Griffin Burns Talks to Anime Herald

Note: Minor edits made for clarity

Interviewer: Samantha Ferreira

Anime Herald: How does it feel to be connected with so many iconic franchises, notably the Fate and Devilman works?

Griffin Burns: Fate and Devilman? Well, first off, it's an honor to be part of all those franchises. I will admit, I wasn't an anime fan as a kid. And I started learning more about it as a voice actor, about six or seven years ago. o, oftentimes, when I book these projects, I learn after the fact how special they are. 

Devilman, in particular, I didn't even audition for it. I was just cast. And when I went down to the studio, [the] studio was SDI, they just said, "here you go! You're playing Akira Fudo here." And they played some clips, and got into voice, and we just knocked all the dialogue out in probably two three-to-four-hour sessions. 

And then, again after the fact, I saw the show and realized what a big deal it was, what a cool show it was—a unique show—and how special it is to the fanbase. Same thing goes with Fate.

Anime Herald: What would you say is the biggest challenge that came up in recording and working in recording during the pandemic?

Griffin Burns: [The] biggest challenge? There's been some tech issues, especially with dubbing. In the beginning, there were some major delays. 

So you know, with dubbing, they'll play you three beeps, and you start your line on the imaginary fourth beep. When they would do playback, the audio that you recorded, you could have done it perfectly. But sometimes, the audio wouldn't match up, and the engineer was trying to figure out. "Okay, is it on? On our end? Is it on your end? Do we need to restart Skype, Zoom, whatever?" 

And over time, and actually, relatively quickly, they got more efficient on it. They started being able to account for sorts of delays. You know, like, "we know that, while using this program, there's a half-second or not half-second, maybe fraction of a second delay, so we're going to shift it this much." So it got smoother over time. But at first, it like, "is this gonna work?" 

You know, certainly, those early sessions weren't very efficient. Say, you do 30 or 40 loops in an hour. Maybe, early COVID, we were doing 10 or 15. And now, I would say today, it's just as efficient as going into the studio, almost. So I think, going forward, there will always be an option if somebody's, I don't know sick, or just can't go into the studio, there probably will always be the option of recording from home.

Ritsuka Fujimaru (Fate/Grand Order)

Anime Herald: How do you manage expectations of social media, celebrity, and parasocial relationships?

Griffing Burns: With celebrity and what parasocial relationships? So, to understand you correctly, how do I deal with my social media presence, and sort of having an influence?

Anime Herald: Exactly.

Griffin Burns: Well, it's been tricky. There's definitely some pitfalls. You know, you have to be... you are an influence to younger people, to older people, fans in general. So you need to be mindful of what you're putting out there. I, in particular, like to have fun and kind of push the envelope a little bit with my humor and posts. But, as much as that has kind of gained me followers, it can also be something that I have to be careful with, because my humor isn't for everybody. And it can offend sometimes. 

So, yeah, you just need to be vigilant with your posting. And, sometimes, you just need to take a break, you know? Because there is a new pressure when you have this sudden influx of followers, and you're like, "Well, gosh, now I feel like I need to keep feeding and offering content." And first and foremost, I'm a voice actor, I'm not an influencer, at least I don't consider myself that. But my job is to portray these roles, and so that comes first. And if I can't do the social media thing, or if I need to take a few weeks off, I have to allow myself to do that.

But it's been hard, because there's this little voice that says, "you haven't posted! They're, they're waiting for you," you know, and sometimes you just gotta say, "No, that's okay. You can live without, you know, Instagram or Twitter."

Vinegar Doppio (JoJo's Bizarre Adventure)

Anime Herald: Out of curiosity, what would you like to see in the future of voice acting? What would you like to see the future of the landscape evolve into in maybe five, ten, fifteen years?

Griffin Burns: Well, I'm a little worried with technology that, you know, with text-to-speech, and voices like Siri and whatnot. You know, I would hope that there's enough work for everybody. There are a lot of voice actors out there. There's thousands in L.A., I know, there's probably 100,000 across the country. I don't really know the numbers, but there's a lot.

And there is a lot of work out there. I would hope that that workflow continues, and that it doesn't get outsourced, or replaced with some new tech or whatever. Because it's a super fun career. I feel very lucky to be involved in it. And I'd love to I'd love to do this for a long time.

Anime Herald: I just always like to ask people this one: what is the strangest, most unexpected thing to ever happen to you in the recording booth?

Griffin Burns: I was doing a Six Flags Coca-Cola commercial, and was supposed to be acting like I was riding a roller coaster. And I got really into it, and flipped over my chair, and broke the-there was a thing like this behind me (points at a standing structure). It was like a baffle for sound. And I broke the wheel off of it because I flipped over. And the engineer, I had no idea he was the owner of the studio, and he came rushing in. He's like, "Oh! You okay, there?" "Sadly, I broke your thing back here." And he's like, "wow, you were really into that!"