Interview: Corey Wilder at Anime Central

Corey Wilder is a voice you’ve almost certainly heard and one you definitely should look for if you haven’t. The actor has been the voice behind numerous iconic and unique characters across multiple powerhouse anime recently. You will have heard Wilder as Zanka in Gachiakuta, Land in Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End, Will Serfort in Wistoria: Wand & Sword, Polyurethane in New Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt, Rod Bauer in I’m in Love with the Villainess, Haruto Satō in Tales of Wedding Rings, Liu Xiao in LINK CLICK, and Justice in ZENSHU. At this year’s Anime Central, we had the opportunity to sit down in conversation with the prolific voice actor, chatting through the opportunities that come with modern dubbing, approaches to different kinds of characters, and the importance of embracing challenges in artistic work.

Portions of this interview have been lightly edited for clarity.

Q: You’ve taken part in two dubs that in my opinion have a very modern approach to dubbing, those being Gachiakuta and New Panty and Stocking. Did you have any opportunity to be involved with improvising or writing any parts of the script at those shows?

A: Okay, so for Gachiakuta, I had a little bit, just a small bit, sometimes. But for Panty and Stocking, that was a completely different ballpark. So for Panty and Stocking, this was the first time that the creators had left a note for us. They left notes before we started recording. So they were like, “Okay, these characters, you can make them as Gen Z as possible. They are very kind of not caring, very lax types of characters.
When they’re on the job, they get deadly serious. When there’s a demon nearby, they get deadly serious. But when they’re off the clock, they’re jovial, they’re stupid, and they’re random.” And so for a lot of Panty and Stocking, we were able to change up some of the lines as long as it matched and followed the story. So like we could add a lot of “high key”s, a lot of “low key”s, a lot of “dead ass”es, a lot of stuff like that, without it really feeling like we’re changing the vision of like what the show is meant to be. Because they gave us as much free will as they could.

And since it was me and Hunter [Hunter McCoy], we’re both 2000s babies, we were like, great, Gen Z’s in our blood, we know what to do. And so we would just add a bunch of different lingo and different slang in there that we had gathered from over the years. So for Panty and Stocking, there was a lot, a lot of improvisation. For Gachiakuta, not too much. There were some things that we changed, but we didn’t really have to do too much work because the show itself is already very AAVE coded, very Gen Z coded, very just urban. So we didn’t have to change too much. We had a scriptwriter, his name was James Cheek. And we also had Lee George, who is a absolutely brilliant, brilliant director, and one of the only black directors at Crunchyroll. So he was like, “Great, I’m just going to add as much in here as I can and just really make it our own.” And that’s basically it. There wasn’t really too much improvisation for Gachiakuta as much as for Panty and Stocking.

Q: And Gachiakuta has some hilarious scenes. Unfortunately, many at Zanka’s expense. What was recording those scenes like? I can imagine it was hard not to laugh during some of them.

A: Man, it’s, it’s so funny, because the only times that I really like laughed during it was — I think the plunger scene, of course, was one that I laughed at. That was what I laughed at. And that’s just because that was just a super duper silly, stupid moment. But funnily enough, I get so locked in on Zanka, whenever I’m recording as him, that I don’t really snap out of character as much. At least whenever the line is being previewed or whenever it’s being recorded. Because there’s a scene that Zeno [Zeno Robinson] does when it’s the second round of Zanka and Jabber fighting each other. And he’s like, “What’s that sound? There’s a glorpity-gloo. It’s going gloopity-glop or gloppity-blee-blop.” And there was a read that Zeno did beforehand that was very different from the one that’s in the show now. But he was like, “Wait, what’s that sound? There’s like a” and made a bunch of Tasmanian devil noises as he was backing away. And I didn’t have any kind of reaction to it at all. To where Lee was like, “I thought you’d laugh when you would see that, Corey, why aren’t you laughing?” And I was like, “Lee, I was too locked in, bro.” This guy’s a madman. He’s crazy. Bro’s insane. But for the plunger scene, that was the only time where I was like, oh f*ck, this is just so dumb. This is so Looney Tunes. So Scooby-Doo coded. This is so hilarious.

Q: For those scenes, were you usually recording second or were you often first or did it go back and forth?

