James Arnold Taylor

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James Arnold Taylor

Taylor at Star Wars Weekends 2011
Born July 22, 1969 (1969-07-22) (age 42)
Santa Barbara, California, U.S.
Occupation Voice actor
Years active 1984–present
Agent ICM
Religion Roman Catholic
Spouse Allison Taylor
Children Lydia
Website
http://www.jamesarnoldtaylor.com

James Arnold Taylor (born July 22, 1969; Santa Barbara, California) is an American voice actor, Impressionist, and Announcer. He is the current voice provider for Fred Flintstone as well as Obi-Wan Kenobi in the TV series Star Wars: The Clone Wars and also the movie Star Wars: The Clone Wars and Johnny Test in Johnny Test. He also provided the voice of Tidus in Final Fantasy X, X-2, Dissidia: Final Fantasy and its prequel, Dissidia 012 Final Fantasy.

Contents

[edit] Career

[edit] Notable roles

He provides the English voice work in Square Enix's popular video game, Final Fantasy X, as the voice of Tidus. He is also known as the voice of Ratchet in the popular Ratchet & Clank video game series from Insomniac Games, (except for the original game, in which Ratchet was voiced by Mikey Kelley); as well as Leonardo from TMNT. Taylor's other large roles include the roles of Wooldoor Sockbat and others on the Comedy Central animated series Drawn Together, voice acting for Captain Jack Sparrow in Kingdom Hearts II, and providing the voices for many characters in The Animatrix. He reprises his role as Tidus in the action/fighting game Dissidia Final Fantasy and in the game's prequel Dissidia 012 Final Fantasy. He also starred in the 2004 mockumentary Comic Book: The Movie, his only live action role to date. He played the role of the Agori, Berix and the Glatorian, Vastus in the recent direct-to-DVD film, BIONICLE: The Legend Reborn.

[edit] Star Wars

Taylor is very notable for his role as Obi-Wan Kenobi in the 2003 Star Wars: Clone Wars series as the voice double for Ewan McGregor. He first started doing the voice of Obi-Wan for The Star Wars: Clone Wars animated series, and had done some voice over work of actor Ewan McGregor doing an American voice in the past. He then auditioned for the Obi-Wan micro-series role unaware of the actual project due to studio secrecy. Taylor continued playing Obi-Wan for the Star Wars: The Clone Wars movie and Star Wars: The Clone Wars TV series, as well as the video games Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith, Battlefront II, and other Star Wars video games. As he continued to play the role of Obi-Wan, Taylor went back to the roots of the character, drawing inspiration from Sir Alec Guinness.

In Star Wars: The Clone Wars TV series he also provided the voice of Plo Koon in the style of Ian McKellen, Barb Mentir in the episode "The Gungan General", Bannamu in Lightsaber Lost, as well as some Death Watch Mandalorians in The Clone Wars. He is the only actor to have portrayed Obi-Wan Kenobi more than four times in the Star Wars saga.

He also plays an uncredited voice-role as Jedi Master Ferroda in the video-game Star Wars Battlefront: Elite Squadron.

[edit] Fred Flintstone

Taylor is the current voice of Fred Flintstone in commercials featuring the Hanna-Barbera cartoon character (i.e., Midas car care; Cocoa Pebbles cereal, etc.). He also voiced Fred in The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy and Drawn Together.

[edit] Marvel Comics

He also is the voice of Iceman in Marvel and Activision's games, X-Men Legends II: Rise of Apocalypse, and Marvel: Ultimate Alliance; the voice of Quentin Beck/Mysterio in the video game version of Spider-Man 2; the voice of Electro in the video game of Ultimate Spider-Man; and the voice of Spider-Man in Spider-Man: Battle for New York and Spider-Man: Friend or Foe. In The Spectacular Spider-Man he played Harry Osborn as well as Frederick Foswell.

[edit] DC Comics

Taylor voices Green Arrow as well as Guy Gardner on Cartoon Network's Batman: The Brave and the Bold. He also provided the voice for Captain Cold in the direct-to-video film Justice League: The New Frontier. He provided the voice of Topo in Young Justice.

[edit] As a voice double

Taylor has also worked as a voice double for actors such as David Spade, Johnny Depp, Michael J. Fox, Nathan Lane, Billy Bob Thornton, Ewan McGregor, Christopher Walken, and Tony Todd.

[edit] Live-action work

Although had no aspirations to be an on-camera actor, he starred in the movie Comic Book: The Movie, as himself in physical form as well as reprising his voice role of Obi-Wan Kenobi in live table reads of Star Wars: The Clone Wars. He also made an appearance as a hotel agent in an episode of Big Time Rush.

He played Duane Swift in the short-film: The Audition. The film was aired on YouTube on September 1, 2009. His voice dubbed an actor named Josh as Obi-Wan Kenobi for the fan film Raiders of the Lost Jedi Temple of Doom, a fan story that brings together the Star Wars series and the Indiana Jones saga. The show was shown as a part of the Last Tour to Endor celebration at Star Wars Celebration V at Orlando, Florida. He will reprise his role as Obi-Wan Kenobi in live-action form along with Catherine Taber reprising her role as Padme Amidala in the fan film: Hughes the Force[1].

[edit] Personal life

Taylor is a long-time comic book and Star Wars fan, and is married to Allison Taylor. Together they have one daughter who is described as "[talking] about Obi-Wan all the time." [2]

At Star Wars Weekends in 2010, He and Star Wars: The Clone Wars co-star Ashley Eckstein were demonstrating to fans how they perform voice-acting for the show. While doing this, James invited his daughter to the stage where she lent her voice to Fred Tatasciore's character of The Zillo Beast from The Clone Wars episodes: The Zillo Beast and The Zillo Beast Strikes Back.

He is good friends with voice actors; David Kaye, Jim Ward, Corey Burton, Tom Kane, Diedrich Bader, Tom Kenny, Quinton Flynn, Khary Payton, Trevor Devall, Dee Bradley Baker, Neil Flynn, Steven Blum, John DiMaggio, Tara Strong, Kevin Michael Richardson, Chris Edgerly, Cat Taber and Leslie Carrara-Rudolph along with others. He and Burton performed their own version of How the Grinch Stole Christmas using the voices of Obi-Wan Kenobi, Cad Bane, and Ziro The Hutt. The video has been posted on YouTube.

Taylor has cited Uncanny X-men, Green Arrow, Spider-Man, Green Lantern, Batman, Iron Man, and Flash as his favorite comic books series.

[edit] Mediagraphy

[edit] External links

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