I was invited for an expenses paid trip to LA by Disney to cover the #VeryBadDayEvent and #DisneyInHomeEvent in exchange for my posts of the trip experiences. All opinions are my own.
When I was in LA last month I had the pleasure of interviewing the cast of Disney’s new show Star Wars Rebels. In case you missed them, here is my interview with Freddie Prize Jr. (voice of Kanan) and Dave Filoni (Executive Producer), and with Vanessa Marshall (voice of Hera) and Tiya Sircar (voice of Sabine).
I love the Star Wars Rebels show, I think it is very well done and so enjoyable. I love seeing my 6 year old son become a big fan of the show as well. It is something we can all sit down as a family and watch and enjoy together and I love that.
This Season on Sat Wars Rebels Disney Video
Sitting down with Steve Blum (voice of Zeb) and Taylor Gray (voice of Ezra) was a great experience. They were very nice and very funny. They had us laughing quite a bit in the interview. It was fun seeing their relationship and hearing about their experiences while doing voice acting for the show.
What drew you guys to the film?
Taylor: I love it. I think it’s so cool. My favorite part about it is all the action. I think that’s so fun. I think kids are gonna enjoy all the characters and their multiple layers and how they run around firing off blasters and taking down troopers. I think it’s all a lot of fun.
Steve: I was drawn when I was a kid when I first saw it {Star Wars}. I was seventeen. I was fresh out of high school, and I went to the premiere in 1977, and I was one of those kids in the theatre whose head snapped back when the imperial star destroyer comes across the screen and the whole theatre rumbled. So, I get to relive this on a cellular level. It activates all of those memories from that time and when I was graduating high school, I was one of those apathetic youth and I didn’t go to my own graduation. And to get to go and see something like that that was brand new. It was stuff that we hadn’t seen before.
It woke up something in me and kind of gave me a new hope. But to get to work on something like that now where we’re bringing this to a whole new generation. It’s really exciting for me, and I’m a dad. And so I like working on quality programming that’s safe for kids and it’s really got a great underlying message. It does offer a notion that there’s something bigger than we are and that we can strive to be better than we are and that a small group of people can be just as powerful as a large army against injustice.
Taylor: And a little bit of the force.
Steve: And a little bit of the force, yes.
Taylor, were you a Star Wars fan prior to this?
Taylor: Um, yeah. I hadn’t seen all the Star Wars movies. I had seen 4, 5 and 6. It’s a nice joke with us, because we have some people in our cast, Vanessa and Freddy and then Dave as well who know more about Star Wars than anything I’ve ever met. Steve knows more than I do as well, but it’s been fun because it’s cool to be a fan. I’ve now caught up and understood why everyone loves it so much.
I remember being in school when I was little, and every other kid had either a Star Wars shirt on or a lunch pail or a back pack. And it all makes sense why it’s so appealing, it’s really cool. The best part of it is talking to fans of Star Wars and hearing their sentiments and why it’s so special to them, because everyone has their own connection to the Star Wars story. So it’s been really cool coming up through all of it.
Steve, we heard from some of the crew that you’re the funny one. Have you pulled any pranks on the cast?
Steve: Not really. At the end of every effort some of these guys…
Taylor: And an effort sound is something ridiculous. It’s like when we jump from building to building, or push a crate…
Steve: Yeah. I mean, he’s (pointing to Taylor) not used to doing that because he’s an on-camera guy and he can do that with his face or his body. But in voice over, we have to do everything on the mic, and so we’ll have what we call sound sets and in the sound sets, they’ll say “okay, now we need you to take a punch or take six punches, three soft, three medium, three hard.” And you’ll just hear us go [GRUNTING SOUND EFFECTS], and it can sound really filthy or, you know [LAUGHING] you go a lot of different directions. But basically after every sound that he makes…Taylor do a sound…
Taylor: [GRUNTING SOUND EFFECT].
Steve: [makes a funny noise] (we all laugh because it is hilarious)
Taylor: Every time, though`. Like you think you’ve heard it twice and it’s gonna come again, it’s always so funny, but the king of doing all those sounds is Steve. There’s a thing that we do called the, what is it?
Steve: A sound library.
Taylor: Yes, sound library. And it’s like “let’s hear you jump 20 times. Let’s hear you get hit in the face. Let’s hear you get shocked,” And this guy can do every sound in the book when I’m like, “ah, I’ve done it once. I think that’s the only way I’m ever gonna get a hit” But it’s cool to learn from him. He’s so good at it.
Steve: Well, I had to because I grew up doing anime, so in anime it’s a requirement to make every disgusting sound known to man.
When you came in to read for the Wolf role, was anyone keen on what it could have been?
Taylor: Jungle Book? I thought it was like a discovery, like animal… I had no idea.
