Cabbage Man Unpeeled: The Unexpected Icon of Avatar!

I like hearing how nice I am in person you're somebody's saying I think that really is Uncle iro one time a fan told me that they wanted to have a baby with my voice we used to like trip out on the script I remember like taught me and Jack and made with each are like did you read what's going on this this is crazy what's happening I was like what is fine I threw it in the garbage and we left the room man I loved reading the scripts I'm like couldn't I be that princess can I could I be the king of omashu there is no movie in boxing say and what would you say James I'd say you're watching convention coverage Make some noise wow this is cool thank you so much for being at our show thank you all of you it is such a great pleasure to see some of you again meet some new folks thank you so much I mean I know that I'm a huge fan I love the show and obviously all these people love you too give it up come on so no I don't want to waste their time so I'm going to turn the show over to them asking questions you guys okay with that let's get it started I want to start the panel by first saying thank you so much for bringing these characters to life um thank you for the representation that you gave disabled and people of color like me like that just means the world thank you so much to that I bow to you and my question is whether it be because it was funny touching whatever what's the your favorite thing that a fan has ever said to you we're very lucky because obviously you guys all are here because you love the show but generally speaking I mean Olivia and I always say there's always one point in the con where we're crying because the show has affected you guys so much so this the fact that you're able to share your love just is a reflection of just what we put out there and it's it's a symbiotic thing so in generally in general terms you know the love for it yeah I'll Echo that like hearing from people about specific periods of their life that the show was a part of and knowing like hey we our artistic contributions were there helping you through this time or enriching this time or helping a relationship with someone you shared this with a parent or a sibling or like that type of stuff is the coolest thing to hear and to just get a glimpse into like the connection people have at the show is really cool I like hearing how nice I am in person we like hearing it too we're like I was so scared to meet you you're so nice I'm like well compared to what you know it's generational so I'll have like Grandpa dad and son or daughter and I'm like what how old am I this isn't this is a problem I think one of my favorite moments it was the first time I ever cosplayed iro and I just wanted to wander around the hall as a cosplayer so I'm wandering around somebody comes up to me says hey I Romania cosplay it's on point and I go oh I thank you very much and from behind me from behind me I hear somebody say I think that really is Uncle iro yeah and I say ah my work here is done I appreciate the honestly just the screams usually from people just walking by they're like Melanie I'm like she had a good a good call out one time a fan told me that they want to have a baby with my voice [Laughter] oh I'm gonna have to step in I don't want to have a baby with it I just want to do all the things that you do to have a baby I don't have to watch some kid yikes we were actually also just telling James backstage we we did have a con last year where people wanted us to sign actual cabbages like from the store they were going to go bad but we were doing it for the mems anyway did you say mems have I been saying it wrong the entire time For The Memories I was like I thought it wasn't old it's French okay I just want to say that this is my first con I'm I'm a little overwhelmed uh a little tired but completely buoyed up by like how much love is palpable in the room and when people come up and and it means so much to them so um thank you all maybe some mixed feelings about this live and oh we we don't know what we're getting but who's excited to see James in it yeah yeah thank you so much WoW uh Avatar is my favorite show ever and I'm sure for a lot of people in this room that's true um oh my gosh I love it thank you um but my question is kind of going along that like with it being so popular was there a moment where it hit you like this is gonna be a big thing that everybody really cares about no I would really love to hear especially from James because of the way that your role evolved I want to hear and Dante because any excuse to hear your voice [Applause] another baby from The Voice you're like the Barry White you know you know what seriously when we did this show originally there was no internet the way internet is here now like we literally didn't even have Facebook or Twitter or anything while we were doing the show so or texting or time we were texting what I had no idea people were watching the show that weren't kids it only went for three seasons so typically if a show only goes for three seasons you're like I guess nobody really you know so I mean it was cool when we did it we used to like we used to like trip out on the script I remember like taught me and Jack and made with Stage are like did you read what's going on this this is crazy what's happening I was like what is that and