I summed up the most interesting things Adam said during this interview.
SVTFOE PART
During his first auditions for the role Daron was impressed by how good Adam was at making “fighting sounds”. He thanked his years of martial arts for that.
- When Adam had to come up with a voice for Marco, having seen his pictures, he thought that he looked like a “kid with a sweet demeanor who sort of wants to be a bad boy”, and he essentially used what’s his normal voice, with a higher pitch.
- Adam sometimes feels like he’s reliving his teenage years by voicing Marco, and said that when he read the script for Sleepover he was shocked to see the piano scene, since he essentially did the same to impress the girls over at his house for his sister’s sleepovers.
- Adam had to audition to voice adult Marco in Running With Scissors, and Daron and the voice director wanted a madmax-like voice, for a Marco worn out by the land.
- Adam liked how
Running With Scissors
ending got the viewers wondering about Marco, what being mentally 30 but back in his old body and life meant to him. He says that he knows something about that
"because I recorded something..."
- Adam asked Daron, about Running With Scissors, “What the heck what is going to happen to my poor little cinnamon roll, is he 30 what is happening to this guy?!", to which she answered that “I like to think that he has like, you know, maybe he- it's almost like a dream you know, you wake up from a dream, but the further away from a dream like the harder it is to remember, but something can happen and you are like 'Oh, remember that dream I had?'”. [Along with the confirmation from the SDCC panel that Adult Marco is going to be seen again in S3, and what Adam said in the previous point, it’s possible that, at some point, something is going to trigger in Marco’s memories of what he learned during his years of questing? Or remember something that happened, flashback style? Ride Nachos again?]
- Adam is still doing ADR [re-recording lines over the final animation of the episode, either to change or fix the timing, or to improve them] for S3 episodes, but they already recorded the animatic lines for the first S4 episodes
- They usually record episodes twice, the first time with the animatic, or even just the storyboards; the second time once the animation is done, to change lines and improve others, during the ADR process.
- He feels like the show started changing, getting deeper with a overarching plot, in S2, and it just gets “even more insane” from there.
- Adam feels like Daron is extremely good at being objective when writing the show, not giving in to “fanservice” but exploring different routes to better explore the characters, and that in the end she’s going to make everyone happy. But he’s not a writer, so he doesn’t care and he just ships Starco all he wants. “They deserve eachother”.
- Daron and the voice director encourage Adam in improvising lines, and they know that he knows Marco’s character well. But they still occasionally asks him to redo lines “sticking to the script, this time”.
- (talking about Star and Marco watching a horror movie together)
Oh my gosh, Star would be totally into it, she'd be like:
"What's the big deal, why is this guy scared, why don't they just hit him with I don't know, a cupcake blast!"
and Marco would be like:
"Uuh Star, uuuh... I think we need to turn this off. Did you hear something in the kitchen? Oh no, what are we gonna do!"
- He has a easy time staying in character for the livechats, and being live is not difficult, as he already did that while S1 aired, when he did the Periscope commentaries to episodes.
- If Adam were a writer he’d like to see Marco and Star being put in more tight spot and difficult situations that would force them to grow, and allow the viewers to know more about them. He made the example of a situation that’d test his loyalty for Star.
- Adam feels like the hardest episodes to record were either the S2 finale, or the S3 premiere, since there were a lot of emotional moments and there was a lot of pressure to do those right.
- He loved doing the meet up with fans at the boba tea shop in San Diego, with Daron, this July, before the Comicon
- Adam would love to see a Dìa de los Muertos themed holiday episode.
NON STRICTLY SVTFOE PART
- Adam started martial arts at 11, and started studying acting at 16. According to his parents he always asked them for two things: to do martial arts, and to have an agent.
- He feels like he’s a “physical” voice actor, he finds the characters he needs to voice in “his body”.
- His favorite boba tea, and the one he almost always takes, is honey green tea.
- He can’t say anything about the character(s) he voiced in Far Cry 5, just that “the part that I play is the part in the videogame that when I play videogames I'm always not very nice to.”
TRANSCRIPTION OF THE INTERVIEW
NOTE: there are tons of typos and some missing parts, and I skipped some of the least interesting (for SVTFOE fans) parts. If you want to know more about Adam and his job, watch the video!
