Marcus Fenix is Bender, Bender is Marcus Fenix
Gears of War's protagonist Marcus Fenix is voiced by John Di Maggio, the same actor who voiced Bender in the television series Futurama. Aside from the hilarity of the two characters sounding completely different, it's great when an actor can pull off the "I would have never guessed that unless I read the credits" situation. Some readers may be old enough to remember the shock when you found out that Mark Hamill (Luke Skywalker in Star Wars) was the voice of The Joker on Batman: The Animated Series. Some other random trivia is Courtenay Taylor, who played lesbian Jedi Juhani in Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, was also the voice of those naughty twins from the beginning of God of War, numerous female characters in Everquest II and the voice of Wonder Woman in Justice League Heroes.Searching through IMDB.com for your favorite games will unleash a treasure trove of voice actors you recognize from many different games and shows. If you are an anime fan, put in your favorite show and most of those actors are recognizable for their voice talents in many video games as well.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Ignatius @ Dec 3rd 2006 2:20PM
Juhani was a lesbian? O.o
A @ Dec 3rd 2006 2:33PM
yeah- there's some good surprises. i liked John Cleese in jade empire and found it funny that the cute eight legged freaks girl was Tanya in C&C Red Alert 2 (knew she looked familiar!)
Killzig @ Dec 3rd 2006 2:35PM
Ron Pearlman narrated Fallout, btw.
Miz @ Dec 3rd 2006 2:40PM
Judge Ghis in Final Fantasy XII is voiced by Mark Wing-Davey, the original Zaphod Beeblebrox. That's pretty rad.
Franky Digital @ Dec 3rd 2006 2:43PM
Cam Clarke > any other North American voice actor.
Tim Robertson @ Dec 3rd 2006 2:44PM
And here I was thinking that Fenix actually sounded like the guy who did Optimus Prime in the old Transformers. Could have sworn it was him...
Intangible 360 @ Dec 3rd 2006 2:48PM
@Ignatius:
My sentiments exactly, I most definitely do not recall anything that even implied that, and KOTOR is my all-time favorite game!
Tommy @ Dec 3rd 2006 2:54PM
While not a game
Shredder on the old TMNT cartoon = Uncle Phil on Fresh Prince of Bell Air
JFink @ Dec 3rd 2006 2:59PM
Oh i have to say Jennifer Hale
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0354937/
To hit the highlights: Naomi Hunter (MGS1), Bastilla (SW:KotOR), Sheena (Tales of Symphonia), Samus Aran (Metroid Prime), Fall-from-Grace/Deionarra (Planescape: Torment).
Nick @ Dec 3rd 2006 3:04PM
He is also Wakka from Final Fantasy 10. Check out IMDB.com
Brody Brooks @ Dec 3rd 2006 3:05PM
Note that John DiMaggio also played the role of Steve Ballmer in the movie Pirates of Silicon Valley and Wakka the Blitzball player in Final Fantasy X?
The more you know...
Prayzboy @ Dec 3rd 2006 3:12PM
I swear there are times during the heat of battle when Marcus Fenix sounds just like Keifer Sutherland on 24.
John Musco @ Dec 3rd 2006 3:15PM
Opie and Anthony and members of their show each have parts in GTA: San Andreas, Liberty City Stories, and Vice City Stories.
Jim Norton, who played Rich on HBO's "Lucky Louie," is the voice of the cop with the mustache in the game Bully.
NotAnElitistPrick @ Dec 3rd 2006 3:34PM
I'm just shocked that you didn't know he was Bender. He does a couple other voices in the game, and it's really obvious that it's him if you've played FFXII. (He's Migelo.) The thing he does to disguise his voice in XII is same thing he does for Marcus Fenix, and in the Futurama episode "Tales of Interest II". (when the Professor turns him human, and Bender eats & drinks so much he turns into this 3,000 pound sack of fat.)
adg1034 @ Dec 3rd 2006 3:36PM
I actually saw that Futurama/Gears connection before I started watching Futurama, and thought "Huh- from what I've heard, they don't sound that much alike. Cool." Then, I did watch Futurama (better than Simpsons, go away haters), and still, there was barely any vocal resemblance. Voice acting is way too underrated.
otakucode @ Dec 3rd 2006 3:38PM
The guy who voiced Tai on Digimon pops up all over the place and I can never place him right away... he voiced Chaos in Xenosaga 3 with the exact same voice. Apparently age 12 and 20ish is supposed to sound the same in that voice actors mind.
eric j. @ Dec 3rd 2006 3:47PM
damn talk about old news.
refinedsugar @ Dec 3rd 2006 3:48PM
lol, you just found out about this now?
