Actor Josh Keaton has voiced Spider-Man in a host of multimedia projects featuring the web-slinger, yet he got his start by voicing Parker’s best friend Harry Osborn in the 2002 game Spider-Man and its excellent follow-up, Spider-Man 2. Since then, he took on the lead role in the underrated Spidey series The Spectacular Spider-Man, and will next voice Amazing Spidey in the game Spider-Man: Edge Of Time. We caught up with him…
A lot of other actors have voiced Spider-Man across different mediums – when you’re coming to a character with that much familiarity from audiences, how much of your own take do you bring to the character?
Spider-man was my favourite comic growing up so I was/am part of that familiar audience. I relate to Peter Parker quite a bit when it comes to my interests and personal life so my Spider-man portrayal is really just the voice I hear in my head when I read the comics.
Can you talk a little bit about your role in Spider-Man: Edge Of Time? Was it gratifying to get a more prominent role in the sequel to Shattered Dimensions?
I play the Amazing Spider-Man in Edge of Time. In Edge of Time he has to team up with Spider-Man 2099 through the fabric of space time, each Spidey in his respective present. I love the OG Peter Parker and red/blue suit so it’s nice to be back in familiar duds.
You’ve portrayed Spider-Man a number of times now – of all these projects, which has been the most rewarding and why?
I would have to say the show (Spectacular Spider-Man) because it gave me two amazing seasons to really develop my Spidey/Peter. Everyone that had anything to do with that show loved and respected the franchise and I really think it showed. It was also nice to be part of a project that really explored Peter’s out of costume life where his daily interactions were just as interesting as the butt-kickings he dished out so well.
And were you a huge fan of Spider-Man growing up?
Huge. Massive. I’m also not done growing up. Or just really immature.
As a voice actor, you must spend a lot of time recording individually on projects – when you get to record in the environment of other actors, does that make a great deal of difference to your work?
Absolutely. There’s a rhythm and well, for lack of a better word, magic that happens when two actors are acting together. As good as a single actor’s performance capabilities are, only one imagination is in the mix. Two actors mean that twice as much interpretation and imagination is getting played with and how those complement each other (or contradict each other) makes for much richer interaction.
Spider-Man: Edge Of Time is out October 14th on Xbox 360 and PS3.