Q - Martial arts in common with Marco, you kind of implanted in the character? A - Would be totally awesome if I could take credit of that on the creator side, but I absolutely can't. That's how Marco was written from the very beginning. Daron Nefcy, the creator of the show, who is phenomenal, she- yeah, that was just how Marco was written. There was a moment during muy very early audtions before I officially got the part where I had to go in with Eden Sher, who voices Star, and we had to read some stuff together, and there were some fighting scenes and I just had to do what I've done my whole life, make fight sounds and stuff, and Daron was like "Wow you are like really goo at that!" and I was like "I hope so I've been doing martial arts like my whole life". I can't take any credit but it was definitely awesome.
Q - Techniques to create voices (impressions...) A - I feel like I'm a very physical voice actor, I like to find a character in my body and kind of embody them, so I think that's my go to.
Q - How did you find Marco's voice? A- I saw a picture of Marco very early on, and he just had this sort of like -- really sweet demeanor, but he sort wanted to be like a bad boy. It just felt like - it was very easy to find Marco's voice, it just felt right at home, like a little bit higher than my normal voice range, and yeah, it's- it's so weird Marco and I have so much in common. It's like I'm reliving my life as a 14 years old through the show, I'm like- I mean Star, they're like [does quote unquote sign] "best friends" when the Sleepover episode happens, when she has all her girl friends over but- I have siblings, my lil' sister would have her friends sleep over and I'd like [mimics Marco playing the piano in Sleepover] "Hey ladies" you know, trying to play it cool, and it's totally Marco, I looked at Daron and I was like "Are you kidding me?"
Q - Did you also do the voice for grown up Marco [in Running With Scissors]? A - I totally did, yeah. I walked in one day, and I already read the script at the time, so I was like "Oh my gosh we're going to see 30 years Marco" and it never occurred to me that maybe I wouldn't voice adult Marco. I got in there and we read through the script, and I recorded all of regular age Marco's stuff, and then they were like "Ok so, we wanna see if you maybe can do adult Marco also", and at that moment I was like "Oh my gosh, I have to auction to be me!" I can't let someone else voice me! [missing] so they described what they wanted adult Marco to sound like, they wanted him to sound sort of like Madmax, this madmax inspired adult Marco who has been worn out by the land, just had all this rough experience [does adult Marco voice] and it was cool from my side of the glass watching Daron and Kelly Ward, who is the voice director who is amazing, that guy speaks actor, he's so cool, watching their faces, "Who was that?!" and I'm like "I don't know where that came from, came from deep down but I had to pull it from somewhere 'cause there can only be one Marco", so yeah, that episode, Running With Scissors, it's probably one of my favorite episodes I've recorded for Star, because it's just- you know, getting to do all that in one episode, it's just like.
Q - There's a little bit of Rick & Morty nihilims thrown there at the end A - yeah what I liked about it is that it raises the stakes without being like- I don't know, you're left not knowing, "so does that mean he's back in his 14 years old body, but he's actually 30, and you've seen the bit with the password where we are just kinda "Wait he forgot his password what does that mean", like "oh my gosh!", but at the same time in episodes after that like you only see maybe little glimpses of it, so you don't really know, but I know, 'cause I've recorded something, so... [asker compares it to the ending of Jumanj i] Yeah yeah, and I think that like, actually, you know... when I record episodes I usually record each episode twice, I'll go in and I'll record to an animatic, sometimes there's not even an animatic yet, or just drawn pictures, and then I'll go a second time and I'll do ADR, but besides those two- so ADR I've seen some of the episodes, but not a lot of the script has changed, then I don't actually get to see a lot of the animated episodes until it airs, so there are times when the vision that ends up being created, like what I see on TV versus what I recorded, is so different that I'm like "Oh my- I can't believe", and with that episodes specifically I asked Daron "what the heck what is going to happen to my poor little cinnamon roll, is he 30 what is happening to this guy!" and she was like "I like to think that he has like, you know, maybe he- it's almost like a dream you know, you wake up from a dream, but the further away from a dream like the harder it is to remember, but something can happen and you are like 'Oh, remember that dream I had?'" and I was like "Yeah that is a great way to describe that, I like that."
