thing called‘ black box theatre’ where there’ s very minimal props, and I think it’ s incredibly... freeing actually. I think a lot of people look and they go‘ yeah, but there’ s nothing here to work with’, and so yeah, or there’ s everything here to work with. And what’ s great about it is if you really focus on the connection with the characters it doesn’ t matter what’ s around you.
The technology has come to the point where they’ ll have monitors up and you can actually now in real time see what it’ s gonna look like, in rough sketch type form. But that connection with the actor is the same as it is when you’ re doing stage, except of course you’ re gonna take 2, 3 or 4. The only other thing is now with all the facial capture the makeup is very... you know, they have to do the facial dots and things like that, but the flip side, live action, like Pretty Little Liars I’ ve done for 7 seasons and then Con Man with Alan Tudyk and Nathan Fillion that we’ ve done. It’ s pretty amazing because when you do live action it’ s wardrobe, and then there’ s massive makeup and hair, and we shoot one one side of the scene, then they have to relight and turn it all around, and it’ s so time consuming, and I think one of the things I love about voice over and motion capture is, well, it’ s all done at once. So in many ways I prefer a lot of the motion capture and the animation and things like that because... I’ m lazy. It’ s so great. I don’ t have to shave, I don’ t cleaned up. I can just sit there and roll in some coffee. We do a couple of scenes and I’ m home to pick up my kid from school. You don’ t do on location. I had a small role in a show in Atlanta. It was supposed to be in and out, 3 days and be back in time for my son’ s birthday, and it rained for 6 straight days. I was there for 11 days and it’ s the only time I’ ve ever missed one of my kid’ s birthdays, and that’ s a privilege, and voice over affords me that. But I’ m happy to do everything. At this point in my career it’ s just‘ what excites me?’‘ what gets me going?’ and quite frankly, there’ s a lot of good writing and a lot of good roles in gaming and animation. It’ s just fun.
Paul: Thankyou for your time Nolan, it’ s been a pleasure.
Nolan: Absolutely, thankyou.
INTERVIEWED BY PAUL MONOPOLI