‘Ninja Turtles’ voice actor beats throat cancer

By Lynn Elber

AP Television Writer

LOS ANGELES

A conversation with veteran voice actor Rob Paulsen includes happy interruptions by Pinky, Ninja Turtles and even a touch of David Tennant.

Paulsen’s creativity and fluid ability to shift pitch, cadence and accents have earned him steady work.

He’s enlivened more than 2,500 episodes of animated TV series, including “Animaniacs” (voicing Pinky, Yakko Warner and Dr. Otto Scratchansniff), spinoff “Pinky and the Brain” and “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” (Raphael in the 1980s, Donatello in the recent series).

Paulsen has won an Emmy and multiple Annie Awards, which recognize achievement in animation. He faced and overcame his biggest hurdle in 2016: A diagnosis of throat cancer that required radiation and chemotherapy and left the lanky actor 50 pounds lighter.

Doctors spared his vocal cords and he’s back in full voice – squeals, shouts and singing included – on series including the upcoming “Sky Rat” and, in a different role, as director of another upcoming TV incarnation of “Ninja Turtles.”

Q. Was it difficult to focus on voice over on-screen roles when you were getting both?

A. I’m so grateful I chose to jump with both feet into the voice talent pool. Here I am at 60, I just finished five solid years of the latest iteration of ‘Ninja Turtles’ on Nickelodeon ... and not one person gave a damn about how old I am.

Q. Do you ever resent yielding turf to actors who get TV and film voice acting jobs, such as Alec Baldwin in ‘The Boss Baby’?

A. If you’re a producer and you feel that having Brad Pitt be the talking chicken in your next movie (is right), hey man, it’s your dime. I totally get it.

Q. What skills does voice acting require?

A. For me, it’s about not being self-conscious, in the literal sense. I found the best voice actors are like that. One of my heroes, Jonathan Winters, seemed to be like that from birth. Part of his genius, also Robin Williams to be sure, was their madness. But it was their utter disregard for whether or not people thought they were weird or nutty or odd.

Q. How did you face the cancer crisis that so directly threatened your work?

A. I never once had a moment where I said, ‘Oh, no, I’m a voice actor. Why me?’ It’s not because I’m super brave. It’s because I’ve had the incredible good fortune, as a result of my career, to speak to hundreds of children and their parents as the character that a little boy or girl is a fan of while they’re going through treatment for illness. ... Parents have kept in touch with me, sometimes 20 years after the fact, and all they do is tell me what remarkable memories they have because Leonardo or another character spoke to their child.