Phil LaMarr Talks Justice League, Static Shock, and the World of Voice Acting

Courtesy of Phil LaMarr

Phil LaMarr is one of those distinct actors whose voice you don’t forget. Futurama fans will know him as Hermes Conrad, the Jamaican accountant with a passion for bureaucracy. DC Universe fans will recognize his strong superhero presence voicing such heroes as Green Lantern John Stewart on Justice League and Virgil on Static Shock. Others will know him as the titular stoic warrior in Samurai Jack.

Ahead of his appearance at Twin Cities Con 2022, I had a chance to speak with LaMarr about his legacy of voice acting.

Getting His Start

Talking with someone who has such a presence in the industry, I just had to know whether there he had any particular cartoon influences growing up.

“Not really,” LaMarr told me. “When I was growing up, voice acting was not a goal. It wasn’t even a term. Obviously, there were people who did it, but back then, it was the thing Mel Blanc does.”

He expanded on how voice acting felt more like a minor spoke in productions. He learned this early on in high school by bringing up his first voice role in the 1980s cartoon Mister T (yes, really). During this time, he wasn’t even an aspiring actor.

“That was just my summer job,” he said with a laugh. “It was one of the few cartoons in the 1980s that hired actual kids.”

Built for Saturday mornings, the Mr. T cartoon saw the iconic actor from The A-Team traveling around the country with a gymnastics team, solving mysteries. It was absurd, and even LaMarr knew it at the time.

“This wasn’t as good as the plays I was doing at school,” he laughed. “It might’ve been a bigger thing in my head if we did it with Mr. T—in the entire three seasons, we never got to meet him. So that took some of the magic out of it.”

He recalled the recording sessions involved driving to a location in the Valley where a director barked at him to end every line up and with energy. LaMarr, from what he had learned doing Shakespeare plays, knew that wasn’t really acting. Clearly, Mr. T was no Shakespeare.

In the ’90s, LaMarr got to hone his voice work as one of the original cast members of MADtv. I asked whether anything on the sketch comedy show carried over into his animation roles. He thought a moment.

“Over the years, I’ve realized the stuff that took me to MADtv through sketch comedy and improv training actually feeds into my animation work,” he said. “This is one of the challenges that most people don’t recognize: in animation, it’s not the same acting approach as stage, movie, or TV.” He noted how working in animation is less about taking time to craft a character for various aspects of blocking and physicality, as you would on stage or screen, and more about jumping right into the action. “It requires that instant commitment that improv training gives you. You make a choice and you go for it, 100 percent. And trust—trust yourself and trust your partners.”

The sketch work gave LaMarr a sense of quick pacing for finding different characters, he explained. After performing five to seven characters in a variety of sketches, the prospect of finding, say, three voices for a show seemed easier to master. He noted it’s much easier to do than the longer process of method acting, which can extremely time-consuming.

Justice League

Having been a big fan of Justice League, I had to ask about what it was like playing John Stewart, the Green Lantern, on the show and its successor, Justice League Unlimited, beginning in 2001. This was many young viewers’ first introduction to a Green Lantern character that stuck with them and painted their perceptions of the superhero. LaMarr, a long-time comic book fan, opened up about how important the role became.

“Back in the early 2000s, comic books were still a marginal part of culture,” he said. “Whereas Saturday-morning TV? That’s millions! Millions of kids every week. There were never that many people in my comic book shop.”

In the same way that Doctor Who fans have their first and favorite Doctor, many DC fans have their favorite iteration of the Green Lantern. LaMarr recalled that one of his first questions for producer Bruce Timm was why he went with John Stewart and not another Green Lantern like Hal Jordan.

“Diversity and representation weren’t buzzwords, but they were in the minds of people who had raw vision,” he said. “And I remember Bruce telling me, ‘Well, I don’t wanna do a show where it’s just seven white people saving the world every week. That’s boring.’” LaMarr noted the show’s level of diversity was a balance of both fairness in casting and a creative choice to make shows better—an abundance of diversity can keep things fresh by not just telling the same story with the same characters over and over again. “We need new stories; we need new perspectives. That’s what makes things interesting.”

On the subject of repetition, I brought up the many iterations of Super Friends, the Justice League cartoon that preceded Bruce Timm’s series.

“Super Friends was foundational for us comic book readers,” LaMarr said, recalling the sense of wonder he had at the prospect of comic book characters jumping off the pages. “We get to see the comic book characters move!”

