411mania.com has updated their website with an interview with the voice of Transformers Prime Starscream and Rescue Bots Heatwave; voice actor Steve Blum. In the interview, Steve elaborates on what it’s like voicing both the evil Starscream and the heroic Heatwave and the approaches he took to voicing both. He also breifly touches on what we can expect from Starscream in the second season of Transformers Prime.
Click the title bar or the link above for the full interview and then head over to the 2005 Boards to discuss with your fellow fans. Jeffrey Harris: What can you tell us about your character in Transformers: Rescue Bots, Heatwave?
Steven Blum: Well, he’s brave, loyal, cranky, holds a lot of water, and gets to say cool things like… “Rescue Bots, Roll to the Rescue!” It’s nice to play a heroic character without so much baggage. And a true joy to be able to bring the Transformers universe to a new generation in a family friendly, but hugely entertaining way.
Jeffrey Harris: When you got the role to play Starscream in Transformers: Prime, was there a certain way you wanted Starscream to sound or a specific vocal quality or characteristic for him to have?
Steven Blum: Like any character I approach, I start with the first voice that comes to me. I rely heavily on instinct, and through the years it’s served me well. With Starscream, I knew the sound of the character’s previous incarnations (i.e. Chris Latta, Tom Kenny, Charlie Adler, etc.), and wanted to give it my own take. The character design is different in Prime, hence the deeper snark and violence, but when I can, I pay a bit of vocal homage to my predecessors. Out of respect for them and for the fans. Fortunately, it seems to have worked out.
Jeffrey Harris: Starscream always manages to get out of scraps by the skin of his bolts but just barely. Does Starscream just have the devil’s luck or is he really that smart and resourceful?
Steven Blum: A dollop of both, I believe. He’s a bright, powerful, and dangerous bot! He simply makes bad choices. Maybe if he had been hugged more when he was a little scraplet . . .
Jeffrey Harris: What was it like going to BotCon last year and doing a live reading on stage with the likes of Jeffrey Combs, Ernie Hudson, Peter Cullen, and the rest of the Transformers: Prime cast?
Steven Blum: Oh my God. One of the best moments I can remember! Before I comment on that particular day though, let me take this opportunity to give some props to my cast mates…
Andy Pessoa (Raf) – what a great kid. Very professional, very smart and always enthusiastic. It’s a challenging role and he does it extremely well. I learn a lot from him. Especially about air soft weapons. Dude knows his stuff.
Tanya Gunadi (Miko) – Ok, let’s face it. She IS Miko! Mischievous, funny, adorable. Sometimes I can’t handle all the cute. I want to adopt her.
Josh Keaton (Jack) – I’m a big fan of Josh. Met him working on Spectacular Spiderman (he’s Spidey) and have loved his work ever since. He’s become a good friend. One of the coolest people I know.
Jeffrey Combs (Ratchet). WOW. I used to work as a mailroom clerk and driver for the company that made the classic horror film Re-Animator (Jeff was the star) back in the 80’s. Even though he was the star of our biggest film, Jeff was a gentleman then and still is. Seeing him as Poe in his one-act play “Nevermore” is transformational in itself, but NO-ONE could play Ratchet like Jeff. Great actor, great friend, great human. Kind of a geektastic full circle in my life to actually work beside him.
Kevin Michael Richardson (Bulkhead). One of my very favorite voice actors in the world, period. Giant, diverse, brilliant talent, and so funny, I have literally peed laughing when he gets on a roll. And one of the warmest hearts I’ve ever known. Bad boy in the studio, but man he makes it fun. He’s family to me.
Peter (freaking) Cullen! (Optimus). That voice is NOT human. I worked opposite Peter for the old Toonami block of cartoon programming, but didn’t get to work with him in the same room until this show. Peter is class, hilariously funny, insanely talented and amazingly kind, patient and enthusiastic, considering he’s been doing this role for 751 years. Oh yeah, and he’s a legend. Yeah, it doesn’t suck working next to him.
Markie Post (June Darby – Jack’s mom) To be honest, I had a huge crush on her for years from her hit show Night Court. I still can’t believe I’m working with her! She definitely classes up the room.
Ernie Hudson (Fowler). Love that man! Have since Ghostbusters. He surprised me the most, I think. Here’s a celebrity, who comes in very quiet, with no attitude, delivers an understated performance, and in the finished production, his character stands out as funny, bold, stupidly brave, and incredibly entertaining. Top that off with the fact that he’s a really nice guy, and wow. Just wow.