Q - For you as a voice actor when was the point that there's something more going on in the show, that this is not all just shenanigans and like there's something deeper to the show? A - I think that when we started recording Season 2 of the show I was like oh, we're getting to see something that it's not normally done, it's not like the norm for animation - I mean we are seeing some shows now that are kinda moving toward a throughline plot and we're getting to go deeper with the characters and the story and it's not like just crazy one off episodes, but I'd say S2 is when the over series arc started forming for Star, and that's how you get all ages watching. Is you have those deep nuggets that make people wanna come back and keep watching and root for characters, "do they get together or not, get together, do this thing or that thing", you know. So yeah, S2. Definitely the turning point. And it's all getting crazier, it's just like- it's insane we- I'm still doing ADR on S3, but I've started already recording the first couple of episodes in S4, so I know all of it, all the secrets, and I'm not saying nothing!
Q - [joking, talking about spoilers] Tell me about Starco Adam! You have to tell me! A - Never! But I'd say that the question I get on social media more often than any other else is "Is Starco canon?"... and I'll never tell you, you have to wait and find out.
Q - It's kind of obligatory, I was going to ask- you've kinda said in the past that you do ship Starco. Now has that changed, because with the beginning of S3 we are in a very different place that we were in S2, and all of the character have grown and evolved and they're not the same people that they were when the show started. So do you still feel the same? A - I do. Actually I'm like die hard Starco, everyone is going to freak out. Yeah, no no, I think that these two characters just like... deserve to have eachother you know, it's so cute, I'll hold on to that until the end. I mean you know look, Daron is the best at not committing one way or the other, and for the creator of the show I think that's absolutely important 'cause she's willing to explore all avenues, and not just, you know, do a bunch of fan service, but actually service the story properly, and in the end I think that's going to make everyone happy, but I'm not doing that, I ship Starco all I want. I don't write the show!
Q - talking about the process of recording during animatics, and the ADR, for the most part people have to stick with the script, but some writers and voice directors are open to their actors contributing, do they let you improv? A - I am a rule follower, see me and Marco have a lot in common, I listen to my director and to the people I get to work with creatively, I want to help them create their vision, with this show specifically they totally encourage improv, at this point they know that I know Marco, and I throw in lines, usually- we kinda talked about it earlier with the ensamble, Star we actually record alone, so a lot of times in the early stages I'll, I'll give them three in a row of the line, but I'll usually throw in a fourth [missing part] but yeah they encourage and they totally let me play, sometimes they are like "Ok that's good but, let's do this again and this stick stick- stick with the script", you know, sometimes they're like "Oh my gosh, why didn't we write it like that!"
Q - Disney has been doing quite a bet with SVTFOE, they actually have to do quite a few live events in character! Is it kind of difficult to just stay in the character for an extended period of time? A - It's really not! It's something like, since the beginning of Star, even before Disney started doing livechats, I would basically go after an episode and do a Periscope where I'd watch an episode with fans, I wasn't doing it as Marco, I was just doing it as myself, but the live thing doesn't- I'm totally fine, I feel very close to the fans of the show, I love it, I have a lot of fun in livechats. The software that goes into making those livechats is incredible, I'm essentially sitting behind a computer, and the facetime camera is tracking my face, and I'm basically controlling Marco like a videogame, and every time we go in the promo department of Disney XD, who are all amazing, are like "Oh we added a new thing he has karate chop action this time!" and I'm like "Yes! I want to play the karate chop!"
Q - You've got the opportunity to talk with fans at conventions, do you have like a favorite fan interaction moment? A - Yeah, I'm super grateful any interaction I get with fans, I feel so fortunate that people gravitate so heavily toward the show and want to talk to me- yes, this past comicon I actually planned a- you need to know this about me, I love Boba Tea, I'm obsessed with boba tea, so I decided that this year at Comicon, I was getting a lot of messages about, you know, Comicon's insane, people can't get tickets, and you know, the fans of the show some of them are younger, their parents can't get them out to Comicon, I talked to Daron and I was like "How about we do an unofficial fan meet up at a boba shop in San Diego", we do like, you know, a hundred people, cap it, we'll take some RSVP, and we'll just buy everyone a boba. So we did that, in July, and it was amazing, it was super awesome. We wanted to make sure everyone was prepped, we wanted everyone to know that no pressure, we're just hanging out. I was nervous that no one was going to come, then in like 10 15 minutes all the RSVP were gone, so I was like "I guess I should call the boba shop and let them know that it's official".
Q - Best Boba they have on the menu? A - I'm a creature of habit so honeygreen tea is my favorite, I always go for honeygreen tea.
