I loved Ray from 'The Princess and the Frog.' He was my guy. There was no Ray before me, so there's a level of satisfaction there.
I started out doing multiple characters from day one, when I got my fist job in 'Dumbo's Circus.' I'm used to getting in an argument with myself, throwing myself off a cliff, patching myself up and brushing myself off with an arm around my shoulder.
One good thing about animation is that, if you do screw up a line, they won't use it. You can keep going until it's right.
I take the work seriously. Which is why I always swing for the fences whenever I voice a character. But that said, I don't take myself all that seriously.
As long as it comes across, the characters are well-served, the stories are good, and people like it, that's it for me. I'm a happy guy.
As a kid, I just loved cartoons. And as the credits went by, I'd study those names and then try to figure how I could get hired to do what Mel Blanc and Daws Butler did. Create all of these great voices for animated characters.
By the time 'Dumbo's Circus' wrapped production of its 120 episodes, I had an agent, and I had scored my first feature film gig.
Sterling Holloway, the actor who had originally voiced Pooh, decided to retire in the mid-1980s. Disney decided that they wanted to continue this character with their 'New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh' TV series.
I can picture the character in my head, and the voice just comes out.