BklynKid @ Dec 3rd 2006 3:55PM
Futurama was ahead of its time.
Futurama > *
Louis S. @ Dec 3rd 2006 3:56PM
"And here I was thinking that Fenix actually sounded like the guy who did Optimus Prime in the old Transformers. Could have sworn it was him..."
Nah, Peter Cullen did Optimus Prime. Right now he's busy doing the Transformers movie as Prime, but usually he's doing promos for Toonami.
Spinfusor @ Dec 3rd 2006 3:58PM
I remember reading about a while ago (and just checked) that Jen Taylor voices both Cortana and Princess Peach.
http://imdb.com/name/nm1071768/
Scott @ Dec 3rd 2006 4:07PM
Another good voice from GoW is Cole. He's also the infamous Terry Tate, Office Linebacker.
But yeah, this was known weeks ago.
Andy Briggs @ Dec 3rd 2006 4:08PM
Remember, guys, Futurama is coming back!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Futurama#Show_status
Manu @ Dec 3rd 2006 4:10PM
Funny how Star Wars universe uses Finnish words. First (masters of) Teraskasi and now Juhani, which is even funnier for a female character, because it's the most traditional Finnish male name there is.
Nicholas Sulikowski @ Dec 3rd 2006 4:12PM
Interesting to see film stars in odd places. Brad Dourif, who played Grima Wormtongue in The Two Towers and The Return of the King (extended), also played the villain Saavedro in the PC game MYST III: Exile.
icruise @ Dec 3rd 2006 4:26PM
Wow, I was sure that it was Lance Henrikson.
Brent @ Dec 3rd 2006 4:28PM
Ahh, i remember finding out Mark Hammil was the voice of the Joker. And i've got to say, no-one does it better.
In Batman: Mask of the Phantasm, he is absolutely incredible. I honestly wish they would dub his voice over actors who play the Joker in the live action movies.
PsionStorm @ Dec 3rd 2006 4:31PM
I marked out when I saw that John DiMaggio did the voice for Fenix. I'm a big fan of his work and I recognized his voice from the commentaries on Futurama, and his work as Evil Santa (on the second Xmas episode, John Goodman did the first one) in the show. He's using the same voice for both.
Alot of the actors on Futurama did multiple parts. Most notably was Billy West, who did Fry, Farnsworth, Zoidberg, Zapp Brannigan, and a slew of extras in every episode.
RWHC @ Dec 3rd 2006 4:32PM
Yoda = Miss Piggy
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000568/
Ryuukuro @ Dec 3rd 2006 4:50PM
Hey! Did anyone else notice that no one posted "this is not news" or "lame" or "OMGWTFBBQICANTREAD?"
I just find reading comments without obnoxors posting to be a nice surprise.
PapaZeb @ Dec 3rd 2006 5:07PM
I've known John DiMaggio to be talented for ages - ever since he did Wakka/Kimahri in FFX (Other talents for FFX include a Powerpuff Girl)
The one I noticed yesterday after reading up on some of the actors from NBC's current show Heroes, was the cheerleader Claire Bennet, as played by Hayden Panettiere - famous in SquareEnix history for voicing Kingdom Heart's Kairi (right next to contemporary alcoholic Haley Joel Osmont in the lead role of KH as Sora)
Ashok @ Dec 3rd 2006 6:30PM
yoda=miss piggy=grover (frank oz)
the guy who voiced the original english Goku was also the original Bob from Reboot
joekaf @ Dec 3rd 2006 6:35PM
My favorite:
Gao the Lesser (Jade Empire) voiced by Nathan Fillion
Miniboss @ Dec 3rd 2006 7:12PM
John DiMaggio also did the voice of Wakka in Final Fantasy X and plays Dr. Drakken in the Kim Possible cartoon.
Nathan M @ Dec 3rd 2006 8:39PM
Didn't DiMaggio Also voice General Grievous from Star Wars III?