So that was the group that performed at Botcon. I need a whole other interview to talk about the rest of the cast. Among them are my all time V/O heroes (Frank Welker, Daran Norris, Clancy Brown) and my new favorite female badass of all time – Sumalee Montano (Arcee) (I’m buying her action figure). But I’ll gush on them another time.
Anyway, what was it like doing a live read with this cast at Botcon? Still gives me chills. I’m thrilled that the diehard TF fans have embraced our show with such excitement. Kudos and thanks also to our producers, directors, writers, artists and crew for mixing up this masterpiece and letting me come along for the ride.
Jeffrey Harris: You’ve actually played quite a few Cybertronians actually going back many years, but at the end of the day does your heart belong to Starscream?
Steven Blum: Um, yeah. I’m so honored to be any part of the Transformers universe, but Starscream is probably my favorite *NaughtyCon of all time. (*coined by Frank).
Jeffrey Harris: There was some good news recently that The Hub has actually picked up the Marvel Super Hero Squad show for syndication. How happy does that make you that fans will get another chance to see that show on TV?
Steven Blum: You have no idea! We never felt that show got the audience or the exposure it deserved. I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE Super Hero Squad. I don’t think I’ve ever consistently laughed so hard at every recording session for any show. I’m so grateful that a whole new audience will get to see it and I really hope we get to do more episodes. Thank you, Hub!
Jeffrey Harris: What was the weirdest thing you remember recording as Wolverine on the show thinking, “I never thought Wolverine would ever say that on TV?”
Steven Blum: “Snikt.” (The onomatopoeic noise Wolverine’s claws make when extending – from the comics) I’m not sure anybody who’s a Wolverine fan would have ever thought he’d actually say that word out loud. It’s on the license plate of my car. Still makes me chuckle.
Jeffrey Harris: Many fans were actually quite upset when they learned that you weren’t working on the English version of the Wolverine anime series as many had recognized you as the voice of Wolverine. Were you surprised or pleased at all by the fan support of fans wanting you to play the character again? And how happy were you to play Wolverine again for the spectacular X-Men anime series?
Steven Blum: At first, I was a little disappointed that I wasn’t cast as Logan, especially because it was an anime (I got my start in anime!), but I’ve always felt there’s enough work for everybody, this was a very different take on the character, and I still got to be on the show (as a bad guy fighting Wolverine – who knew?!), so I got over it in literally moments. I was tremendously grateful for the support the fans gave me, but I asked them to give Milo a chance. I think he did a great job. Gotta say it was good to Adamantium up again in X-Men (Anime) though. Like coming home. Very cool show. Nuff said.
Jeffrey Harris: In the incredibly outrageous videogame, Shadow of The Damned, was your character Garcia F. Hotspur supposed to be *SPOILER ALERT* eating a people burger at the end? “Outrageous” as Aquaman would say.
Steven Blum: I cannot confirm or deny. But for the record, it was delicioso.
Jeffrey Harris: What can we expect Starscream to be up to in season 2 of Prime?
Steven Blum: More fun, frivolity, deception, cuz… well… he’s a Decepticon, lying, cheating, conniving and beating, and getting beaten… a LOT. He’s in for a world of unprecedented pain. Hurts for me, but seriously fun for you. Let’s just say the writers had a little too much sick, twisted, sadistic fun with Starscream this coming season. And I mean that in the best possible way. Please tune in, won’t you?
Meta777
Man, this was great to read! Steve Blum is awesome
Bottle Fairy
I wanna sig this so bad.
Nyusu no tensai
You pretty much spoke out my thoughts with that. Starscream WILL get character development, at least I hope that for the sake of the show. >.> It was said, that the show is supposed to focus on "character" and "backgroundstory". Okay, we got to know a bit of bg-story already, and season 2 will focus on that topic alone. That's what they said, at least. We got to know the story of Arcee, of Orion and Megatron and now we'll get to know the story of Bumblebee and a bit of Ratchet. I guess that they'll do something about Starscream's, Breakdown's and Soundwave's past too. I HOPE IT -___-''
And the whole show is a little bit too fixed on Arcee and Jack. It's often only Arcee that beats the crap out of the rest, and after one whole season this is simply annoying (for me) . I look forward to a few episodes without her, she's not the main-character after all. No one is.
I was down for the rest of the day when I read the sentence about the sadistic fun the writers had with Starscream. Like you said, we can only hope, that there's gonna be more behind it, than we know yet… >.<
Thilda
I couldn't agree more. If
it will just kill my faith in the show.
Starscream is an asshole and most stuff that happens to him is laser guided karma just like shroobmaster wrote.