[They talk about Boba tea]
Q - Are you planning to do another meet up when next year's comicon rolls around? A - I think so, why not. I'm like such a long term planner, I think so far ahead, that I have like this vision, of doing a boba meet up tour across the United States, where boba shops have me come and we do fan meet ups in cities across the world. Like how cool would that be, let's do this, boba places!
Q - [ask about Adam voicing an evil gingerbread man in Krampus] A - That was one of those wild audition where they literally give you no direction, they are like "German jibberish in high pitched voice", I'm like "...okay". So I gave it a go, [missing part] and the boot director at my agency was like "Yeah, you did it, I don't know" and I was like "Yeah... I'll never hear anything for this" while I walk out of the room, and then like a week later it's like "oh you are booked for this movie" and I'm like all right. [they keep talking about the movie]
Q - You've got quite a few things coming up in the future, but one of the big ones is Far Cry 5, coming out in 2018. Is there anything you can tell us about your character? A - I'm so sorry, I cannot. I feel like I signed an NDA that I signed an NDA, I'm just not allowed to talk about it, literally all we're allowed to say is that I'm part of it. I can tell you that the part that I play is the part in the videogame that when I play videogames I'm always not very nice to. So I'm very excited to get Far Cry 5 and just mess with me, so that's all I'll say, no specific information has been given out, Ubisoft.
Q - with videogames they actually have the voice actors doing the motion capture for the character, were you able to do any? A - Yeah, no, not this project, it was- this project was kind a typical audition and booking process [missing part] it took about seven eight months to find out it was for Far Cry 5, I was like guessing "Oh my god this is Assassin's Creed!" but they finally announced it and I got an email "Congrats you worked on Far Cry 5" and I was like when, when was that, I did that?!
Q - Are you a big videogames fan? A - I love videogames, I'm like a big first person shooters fan
Q - [question sent via chat to the channel] Star and Marco watching a horror movie, how would that go down? A - Oh my gosh, Star would be totally into it, she'd be like "What's the big deal, why is this guy scared, why don't they just hit him with I don't know, a cupcake blast!" and Marco would be like "Uuh Star, uuuh... I think we need to turn this off. Did you hear something in the kitchen? Oh no, what are we gonna do!", you know, it's totally their dynamic.
Q - If you did get to sit down in the writers room, what would want to see for Marco's character development in S3? A - I mean, I'd love to see him. Ok I got to think about what I recorded that I can't talk about, what we actually have in the airing of the episodes. I mean, getting to see him and Star put in different situations that kinda force them to grow, and being put in though spots to see how they'd react I think it'd be really fun, uh, you, whether that means like they kind of- you know the whole first season obviously they're living at homw with mom and dad, same with the second season, now season 3 began and we are on Mewni, like we don't know where we're gonna end up and all that stuff, but I think seeing him put in some difficult situations where maybe it tests his loyalty to Star, or something like that might be really fun to explore, things where we get to know him even better.
Q - We have a lot of people in the livechat crying for Princess Marco's return A - Oh yeah princess Marco, it's so funny. Recently there was a twitter poll about what merch people would like to see, and the overwhelming answer was Princess Marco dolls, so who knows, fingers crossed.
Q - Which episode was the most challenging to record? A - I'm going to say the season 3- either the season 2 finale or the season 3 premiere. The S3 premiere was obviously a four part episodes combined into a movie, but you know we got to see really emotional moments and wanting to do those justice made it like, you know, there was just a lot of pressure.
Q - [talking about incoming projects for Adam] A - [...] we're prepping for this November launch of the rest of S3 so the ADR are coming in quick and we are kicking butt to get all these episodes ready, and I know the crew is going in hard to get all the episodes ready, so the biggest thing coming the soonest. So you know we're going to get excited about all the other stuff later, but the thing everyone should be excited about the most is the return of S3 of SVTFOE, 'cause it's going to be crazyyy. [Interviewer: I can't wait that long] No but you have to 'cause then it's Thanksgiving and Christmas and all the other Holidays and you're gonna love it 'cause then you can watch it over all of those, and then Disney will take some other random breaks and make you hate your life, and you'll get even more later, 'cause that's what they do.
Q - Any desire to see a Holiday special? A - I mean I'd love- S2 we had a Halloween episode, ike Billy West is Hungty Larry, it was so good. Yeah, I'd... I'm down, give me all the special episodes. I'd actually love to see a Dìa de los Muertos episode. [Interviewer: Yeah Disney do it, take my money] Take mine too. And then gave back to me when I record, that's how it works!