Monki @ Dec 3rd 2006 8:53PM
Eric from Boy Meets World voiced the main character from Tony Hawk's American Wasteland.
Good times.
Ryan Renna @ Dec 3rd 2006 9:02PM
My biggest shock was that Rita from DEXTER (Best new show on TV) is Miranda Keyes in Halo 2 (and eventually 3).
Conbus @ Dec 3rd 2006 9:42PM
I was pretty surprised after I finished Gears to see Bender was actually Marcus Fenix. Funny how their voiced are worlds apart, now that is talent.
Sean @ Dec 3rd 2006 10:07PM
One of my favorite voice actors--Invader Zim, Psychonauts, Destroy All Humans, Grimm Advenutures of Billy and Mandy--is Richard Horvitz. His voice just makes me laugh. He needs to be used more in games.
Sketchy Fletchy @ Dec 3rd 2006 10:19PM
I agree, Cam Clarke and Jennifer Hale are probably the two most widely spread voice actors you'll find in video games or animation. Cam probably has about the longest listing of projects I've ever seen on IMDB. Definitely worth looking into - you can be surprised what you'll find when you go digging through the cast lists on your favourite voice-acted games.
Cheers!
CuteUnit @ Dec 3rd 2006 11:34PM
Courtenay Taylor is my idol. I've love to be as talented at anything as she is at voice acting.
She's responsible for my favorite NPC in any game ever: "Damsel ( Damn Sail) in Vampire the Masquerade:Bloodlines.
Bender fans might also be interested that another central character (Jack) in VTM:B is also DiMaggio. That game has hands down the best NPCs ever.
Jihan Joo @ Dec 3rd 2006 11:41PM
John Dimaggio voiced General Grievous for Clone Wars but not Episode III.
lane32x @ Dec 4th 2006 1:25AM
Jim Cummings is one of my faves.
He's now been Darkwing Duck, Winnie the pooh, Tigger, Piglet, he was in several video games (clay fighters, army men), he played the voice of Shredder for a while, and has done numerous other voices.
My best friend and I started checking all these voices out a few years back when we saw a black and white movie with the (now deceased) original voice actor of piglet (that's his real voice!)
one of our first discoveries was that Megatron (transformers) is Nibbler (futurama)
Tommy @ Dec 4th 2006 1:55AM
One of my favorite voice actors is Phil LaMarr.
He has done so freaking much, you probably know what he looks like because he was on Mad TV for quite a while, but he was Samari Jack and is currently Wilt on Fosters, along with the million other roles he has (he got his head blown off in the back of the car in Pulp Fiction)
No way @ Dec 4th 2006 2:34AM
Check Quinton Flynn out, he did A bunch of stuff, most notably MGS2 for me as Raiden.
http://imdb.com/name/nm0283594/
Long list of names....
Sam @ Dec 4th 2006 2:47AM
From what I read on imdb, the guy who played Raziel (Legacy of Kain/Soul Reaver) also played The Fear in MGS3.
Also, didn't the guy who played Hellboy (in the movie) play Lord Hood in Halo 2?
Jason @ Dec 4th 2006 4:02AM
I think Dee Bradley Baker takes the cake.
http://imdb.com/name/nm0048389/
Not only the voice of Gravemind in Halo 2 and 3, but also the voice of Olmec in Legends of the Hidden Temple. This guy has done voice-over work everywhere. Just scroll through his IMDB page. You'll see things like American Dad, Sponge Bob, Viewtiful Joe, SOCOM, and so on. Its crazy!
Jay @ Dec 4th 2006 4:58AM
I remembered hearing DiMaggio's voice for some miscellaneous characters in the Chronicles of Riddick video game. Hearing guards with voices identical to Bender's was a trip.
hollowex @ Dec 4th 2006 6:13AM
Rob Paulson... If you've been semi-conscious in the last 30 years you should know this guy.
http://imdb.com/name/nm0667326/
Elrando @ Dec 4th 2006 6:56AM
"37. My biggest shock was that Rita from DEXTER (Best new show on TV) is Miranda Keyes in Halo 2 (and eventually 3)."
Julie Benz, also played Darla on "Buffy" and "Angel" a pretty major character, that only featured in a handfull of episodes (26 between the 2 series)