While that was cool, he recognized that few people making those cartoons at the time saw it as an art form—a mindset that applied to comic books as well. He jokingly summed up the attitude: “‘We’re doing this for the paycheck and, no, I’m not going to tell anybody at a cocktail party that I do this.’”

An Evolving Art

Being big into comics, LaMarr appreciated the revolution that elevated these art forms from minds like Stan Lee and Bruce Timm. He was particularly excited about Batman: The Animated Series and how Timm revitalized Saturday-morning animation with the show.

“He pulled Batman back from campy to great,” LaMarr explained with great enthusiasm. “He also showed people, like, ‘Oh my God, this cartoon should be in a museum! This is art!’”

Many earlier cartoons he remembers watching were not really noteworthy. He admitted that stuff like the old Fantastic Four cartoons was not as revered or talked about because they weren’t very good.

“People are still talking about Justice League 20-plus years later because it was so good,” he said.

We spent some time gushing about the animation and writing of Justice League, agreeing it was one of the best interpretations of the DC Comics ensemble. LaMarr credits the writers not being strictly beholden to continuity or bound by retelling the same stories, switching up only the lacking elements. The choice of John Stewart was part of this, as was adding Hawkgirl to the team so that there wasn’t just one token female character to meet a bare minimum. Both characters were introduced very naturally—they didn’t have long backstory introductions or prologues. They just showed up and their origins came later, due in no small part to the writers not being bound by decades of continuity. Eventually, the show would divulge everybody’s backstories.

That conversation turned to Superman, one of my personal favorite DC Comics characters.

“This was more controversial at the time then a Black Green Lantern—they de-powered Superman,” LaMarr said. He remarked how some fans might be offended by the idea that Superman could be knocked back and blasted when in the comics he might have been able to move a planet. “No, not this Superman—which makes sense. Because 1950s Superman, whose heat vision that could go right through the Earth, he doesn’t need six other superheroes.”

“One of my favorite episodes is the Superman birthday episode, ‘For the Man Who Has Everything,’” he added. “It’s just genius.” The episode, based on a comics story by Alan Moore, features Mongul infecting Superman with a parasite on his birthday. In his own mind, Superman witnesses a vision of what his life would have been like if Kypton never exploded. It’s bittersweet when he has to come to terms with a life he was denied. The episode sticks fairly close to the overall plot of the comic, and even Moore, who is notorious for hating every media adaptation of his work, allowed his name in the credits. LaMarr, familiar with Moore’s cantankerous nature, agreed that it was a compliment.

Of the many voices in LaMarr’s catalogue, there were three in particular I wanted to draw attention toward. In 2001 alone, he voiced John Stewart on Justice League, Virgil on Static Shock, and Black Vulcan on Harvey Birdman: Attorney at Law—three DC Comics superheroes in one year. I asked whether these roles felt different or if it was just another day on the job for each one.

“Completely different feeling,” LaMarr admitted. “Although there was much more crossover between Justice League and Static Shock.” This is hardly surprising given that were were similar talents working on both of those shows, including Andrea Romano as voice director and Dwayne McDuffie as writer. “Now, Harvey Birdman, completely different. Different performance, tone, and studio. I mean, that was a gag.”

That doesn’t mean there were no similarities, however. LaMarr noted how Harvey Birdman would mock the old cartoons, while Justice League would have obscure Easter eggs that only hardcore comic book geeks would love.

“I’d be reading through the script and I’d be looking at Dwayne [McDuffie] like …” LaMarr widened his eyes and donned a long, knowing grin. “Oh-ho! Nerd to nerd!” He had a lot of love for the fact that the writers were mostly pulling the great stuff from the comics and not the dated, lackluster elements.

“No, we’re not pulling the story line from a Twinkie ad that ran in 1978,” he laughed. “No, we’re not doing that.”

Static Shock

“People will ask me what my favorite role was. And when I stop and step back, I realize I’ve got at least five once-in-a-career-level experiences,” LaMarr said. “Working with Bruce Timm and Dwayne McDuffie on Justice League. Working with Genndy Tartakovsky on Samurai Jack. Working with Matt Groening period! And being able to voice the first Black teenage superhero show.”

We talked about how relatable Static Shock became for an entire generation.

“In my mind, Static Shock did for Saturday-morning cartoons what Stan Lee’s Spider-Man did for comics: it took the fantasy and grounded it in our reality,” LaMarr explained, noting that Static and Spider-Man had similar issues that young people could identify with. “It wasn’t like, you know, ‘A Very Special Episode.’ Every episode was rooted in something that you as a human being could recognize. Like, yeah, I had a bully—I mean, my bully didn’t have flame powers, but he acted just like this guy!”