But I just can't watch him going even deeper into villain decay. If he reverts to being the clown we saw in 'Shadowzone' it would just mean that he didn't get any character development at all. I find it annoying that they show him as a bamf in the first episodes, and for the rest of the season he's just so pathetic it makes me want to gauge my eyeballs out, hide them in a shoebox and save them for better times. If they want to torment him, I hope they at least try to level out the balance between miserable/pathetic and badass.
On the other hand I noticed that Steve Blum is the only VA from the show revealing so much about what will happen with his character (as far as I know). Maybe it's because he gets interviewed more than the others. But it's like the second or third time that he states that in season 2 Screamer will get beaten badly, will suffer etc. And since the VA aren't allowed to really reveal much stuff about the upcoming episodes, maybe what Blum says is just small portion of what will happen to Starscream. Maybe it's just a smokescreen?
Well, at least it's my wishful thinking *goes to be delusional somewhere else*
Enigma2K2
Heh heh… you asked him about Shadows of the Damned…
YOU LIKE IT, DON'T YOU?!?!? TASTE MY BIG BONER!!!!!
ngnikolaos
You know, not *everyone* scrolls the cursor to the "spoilers" black line … Your comment made it plainly obvious that MECH and StarScream are allied in Operation Bumblebee.
shroobmaster
Starscream is an evil guy. In a TF cartoon. Starscream is an evil guy in a TF cartoon that is absolutely shitty to everyone from both sides due to being a snake so smug he smirks when he is asleep.
How is anyone surprised, much less angry, that YEAH he will get beaten? Asshole smug villain ALWAYS gets beaten and beaten badly. It's karma guided. If he were the HONORABLE VILLAIN or something maybe he would get beaten less violently, but no, he is the asshole, and the asshole always gets it worse.
On the bright side, if it happens then soundwaverullz will finally stop whining and watching the show so yeah I hope Bee beats him next two parter.
ngnikolaos
Starscream's jet form was always vital in turning the tide of a battle … ergo, his limit to bot form only counts as a handicap.
(Darth Vader voice) A-HAAA! So that's it.
WTDylio
He was just talking about the cast members who were at Botcon last year
He still showed competence in that he was able to get Arcee to move closer to him so he could have the first strike
NICKBOT
Pretty sure he spoke about the BotCon experience and then mentioned Welker.
VAwitch
He was responding to the BotCon reading from 2011 – and Welker wasn't present.
He wasn't ignoring Welker & the others, but he only had so long/so much print space to answer questions.
Sideswipe80
Perhaps Mech will get a hold of him and torture him.
seekerblackout
That crik in his back could have been tide turning!
ngnikolaos
He WAS handicapped though …
seekerblackout
He was only competant in Partners because Arcee was about to go into stasis from Energon loss.
ngnikolaos
Anyone else noticed that Blum never mentioned Welker in his comments about the people he works with?
WTDylio
That doesn't sound fun….at all. That sounds really bloody annoying, I was hoping he'd be a bit more competent and better at fighting like we saw in the latest episode and Partners
I pretty much agree with what ngnikolaos said
ngnikolaos
As much as I dislike your constant bashing of the TF Prime series and its characters, I have to admit I was disappointed with what I read. It sounds like Starscream is going to have his butt kicked again and again, which seriously cripples the badass promise he made us at the end of Partners.
The more I see of him, the more I'm convinced he's a certain Warner Bros black duck who became a fan favourite … and would get screwed every time just so that the writers could screw with the fans. Not necessarily in a wrong way, but in a way that hampered his potential.
I said it back then, and I'll say it again: Screamer needs to pull a "moonstones enhanced Helmut Zemo" and play with both factions as a violin, not bargain / plea for crumbs. We need to see him exploit the weaknesses of both factions for his own purposes. Since he's alone, his wits must make him an equal threat to any other faction.
Joining with MECH would be a good move for Screamer to upgrade himself, plan his next moves, and leave a victor (and maybe a few bot thralls).
But the way I read Blum's interview, he's just going to be more of a joke, if anything else. However, these are just theories, and the last few scenes with Starscream (Rathcet scene excluded) make me hope that he will indeed become as lethal as he declares himself to be.
soundwaverulls
Every interview it gets worse. It's like he's trying to put me off the show. Megatron is becoming smarter and Soundwave is becoming more interesting so I could live with the common beating of Starscream but it's starting to sound horrible. I find Starscream to be the only character I like so now it sounds like the movies all over again. The only character I like getting his ass kicked.
If this is done by Bumblebee, I will stop watching. The writing is poor and the characters are underdeveloped. I will not watch the only character I like get tortured by Bumblebee.
UltraAlanMagnus
Oh My. I wonder he is a fan of the Flash Comics. I think he should voice Wally West one day.