Kazuhiro Nakata

• 1. Introduction

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  Kazuhiro Nakata speaks Japanese for Agent Smith in all three Matrix films. He takes over Hugo Weaving's lines through The Matrix, The Matrix Reloaded, and The Matrix Revolutions. In anime, he voices Bear in .hack//Sign and Fei Wong Reed in Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle, work far removed from an English-speaking rogue computer program. He is affiliated with the talent agency Ken Production and was born in 1958. That filmography spans robots, monsters, video game villains, and Hollywood dialogue. How did one actor end up cast in all of it, and what got him started?

• 2. A University Radio Drama

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  At a university festival, Nakata was placed in charge of a radio drama production, serving as its chairman while he was still a student. That assignment is the only origin the record offers for his interest in voice acting. No other detail survives about the production itself, its cast, or what came immediately after it. What follows in the filmography opens in 1993, with the role of Duker Iq in Mobile Suit Victory Gundam.

• 3. A Recurring Gundam Voice

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  A year later, in 1994's Mobile Fighter G Gundam, Nakata voiced Gentle Chapman. In 1995, he moved to Mobile Suit Gundam Wing as Rashid Kurama. Rashid Kurama became a role he returned to twice more. He reprised it in 1997's OVA Gundam Wing: Endless Waltz. In 1998, the character returned again in the theatrical Mobile Suit Gundam Wing: Endless Waltz Special Edition. The franchise gave him one of his most repeated anime characters, spanning three separate releases. A similar habit of reprising the same character across television and film would show up again later in his catalogue.

• 4. Reprising Kuzuki and Regal

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  In 2006, Nakata voiced Sōichirō Kuzuki in the Fate/stay night television series. He reprised Kuzuki in 2010, giving voice to the same character in the theatrical film Fate/stay night Unlimited Blade Works. A near-identical pattern shows up in the Rockman EXE series, where he is credited as Doctor Regal, Laserman, and Kyuuma Hoshida on television. Regal and a role called Nebula Grey then carried over into the 2005 theatrical film Rockman EXE: The Program of Light and Darkness. That same habit of playing recurring villains did not stay confined to anime. It also shaped a long run of video game roles still to come.

• 5. Villains in Video Games

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  Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back cast Nakata as Doctor N. Gin in 1997, a mad scientist he kept voicing across the series. He returned to the role in Crash Bandicoot: Warped in 1998, and again in Crash Team Racing in 1999. He played N. Gin once more in Crash Bandicoot: The Wrath of Cortex in 2001. He voiced N. Gin twice more, in Crash Nitro Kart in 2003 and Crash Twinsanity in 2004.

  Nakata's other game roles include Vincent Valentine in Ehrgeiz, released in 1998, and both Belinas and Wraith in Valkyrie Profile in 1999. In 2004, he voiced Zankuro Minazuki in Samurai Shodown V Special and Clay in Suikoden IV. The following year, he gave voice to Dormin's male half in Shadow of the Colossus. In 2006, he voiced Suou Uzuki in Xenosaga Episode III: Also sprach Zarathustra.

  That same performer also dubbed Dick Jones in RoboCop, played on screen by Ronny Cox. It marked a move from Japanese anime and games into Western film and television.

• 6. Dubbing American Film

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  In Casino Royale, Nakata dubs Le Chiffre, played by Mads Mikkelsen. He also voices Drexl Spivey in True Romance, played on screen by Gary Oldman. In Natural Born Killers, he voices Mickey Knox, played by Woody Harrelson. He voices Frank Nitti in The Untouchables, portrayed on screen by Billy Drago. He also voices Ray McDeere in The Firm, played by David Strathairn.

  In a 2006 TV Asahi broadcast of 2 Fast 2 Furious, he voices Carter Verone, played by Cole Hauser. That credit is tied to a specific Japanese broadcast rather than to the film itself, a pattern that repeats elsewhere in his dubbing work. In a 2000 TV Asahi broadcast of Deep Rising, he voices T-Ray Jones, played by Trevor Goddard. That is a different character from the one he dubs in the film's other credited version, Mamooli, played by Cliff Curtis. That same voice also carried over into English-language cartoons dubbed for Japanese television, a different kind of role from the crime and spy stories dubbed so far.

• 7. Cartoons and Curiosities

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  In Looney Tunes, Nakata voices Marvin the Martian. He also voices Mongul in Justice League, Mr. Fizz in Codename: Kids Next Door, and Grinder in Hello Kitty's Furry Tale Theater. In The Batman, he provides the first voice of James Gordon. One more credit stands apart from film, television, and games entirely: a voice role as the Giant Octopus in the attraction Peter Pan's Flight.