LaMarr brought up rewatching an episode of Static Shock in which Virgil meets an older superhero of the 1970s called “Soul Power” (and, yes, he put enthusiasm into that name). He loved the parallel to Black Lightning and loved the episode.

Futurama and Samurai Jack

“Technically, when Futurama started, I was not a series regular,” LaMarr said of his role on the Matt Groening show. “Hermes was a regular. He was part of the Planet Express group. The actor was not.”

Over time, however, the LaMarr followed the series into every season and the movie that followed. He noted that this role led to many more voice acting castings in cartoons like Samurai Jack.

He has been voice acting long enough to start reprising familiar roles from projects that have been revived. Futurama has been canceled and revived multiple times, and even Samurai Jack returned for a final season many years after season 4. I asked whether it was tough to get back into those roles after not having performed them for so long.

“With [Hermes and Jack] in particular, it’s fairly easy. I mean, for Futurama, we’ve come back from the dead four times. We are the zombie of animated shows!” Case in point: Futurama was renewed earlier this year for yet another revival season, which will be debuting on Hulu—the first time new Futurama episodes are being produced in 10 years. That’s a long time, but it doesn’t seem to be an issue for LaMarr to jump right back into the role of Hermes.

“We’d been doing these voices for 15 years before. Those characters are deeply rooted. Also, because people love those shows so much, you never forget those characters. The same is true with Samurai Jack. It had been 14 years since that show shut down, but I never forget the voice.”

But although the voice was still familiar, Samurai Jack‘s new season was a bit of a departure. It was much darker than the previous seasons and aimed to present some finality for the character.

“It was very different than what we had done in the original four seasons,” LaMarr said. “I think Genndy made season 5 feel like what the show [would have] evolved into if it had continued on for the 13 years in between—okay, so this is dark, traumatized Jack, but he’s still the same good-hearted, noble guy.”

Having to portray the same voice but with years of failure behind it was a great acting challenge that LaMarr found to be a refreshing change of pace, as opposed to a reboot that was nothing more than repetition with fanservice. I found it fascinating how Samurai Jack seemed to just grow with the audience, and LaMarr agreed with a smile.

“Yeah, when you were a kid before, we didn’t have any blood or kill any humans. But now, you’re 28 and you’re watching this after you get home from work.”

Reflecting on a Career

Some actors commit themselves to never watching their work, as they feel they might be overly critical of their own performance. I asked whether LaMarr ever watched his performances.

“I do. Not that often, though. That’s not my main preference. I’ve got kids, jobs, and minimized time. So if I’m going to sit down and watch something, I’m gonna watch something where I don’t know how it ends. Although lately, over the pandemic, I found myself going back and revisiting my work.”

Another reason that LaMarr finds himself returning to past work is not just for the stories he loves but for the memories he make while recording those cartoons.

“I’m watching these shows and remember, ‘Oh my God, that’s the time I was in the studio recording with Brock Peters,’” he explained with excited nostalgia. “He had that amazing voice, and I had seen him in To Kill a Mockingbird when I was in elementary school. And I’m like, ‘Oh my God, I’m working with that guy?!’ It was inspiring and intimidating in the same breath.”

I asked what other actors he has particularly admired working with.

“Well, that was the wonderful thing about Justice League, was the amazing stunt casting. I remember working with Eric Roberts. I remember when Mark Hamil came in. No, wait—that was an episode Static where Kevin Conroy and Mark Hamil came into guest-star as Batman and the Joker.” LaMarr recalls being giddy about being in the same studio with both actors. “Andrea Romano would bring in these stars, but they were always great people. It was never schmucks that the studio brought in just ’cause they want that name. So you’re working with people like Ed Asner—you know, people who were foundational in my childhood—and we’re all part of the same company.”

He remembered recording an episode with Carl Lumbly and how amazing and deep his voice was. “It was like, you don’t even need microphones. We just need seismographs to pick up these voices,” he joked.

“I think that’s part of why voice-overs are the best corners of show business—because the best people really are the best people. Frank Welker, Rob Paulsen, Billy West, Maurice LaMarche. These are all people that you would want on your side. And they can take any script and make it 50 times better than you could ever imagine!”

You can currently hear Phil LaMarr as the voice of Bail Organa in the series Tales of the Jedi on Disney+ and voicing the same character in the video game LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga. He’ll also be reprising the role of Hermes Conrad in the upcoming new episodes of Futurama on Hulu. He is appearing at Twin Cities Con on November 12 and 13, 2022, at the Minneapolis Convention Center.