By Ed Sum (The Vintage Tempest)
Garry Chalk is one of those actors who created the voice of many of my favourite characters in animation in the 1990’s. As the voice of Turbo and Slash in Mainframe Entertainment’s Reboot and later Optimus Primal in Transformers: Beast Wars / Machines, I really liked how he put his all into those characters. Back then, the Internet was not available and I had to depend on keeping an eagle eye and sharp ear to the credits to recognize what he appeared in. Little did I know he had a vast and rewarding career in film, television and theatre before coming onto the animation scene.
When I spoke to him about his more recent work, especially in O. Corbin Saleken‘s Patterson’s Wager (which is getting screenings in upcoming film festivals around North America and is on VOD), this performer said, “I’m not one of those kinds of method actors who look for characters in other people. I develop what’s within me and who I am and put me in that situation. I know myself better than anyone else. There’s a whole emotional gambit to consider, but in every one of them, there’s a facet of what you’re going to make the character be. So the core essence of any character [I play] is me with a bunch of additional circumstances to shape my response.”
Continue reading “In Conversation With Actor/Musician Garry Chalk”
