I have always been a fairly big Star Wars fan since I was a child. I was a little too young to see "A New Hope" in the movie theater, but I did see "The Empire Strikes Back" when it first came out in 1980, when I was just 8 years old! I've seen all the movies since then, but not any of the spin off series... until recently.
About 6 months ago, I started subscribing to Disney Plus (purely thanks to my desire to watch the Beatles: Get Back movie!) And since I had it, I decided I might as well do a deep dive into all the Star Wars content on there, so I started watching (almost) everything in the Star Wars universe, including catching up with the old Clone Wars animated series, (which ran from 2008 to 2020). To be honest, I didn't expect to like the Clones Wars all that much: I assumed it was more for kids and teenagers. But I was pleasantly surprised. One of the best things about it was the portrayal of the character, Obi Wan Kenobi. In fact, this character was the main reason I kept going with the Clone Wars right to the end! (And to be fair, the Clone Wars series itself got better and better as it went along, with deeper and more sophisticated material than I was expecting).
After discovering that the voice actor behind Obi Wan in the Clone Wars was James Arnold Taylor, I was intrigued. He sounded so much like Ewan McGregor, and yet he brought a quality that made Obi Wan his own creation. After looking him up, I discovered that he not only does the voice of Obi Wan Kenobi throughout the Clone Wars series, but many other voices too in the Star Wars universe and other animation series, movies and video games too!
Finding myself even more intrigued, I then discovered that he has a vast array of videos, vlogs, interviews, mini films, documentaries, etc, on his YouTube channel - and a (freely available, ad-free) podcast, which I find very fun, interesting and inspiring to listen to... So I've been following his podcast over the last few weeks...
His vocal range and skills are amazing! As a singer and former vocal coach myself, I recognize his incredibly musical ear, in his ability to mimic other people's voices so perfectly. And, as a Brit, I'm really impressed with his British accent especially when portraying Obi Wan Kenobi. He has a beautiful singing voice too, and is amazing at improv, creating a wide range of characters on the spot! And more than this, he is such a sweet, delightful and inspiring person!!
His podcast and behind-the-scenes videos on his YouTube channel invite you into his daily life, and his fascinating experiences as a voice actor, and allow you to see the wonderful person he really is in real life. It's really worth diving into all the podcast episodes from the beginning... I started with the most recent and am working my way backwards through the years of content!
He provides a wonderful mixture of some fun, entertaining sections, with all the voice characters he's created, but also some deep, philosophical, reflective sections too, which I love. He opens up about his faith and spirituality, and does it in a way that is inclusive to all of us whether we are of the same spiritual beliefs or not.
James is so encouraging, warm and generous. I'm finding his podcast to be a refreshing, uplifting way to get me through my day, while driving, cooking or doing chores around the house. More than this, it is actually helping me in a concrete way to deal with my clinical anxiety - I'm finding that James's soothing voice, deep breathing reminders, and genuine, caring encouragement, keep me grounded and calm, more than most other techniques I've tried.
Then just recently, an exciting thing happened! I wrote a fan letter to James Arnold Taylor, letting him know how much I appreciate his voice, work and especially his podcast. I posted it as a comment on YouTube, under his recent episode. To my absolute delight and amazement, JAT (as his fans call him) not only saw my letter, but actually devoted 3 and a half minutes of his next podcast episode to reading it out loud, and reacting and responding to it!! I still haven't come back down to earth yet!
You can hear this moment here: I've cued this link to start at the 13:19 minute mark, where JAT starts reading my comment!
But after listening to this, please rewind and listen from the beginning. This is an excellent episode and good introduction to his podcast. You can listen ad-free on YouTube, by opening YouTube in the Brave browser. Or you can listen to this podcast elsewhere too, on iTunes, Spotify, Goodpods, etc...
I promised JAT that I'd spread the word about his work, to try to help him reach 100K YouTube subscribers, so here we go... Here's nearly there, but needs more subscribers to just push him to the finish line! Even if you're not a fan of Obi Wan Kenobi from the Clone Wars, there's plenty of fun, interesting and inspiring stuff in this podcast, and loads of fun videos on his YouTube channel!
And, for even more of a deep dive into his work, check out his website!!<<---
No comments:
Post a Comment