Steve: Yeah, I do so many military games and military type characters that I just figured it was some military guy and some fighting show. I didn’t know what it was. I do a lot of superheroes also, so I really didn’t know until I think I was in the studio just about to record, and I saw storm troopers in the copy and I went, oh, this is something different. This is Star Wars. This is, this is Star Wars! Yeah, so it was that moment of realization. Dave can probably speak to that.
Taylor: Yeah, I still didn’t pick up. I was like storm troopers, still probably like Jungle Book. [LAUGHING.]
Steve: Yeah, a lot of shows that we auditioned for are coded, they’re very heavily coded. They want to protect that and we sign non-disclosure agreements once we do know, so I wasn’t allowed to talk about it. I had to keep all that inside, and thank God I can finally talk about it.
How have you embraced the hardcore Star Wars fans?
Taylor: I think it’s awesome. The first little taste of it we got was, they sent us this thing called Star Wars Weekends in Florida. And I had no idea what to expect. I was like “oh, it will be fun to like hang out with a couple people who like Star Wars and go on some rides.” There were like 60 thousand people who all had Star Wars shirts or full on costumes, wardrobe, outfits, everything and light sabers. And just seeing that, I realized oh, wow, we’re in something much bigger than I thought.It’s been so much fun and they’re saying there’s so much more to look forward to, and I can’t wait.
Steve: Yeah, I’ve been doing the convention circuit for the last 10 years for my other work for my other work and going to that weekend in particular seemed, you know, there was 20, 30 thousand people on the parade route, and they put us in convertibles and we’re waited on. It’s great, and I’m thinking the show hasn’t come out. Nobody’s gonna know who we are, and they’re chanting our names, you know. It’s my name. This guy had researched and knew everything that we did and people were bringing stuff up to me from my whole career.
It was amazing, and seeing the families, too.There was this one family where there was a grandma in a wheelchair in her 90’s, and the way down to like a 2-year-old, and there are like 50 of them and they’re all together cheering for us as we’re coming out of the parade route, and they’re in first position right there, and they’re everywhere in the park that we were. And they had us take a family photo.
Taylor: They all had code names. They were, there was Red Leader [LAUGHING]. They, they knew what they were doing. Yeah, and it’s so fun.
Steve: Yes. It’s been awesome. It’s a whole different level of fandom too, and so show-specific. It’s just amazing to me that after all these years, that the fandom is stronger now than it’s ever been. It’s incredible.
Taylor: With all the media, it’s crazy. It’s on Twitter. It’s unbelievable. I’ve been telling people, I’ve had a Twitter before I’d gotten this, and I felt like half the people I see on Twitter somewhere in their little description of themself, it’s like “coffee enthusiast. I like my hair. I’m a Jedi.” [LAUGHING.] So I see the word Jedi in more of those biographies than anything and I understand why. They’re the coolest type of person you could be.
Steve: Hey, you’ve got Freddie Prince, Jr. Yeah, he’s on Twitter and he’s going crazy about it. It took Star Wars to do that.
Since you didn’t know what you were going in for to read for, was there a point of time where you wondered about turning it down before you knew what it was?
Steve: I don’t turn down anything.
Taylor: Me neither, but I was doing something else that day I think and I remember being really late to, I was like an hour, and not normally would we show up late to anything. And I was running an hour late and I remember calling my agent, I’m like “I’m late. I’m gonna make a fool of myself.” I was sweaty. I was working on something else. I had a hat on, and I was like I’m just not gonna go into this. I don’t even know what it is. And he’s like “just walk in. I think they’re still there.” And I remember walking in like this, so ridiculous. Like I can’t believe I’m late. I feel so bad. And then yeah, it worked out. And now I’m so glad that I did.
Steve: I treat every role as though it is the most important thing in the world. And a friend of mine wrote a song called Soldier A, and it’s about like the most innocuous character who, who dies every episode, but you have to invest as a voice actor. Especially on camera, we don’t have the luxury of grabbing a role and carrying it, you know, through a whole series and being able to depend on that for income. 
What was your favorite scene to voice over?
Steve: Well, pretty much, I don’t know. I love all of it for so many different reasons. I think one of my very favorite scenes that I’ve seen so far was Ezra’s realization that he was doing something of value. After our first initial struggle, and then stealing stuff, and he’s sitting there and we’re giving away food, and that was the whole purpose of our mission. And we’re risking our lives to do that. And to see that look of realization on his face where he’s just going, well, I didn’t do anything.It’s like he didn’t deserve the praise and you see a little bit of a transformation in him and that was a very powerful moment for me.
Another moment is when he realized you came back for him, another strong turning point.
Steve: And for me actually not taking care of him and letting him go, that was a really hard thing for me to play as, as a dad. It was really hard for me to, to just say see, you’re on your own, and leaving him with the empire. I mean, that was, that was terrible, but thank God we resolved that. [LAUGHING.] I can sleep now.
And of course our group photo with these two…
Be sure to check out Star Wars Rebels on Disney XD! Mondays at 9p/8c.
Also you can purchase the Star Wars Rebels Spark of Rebellion Movie online and in stores now!
