Max Felder is a 21 year old actor and voice over artist who lives in Munich. He is – apart from others – the german voice for Jacob Black in ‘New Moon’ and Ronald Weasley in ‘Harry Potter’. Yesterday a german website published an interview they did with him – here is the translation:
Exciting news – we had the exclusive chance to get a great interview with Max Felder, the german voice of Jacob Black. After Ring*Con 2009 we got a lot of emails because everyone was thrilled by Max. That’s why we asked him via Twitter if it’s possible to ask him a few questions all of you wanted to know – for example about his job and, what a lot of us wanted to know, will he talk about ‘New Moon’?
Thanks again to Max for his wonderful assistance.
1) What do you like most at your job?
2) What movies will you do in the near future? Did you see ‘New Moon’ already? Which person would you love to lend your voice to?
3) How do you watch all the movies? On a big screen like at the cinema or on a small TV?
4) Are you excited for ‘New Moon’ and the most wanted question to be answered is, are you ‘Team Edward’ or ‘Team Jacob’?
1) To synchronize is a job you totally have to do on your own, apart from the director’s advice. You are alone in a studio in front of a german textbook, the microphone and a TV. It’s extremely exhausting work for your head, because sometimes you have to be highly concentrated for about 6-9 hours. A lot of people don’t know that synchronizing is a very difficult job! But nevertheless it’s one of my favorite things to do, because if you want to communicate your spoken feelings, the best way is to replay the scene, more or less, but without moving around so much because the microphone will hear everything!
In being an actor what I love most is to become another character and getting into a role. I think it’s fascinating to wonder about how another person is, what their behaviour is and how they live their life. These are the over all considerations you take to develop a part and you become this person. Also teamwork teamwork is very important in acting, because it’s extremely wonderful to work together with your friends and colleagues, who also do everything they can for their job!
2) The next project is ‘New Moon’. Including that, I’ll have my first voice part in ‘South Park’. I’ve seen New Moon partially because we’ll start to synchronize it in about 10 days. I’m very excited for the work and the movie, just like most of you! Which people do I want to synchronize with? Mmmmh…that’s a difficult question! Already I have already done so much great roles, that range from ‘Disneys Tarzan’, to Mowgli in ‘Dschungle Book 2’ to Ron Weasley, Corbin Bleu alias Chad Danforth in ‘High School Musical 1-3’ and now Jacob Black. There are always demanding roles, where you have go beyond yourself, for example at ‘Le Chiavi di Casa’, I was voicing a mentally challenged person. Other challenging are parts when you have to be a raper or a person that is dying (it’s not that easy to do perfect synchrone lip-movings if your character is being kicked to death at that moment, like in the movie ‘Eden Lake’). But the person I always wanted to lend my voice to is Johnny Depp (one of my favorite actors and an idol of mine), but for a long time now he has a permanent voice-artist…apart from that I think my voice is a little bit too young. I’m am completely happy with the offers and projects I’ve had in the past and for the future…I’m totally happy.
3) How we watch the original-movie depends on the synchronize company. In some studios it’s a silver screen and in some on a TV. But most of the time there are just very big TVs.
4) I’m very thrilled for ‘New Moon’, for the work at the studio and for the end result, because if people like a movie, it also means the synchrone guys did a great job because the movie lives through the voice. Apart from that I will do six cinema readings mid November in six different cities, where I’ll read 45 minutes from ‘New Moon’. For me that is a totally new experience, because it’s completely different to read in front of 200 people live! Who is interested in it? Just research the internet: ‘Max Felder liest vor’…okay, enough advertisement. And now the most important question: ‘TEAM JACOB’ of course, what else?!
I hope I was able to give you a short insight to movie and do the voice over life. Perhaps I’ll see a few of you at my readings or next year at Ring*Con 2010. Or at least in ‘New Moon’: ‘He left you Bella, he don’t want you anymore!’
I still think it’s weird to watch movies translated – but Max is really a nice boy with a cute voice and I hope I can attend his read in Munich. What do you think of this interview? Do you like translated movies or original versions?
