Exclusive Interview: Greg Baldwin Voice Of The Second Uncle Iroh

TV & Film

Oct 24

Greg Baldwin started his acting career in live theater but found a niche role as a voice actor with the ability to match Mako’s voice.

After making a name for himself as Uncle Iroh, Baldwin continued his voice acting work in a variety of animated shows and video games.

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How did you get into voice acting?

I didn’t so much choose voice acting as it chose me. I knew I wanted to be an actor since I was ten. I moved to Los Angeles, got my SAG card, and then we had two kids eleven months apart, so I was just a dad for 10 years. I went back to the theater when the kids were old enough. It was a play where I had to voice a lot of different characters. The director said I was pretty good at the voice acting thing and suggested I take lessons from his friend Sue Blue, who teaches animation voice acting and casts animation voice acting. I took his suggestion and Sue liked me enough to get me an agent for voice acting. Once I had an agent, things slowly started building up.

How did you get cast in the role of Iroh?

We can thank Stephen Sondheim for my role. After I decided to be an actor at 10, all I wanted for birthdays was albums on Broadway shows. On my 17th birthday, my parents gave me the album for Pacific Overtures starring Mako Iwamatsu. I fell in love with the musical and I would sing along with it. Years later in 2006, Mako passed away, and they were looking for a voice match. Well, I had been working on a voice match for 30 years and didn’t know it. Like Iroh says, “Destiny is a funny thing. You never know how things are going to work out.” Years later, an actor Albert Finney passed away, and I told my wife I wish I’d reached out and thanked him for the inspiration. My wife said, “Well, Sondheim’s still alive.” So I wrote a letter to him explaining how I was cast as Iroh. Three weeks later, Sondheim wrote back, “Dear Greg, Thank you much for your kind words. I’m glad the show had such a salubrious effect on your life.” After consulting the dictionary for salubrious, I realized it was a compliment.

At the time I auditioned for Iroh, I was the screen credit administrator at Disney. My agent sent me the sides and asked me to do an impression of Mako’s voice. At the time he was still alive. I didn’t even know he was sick. I sent in my audition and was at San Diego Comic Con with my son a couple of weeks later and found out he passed away. The next week, Disney laid me off after 13 years of work. Within hours, I got a call from Nickelodeon saying I’m the number one pick for the part.

Image Source: IGN

What was it like imitating an iconic voice?

There was one time I met Mako’s daughter and grandson. It was the last recording session for Samurai Jack. I went to Burbank and signed in at security. Someone ahead of me had signed in as Mako. I thought it was a sick joke. In the green room, Genny Tartakovsky, the creator of Samurai Jack said she’d like me to meet someone. She introduced me to Mako’s daughter and Mako’s granson, who is also named Mako. It’s one to impersonate an iconic actor but to impersonate the voice of someone’s beloved father who’s passed away is an entirely different matter. I was freaking out but I did the session. After we finished the session, Mako’s daughter came up to me and said, “Thank you so much. It was like he was in the room with us again.” Of everything I’ve done professionally, that afternoon means the most to me.

What was your favorite role?

Iroh. I always say Iroh and Avatar in general has been such a force of positivity in the world. I can't think of another cartoon character where people say I was going through a bad time and Iroh got me through it. There was one time I was at a fan event, and this Marine came up to me and told me they had a picture of Uncle Iroh in their barracks. They would all touch the picture before they went out. Iroh makes everyone a better version of themselves from Zuko to the millions of fans to me, his second voice actor. I can’t tell you all the times having his lines of wisdom has come in handy for my own life when I’m going through something. My favorite quote is “If you look for the light, you will often find it. If you look for the dark, that is all you will ever see.” I love that there’s an active choice and once you choose to look for the light, you realize we’re enveloped by it.

Do you feel pressure to protect the character?

I absolutely feel like I’m the caretaker of the character. Just recently, it occurred to me that this show will outlast me, and that’s a huge comfort to me when I think about my legacy.

What was your most challenging role?

Aku was my most challenging role. Iroh is difficult because I’m impersonating Iroh. Iroh is very zen but Aku is all over the place. Mako could immediately turn from terrifying to funny, but I struggled with that role to find the balance of horrifying and funny guy.

You also worked in video games? Is there a difference in the logistics of voice acting in video games and animation?

Usually, video games you voice by yourself. Video games are much harder on your voice. They’ll say I need three takes of you in everything from being punched in the face to getting burned alive. It’s a whole lot of screaming and making noises. Video games will book you for the whole three hours, work you for the whole three hours, and you’ll be hoarse when you’re done.

Can you tell me about the various roles you played in Clone Wars?

Apart from Iroh and Aku, I am absolutely proudest of my work in Star Wars, Clone Wars specifically, especially Jedi Master Tera Sinube, who helps Ahsoka find the lost lightsaber. I hope we get more of him at some point. They keep teasing his appearance. Sinbue is on the poster for Tales of the Jedi, but he only appears and doesn’t speak. When I saw him on the poster, I thought I’d been replaced. When he didn’t speak, it made me think that eventually, they’ll utilize him. I think there’s more to his story. (Slight spoilers for Clone Wars ahead) We know he ends up as a trophy in the inquisitor's fortress, but we don’t know how he gets from the Jedi Temple to there. I think if he died defending the younglings, why didn’t they just leave his body there? What was he doing at the fortress? What did the inquisitors want to know? I’m hoping he was complicit in getting Grogu out of the temple.

You started out in live theater. Do you have a preference between voice acting and live theater?

Voice acting is fun but stage acting is my first love. There’s nothing like it. I wish at this stage of my life I had more time to do more of it. Unfortunately, plays usually happen on the weekends and so do fan conventions. But there’s nothing like the immediacy of live theater. What I love is the audience is a character. The audience changes the performance, so you have to adapt. When I listen to my work, it’s already done, and I can’t change it. That’s how I’m gonna say the line forever. But in a theater, you can decide to tweak elements. Theater evolves, but film and television is there forever once it’s on tape. I like the freedom of being able to change things. There’s also a certain camaraderie of actors on stage precisely because you can’t fix it in post. If an actor misses his line, as a fellow actor, you want to get him back on track. You have to think and work with these things in real time. I think if you’re going to be an actor, you at least need to do a little bit of live theater to understand where it all began.

Do you have a role you’d love to play?

As I age up, the characters are becoming less and less because there aren’t that many plays written for old guys, but there are still some parts out there. My bucket list is actually the first role I played on stage in elementary school, Ebeneezer Scrooge.

Do you prefer to play multiple characters throughout a series like in Clone Wars or stick with one where you can continue to discover new depths like Iroh?

Multiple characters are kind of fun. One of the things about Clone Wars, I voiced a character who was a farmer. I went in and used the farmer voice, and Dave Filoni came to me saying it’s a great voice but asked me to do Mako. I have been so fortunate to be able to work with Filoni and Mike and Bryan, some of the greatest geniuses in the business.

Baldwin spends a lot of his time attending fan conventions. He is slated to appear in a future Cohen Brothers film, but the SAG-AFTRA strike prevented him from sharing any details

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