A: It would just go back and forth. It would depend. They don’t really ever schedule things like this person’s always going to go first. This person’s always going to go second. It’s just whenever, whichever one of us is free at that moment. So for the plunger scene, I was in there before Bryson [Bryson Baugus], at least during the chase part, when he actually starts chasing me with the plunger, I was the first one to record for that scene. Bryson recorded all the way up to the “Dude. Ew.” When Zanka sniffs Assiststaff. That’s how far Bryson had gotten. So I was going based off of just what I thought was what Bryson was going to do. I had no clue how he was going to sound. So I was just like, “I’m just going all in and we’re going to hope that this all sounds great when it’s all mixed together.”

Q: And now talking more about Frieren. You play Land. You deliver some hilarious reveals about his abilities, where he’s been the entire time, but otherwise having a pretty straightforward, serious demeanor. Was that kind of character new for you? And do you have preferences when it comes to personalities?

A: So it’s interesting. Most of the time I don’t really get cast as like the monotone, deadpan, serious characters. I’m normally cast as the more either loud mouth, jovial or more quirky characters. That’s how I normally am. I’m normally very, just loud, quirky. I’m like, “Ooh, I’m going to be the cartoon in the room.”
So he wasn’t my first one that I got. My first one that I got was a character named Wanshi in Punishing Gray Raven. And he is a very sleepy monotone sniper boy. That’s just like, “I don’t really want to be here. I just kind of want to just go to bed and go to my sleep pod. I’m tired.” And so Land when I got him, I was like, “Oh, okay. You are also a very monotone person that also doesn’t want to be here. You’re not sleepy, but you’re just very indifferent to anything.” And when I learned about the twist — I’m not gonna say for like any Frieren fans that are watching — for Land, I was like, “Oh, yeah, you’re just like me for real. Okay.
You want to take your test from home.”

But when it comes to preference on what characters I want to voice, I don’t really have a preference really. My philosophy when doing voiceover is that anytime I have a character, I try to figure out what little pieces of me I can put into them. I don’t really want to just be like I’m just going to be the character.
I’m just going to make this character be the character. No, I want to try and put as much of myself into it so that it feels unique. It feels authentic. And it feels like nobody else could perform this role except for me, because it’s my experience and my style that is in this character. So for preference, I don’t really have one. I kind of just like getting a character and seeing like, can I do this? Can I pull something from myself to put on this character? Because I see it as a challenge and challenges are fun. Regardless to people that love challenges when they’re easy. I love hard challenges. I put games on hard mode all the time every time I play them.

Q: And my last question. You’ve been absolutely going off as Will in Wistoria this season. How do you approach that particular archetype of the unpowered or “powerless” character in a fantasy series as incredible as that one?

A: Well, it’s funny because I told a lot of fans when they came up to my booth about how Zanka and Will are two sides of the same coin. They both have a huge inferiority complex. They both think that they are not worth anything. They think that they are lesser than their counterparts like Zion or Jabber or people that are naturally gifted or naturally talented. It’s two sides of the same coin. And so normally what I pull from is from my high school and middle school experience. Because I used to do a lot of sports. I did football, basketball, soccer, track. And I never really felt like I was exceptional or good at it how other people were. There were people that were just way better at it. No matter how hard I worked, I felt like I couldn’t catch up. But a lot of Will’s struggle and a lot of Will’s inferiority complex stems from how I felt when I was in high school and doing all of those sports. I always try to reach deep for something that connects me.

Connecting back to the last question, I like to pull something from my experience and put it into the character. And so a lot of that anguish, a lot of that heavy stuff comes from my past. My past is the main pull away that I take from and what I put into Will. And I’m just glad that it’s resonating with people. There are a lot of people that have come up to me and been like, “Yeah, Will and Zanka have made me want to push forward and keep going through and striving to be better and to believe in myself.” And I’m like, “That’s great.” Because the thing is, everyone thinks that they have to immediately succeed. You don’t. You have so much time. And the thing is, failure helps you grow. People are very scared to fail, but without failure, you wouldn’t grow. Albert Einstein failed so many times. Thomas Edison failed so many times. And now they’re credited as some of the greatest creators ever because every failure they kept going and they kept making more. The greatest discoveries that we have were all built on failure.
So don’t be afraid to fail, man. Just keep failing and keep moving on. Look at Will. Will thought he was a failure. He kept failing. He kept going up and he kept getting back up. Zanka was a failure, kept falling, kept getting back up, and now he’s able to hang in with the best of them. So just keep going. Just keep going.

We’d like to thank Corey Wilder for taking the time to speak with us during Anime Central and the staff of Anime Central for assisting with the coordination of the interview. Anime Central will return May 15th through 17th, 2026. Be sure to be on the lookout for registration info so you can meet amazing voice actors like Corey Wilder in person.