EXCLUSIVE:Hal Jordan And Kilowog To Have Buddy Cop Relationship In Green Lantern: The Animated Series

Talented voice actor Josh Keaton took take time out of his schedule to sit down and answer a few questions about the new animated take on Green Lantern that is scheduled to come out later this year, including how he got the part, what he did to prepare, and what to expect from Hal's relationship with Kilowag. More famous for lending his voice to Spider-Man he was kind enough to talk a little about voicing the Web Slinger in the upcoming Edge of Time video game and gives us his thoughts on Andrew Garfield as the new live Action Spider-Man in next Summers The Amazing Spider-Man.

Basically it was like any other role, it came to me as an audition from my manager and I read for it. It was actually a little bit different from a lot of voice over projects I've done. The casting process went really really quickly, usually there is a call back sometimes there is another call back and there is a lot of back and forth that happens. But this was just one audition and they cast me straight from that.

I didn't really know a whole lot about the role of Green Lantern my default comic books were Spider-Man and Wolverine. I did look in to a lot of the Green Lantern mythos; a friend let me borrow all of his comics. When I really was thinking about Hal Jordan I would see him as somebody that is cocky, but not in the traditional sense of how my Spider-Man portrayal was. I didn't really want to play him super jokey because that didn't really seem like that was Hal to me. He has a sense of humor but more dry than Spidey and not nearly as jokey still really keeping in a military bearing, because he's a military man. He grew up in a military family.

Kilowog is a fixture in the show it’s almost like a buddy cop dynamic almost like a Lethal Weapon relationship between Hal and Kilowog, which is really fun. Trying to think about anyone else I can talk about without giving anything away. That’s really the only Cops member that I can safely talk about at this point.

I haven't seen anything like that. I can't confirm whether or not that’s even in the cards. The Green Lantern mythos are so rich that I really don’t know if that is what the show is going for. They are really trying to explore the Green Lanterns and not try and be another Justice League or something like that. This is about the Lanterns.

The Process was a lot of fun this time around, it was fun on Shattered Dimensions but this I actually got to work in the same room with Chris Barnes (Spider-Man 2099) we had a lot more interaction a lot of back in forth in the scenes works out a lot better because it is more of a give and take versus an actor in a room by himself acting. So that was a really really fun process. There is a lot of twists and a lot of really cool things that happen. The thing that I dig about it is it's going to be like you’re playing through a comic book arc, which is neat. I think that video games have become so much of a story telling medium, personally I think it’s awesome. I love the idea of being able to play through a comic arc.

There are a few things. In an animated TV series most of the time you are reading with the cast and it's done in radio drama style you're all in the room and you go through the script and you perform it. With a video game it really not that way. Edge of Time was a bit different. They made much more of an effort to bring the voice talent together, but for the most part you’re in a room by yourself and you really have to trust your voice director and make sure your voices are consistent with other person playing opposite. The other thing is you usually don't get a script ahead of time for video games. A lot of times you go in and your just given a script right there. It's not even a full script, there is no stage direction there is no context. And I understand that video games are not a linear story, depending on what you do and the things that are going to happen you have to voice all these possibilities. It’s probably pretty difficult to put together a linear script, but it does make it a lot more difficult when you’re looking at an Excel spread sheet with your dialogue only, none of the other character dialogue from the scene no context and at that point that’s where you have to fall back on technique. The question you need to ask the voice director or the producer whoever is in the control room is OK what’s going on in this situation.

Well he is my favorite growing up. Him and Wolverine were the default books that I would love to read. I would like to say I am 5'9, but that’s with shoes on(laughs). So I would always like to root for the shorter characters and see them kicking ass. That just happen to be Peter Parker and Wolverine, and those would be the ones I would read. Also there was a lot of personal identification with Peter. Obviously I don't have Spider powers, but I did kind of lead a double life when I was in high school. I was not a cool kid. I liked comics and computers, but you do get picked on if you are not in the center of the social universe or if you're not in to sports or whatever. But outside of high school I was/am and actor. I had a different group of friends who didn't know me as that guy in high school, so I didn't have that nerd stigma attached to myself once I was out of high school. And I also share a lot of the same interests with Peter Parker, most of my hobbies and stuff I read about.

Everything has got its ups and downs. I would have to say that "The Spectacular Spider-Man", so far, stands out to me one because it's my favorite character growing up. Everybody that worked on the show was such a big fan of the character and Gregg Weiseman had amazing vision for how it was going to go if it went the five seasons. I wish we could have gotten more seasons to tell these stories more fully, but I am happy that we got where we on it.