That Time I Worked with Jeffrey Combs
One of the cooler things I've done while writing for Dune: Awakening, is get to work in the recording booth with the Re-Animator himself, Jeffrey Combs. The whole situation manifested strangely.
I wrote the Twisted Mentat character Zayn De Witte. When I write a character, I often think of some actor or character as a starting point. It's not something I tell the eventual voice actor, just a springboard to develop a voice as I write.
For Zayn, my springboard was Jeffrey Combs, specifically his character Milton Dammers from the film The Frighteners. It's important to remember, I did NOT tell anyone on the team I had Combs in mind. This was just a voice to reference and read back dialogue to myself as I wrote it.
Time passes. A teammate messages me about casting and says, "Hey, what do you think of Jeffrey Combs for this part?" What!? Did I manifest this? Am I the god-monster-boy from The Twilight Zone?
The recording session was awesome. I allowed myself a little bit of geeking out at the top of it, particularly over the audio of Mr. Combs's one-man show as Edgar Allan Poe. He was surprised and delighted I'd listened to it.
Looking over the Zayn dialogue, he said it gave him Milton Dammers vibes. Then we got to it. He was lovely to work with.
