As someone who studied vocal emission and vocal performability and wrote an MA on it, I really want to ramble about the fantastic job Tom did as Dream. And if you want to ramble with me, please do, I'm going crazy 😅
To my ear (judging by promo interviews i have seen)he is a higher sitting baritone, which is usually not a classically deep voice, has a bit of a "rumbly" quality in the lower notes, has naturally a pretty bright pitch and the open vowels transition pretty smoothly.
So for a voice like that to go deeper in his chest and still sound natural, requires a lot of self awareness and a lot of pinpoint vocal placement training. He laughed in one interview that during first days he was scolded not to sound like Batman, which is exactly what i mean. It's easy to jump into comical, raspy vocal depth, especially if you have the range. And yet, except from lowering his placement, he still added that breathy quality to it, which is very hard to achieve with lower chest voices, as it automatically makes the voice want to go higher into the head, or lose vocal power and go into whisper. But he somehow combined both, used it CONSISTENTLY, and made it sound natural and ethereal at the same time. Which is amazing to me. I might be crying into my pillow. Tom Sturridge, the actor that you are.
Edit: just to add, bc some of you make great points.
Personality and nature play a huge part in our vocal performance and it's a hard work to train yourself out of it(that's why some actors sound the same everywhere or rely heavily on physical acting to help their voices). Tom seems to be a lovely, soft but also highly emotive, excitable and animated person, especially when talking about something he loves. So to be able to restraint himself physically to allow that level of vocal focus and performance, where all his emotions go through the voice and don't fall flat? I CAN'T STRESS ENOUGH how acutely physically aware he has to be and how great his craft is.
Also, i mostly notice that amount of awareness and work with either musical trained actors or shakespearian actors, which might have something to do with that. Because in modern Hollywood i see it very rarely with blockbuster names.
