can be bigger, broader types. Yeah, as long as there’s an acting challenge, I’m interested. I like Megumi so much because he has such a narrow range of expression. He’s kind of flat and stoic. So it’s a challenge to let you know that there’s something going on underneath there when all you have is your voice. So if it’s a challenge, that’s what I’m in.”
When it came to personal viewing habits, he pointed to a set of preferences that I’m sure a lot of anime fans can relate to, especially those that grew up with the earlier days of Japanese anime and “Japanimation” making its way over to the West.
“For stuff that I watch, dude, I’m so simple. Give me a good fight, baby. I’m a little bit older, so I grew up on DBZ and Cowboy Bebop and like some of the OG Gundam stuff. I love the fighting anime, which is a part of the reason I love Jujutsu Kaisen. I really loved — I was Mori Jin in God of High School. I wish we would have done more than one season because I just know the fights in that are banger. And I’m a manga reader too. So I like to read it in manga. I’m huge on Berserk, it’s my all-time favorite anime. It’s one of my favorites, especially the first Golden Age arc — it’s goated for me. I’m very much like a bro when it comes to my anime, but I’ll watch the funny stuff. I’ll watch the silly stuff. Yeah, that’s good stuff.”
Working Across Many Mediums
As mentioned earlier, Daymond has worked across a variety of mediums, including doing on-camera work, voicing characters in video games, voicing characters in non-anime animated series, doing countless English dubs of anime, and participating in live play / action play series as a part of Critical Role. We’d talked quite a bit about preferences when it came to genres; I wanted to know if any sort of preferences were there for mediums as well.
“Yeah, you know, it’s interesting. I love voiceover and I will continue to do voiceover for as long as they put me in it. But I’m getting to a point now where I’m a little more particular about what kind of projects that I choose to submit for or offers that I accept. So these days if I want to do an anime, my days of being a supporting character in an anime with a 20-word title are kind of over. But if it’s a project I really love, I would love to do that in the future. I have an announcement coming up this summer that I’m super excited about because it’s the right kind of anime, like it’s silly and over the top. It’s got everything we just talked about. And I love video games. I think the only feather in my hat that I want to have before maybe I retire is — I’ve done a lot of mocap. I would love to do one lead in a Naughty Dog style game. I’ve been in those games before but I’ve never been a lead lead. So I think I want that last feather. I think you do that, put me in DBZ , and make me a JoJo and I’m good. I’m out.”
Lastly, to close our conversation, I wanted to know how Daymond’s work as a voice actor compared to working in a setting like Critical Role.
“As I’m getting older I’m sort of transitioning into some other roles within creative. So I also own a video game company with me, Max Middleman, and Ray Chase and we’re making our first game that comes out June 17th called Date Everything [note: this interview was conducted prior to the game’s release]. So that’s our game that we created. It’s a full SAG game and it took us six years of planning and four years of development and it’s about to go out into the world. And I have enjoyed that process of making that game I think more than anything I’ve ever done. So that’s why I was so inspired by working with Critical Role. I really love it because I get to do the live shows and the campaigns are amazing. But watching them turn that into an expanded universe and a little empire and watching them catch that lightning in a bottle — being a small part of it — I was already doing stuff outside of school. It only inspired me more to make my passion projects a focus and go big. So we’re really lucky.
Date Everything is our first project and it’s it’s everywhere and we’re so excited for the release. So yeah, I’m just a creative person. I love performance, but I’ve been doing it for 33 years professionally.
That’s crazy to think about. I’m gonna do it for as long as it’s fun, and I think that’s good advice for anybody reading this interview: once it’s not enjoyable for you anymore and you don’t have a passion for it, don’t do it. So not yet. I’m still passionate for voiceover, but I’ll always be a creative for sure.”
We’d like to thank Robbie Daymond for taking the time to speak with us during Anime Central and share some incredibly interested perspective on different aspects of voice acting and the industry writ large. We’d also like to thank the find staff of Anime Central for assisting with coordinating the interview.
If you’re interested in checking out Date Everything (and you should be), it’s available on Steam, PlayStation, Xbox, and Nintendo.
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