so we were tripping just as actors reading it and being geeking out on like it's a cool story but I had no clue that people were watching it I had the experience I was like end of high school early college like when we were making the show and so like as season two was coming out I was in college and I had two different peers of mine at College pull me aside with the same exact tone of like hey man listen it's a kid's show um so I get like don't tell anyone that I said this but like your show is like really cool so that was the early hint yeah really you didn't we know the full scope of it yeah we had no virality yeah no it's not like man and none of my I think I was like 30. you know what I mean so it was I was like way I was just it was just another job I definitely thought it was amazing because when we recorded we did it in groups that had never I'd never done that I'd never had a first on-screen fake kiss with somebody who's sitting right next to me you know so that part was cool I knew it was special I knew the direction was special I knew the writing was special but I didn't know until I think I had a friend's kid be like oh my friend my kid really likes your your show and I had these scripts I just gave her one now I'm like I wish I kept all those scripts what I wished I gave them all away I had no idea I know but you know what those people are happy with it so I threw it in the garbage and we left the room man good because my mom kept them they're in a box I have them read them I did not read the scripts because I came in season two right and a script on an animated show is a little less detailed than a script in a TV show or a movie there's a little less detail whatever and so I didn't really know what was going on you know it's like fire lord Earth Kingdom whatever so I didn't know Tyler was a bad guy that's what Dante and I did a con together like 10 years later and they were like what's it like to be a villain and I was like she's not a Villain Like I just played her pink I don't that's why she's so chipper I just thought she was pink and cute and um turns out it's kind of bad and then cut to when now where we have this techno I can't talk today you guys oh my gosh it's been a long day anyway head to Twitter text all this stuff I think this is the beginning my friends start texting me they're like oh my God Jenny yeah avatars on Netflix it went to like it's so popular I'm like what yeah so I'm I'm recording in my booth like one day and it's like of course we can't be together in person so the director's like hey Jenny how does it feel to be um on the number one rated show on Netflix I'm like what are you talking about he's like Netflix is like oh I guess I should post about this and he's like I don't think they need any help and I was like oh sorry so that's kind of when I noticed I was like oh it's really popular now as opposed to back in the day like we were saying I don't know like it took you know if people sent fan mail they would send it to your agent and then another couple weeks no merch no merge all that kind of stuff so so the internet all this day and age it's really pumped up everything because everything is so instant and you all did that so thank you thank you I always I always knew that it was a very well-written show that was obvious when we were doing it but it wasn't really until we started until I started coming to these events and meeting fans and hearing the stories people tell about how this show positively impacted their lives and I I literally cannot think of another animated show that has had so much real impact in the real world and it's uh it's a remarkable thing you know uh my little brother called me up one time this is another time when I knew there's something going on it's my little brother you know Brothers he calls me up you know and he says hey you know Big Brother What's that show you were in that Avatar show that show was really good and you were good in it too and I'm going oh there's something going on with this if my little brother is telling me indeed you know what have you done with my little brother so yeah that's true Tara Strong got me to one of my first cons like 10 10 or 11 years ago and I was like nobody's gonna buy my honorrade it was like a pony con at the time I was like you just want me to sit at a table by myself well you have a big line of people that's what you want and she was like no no it's going to be awesome like they they will they care about voiceovers I was like really because we're so used to being like the little peons you know um and so I remember sitting at a table on myself going I knew it I knew this was gonna happen because nobody was at my table and a guy came I had head shots I didn't have pictures of my characters I just had like me like you know and I'm like this is so dumb I can't believe I'm here and then this guy comes he's like did you azulon Avatar and I was like I I think so you know you know hold on a minute and he went and he's like looking like yes you did you did and then he's like hold on a minute and then pretty soon like I had like a lot of a line and I'm like yes and I still haven't seen it Dante was like gray you got to come to my house because I haven't seen the show and now it's getting really popular and people are wanting us to talk about it and I don't know what I'm talking about he's like come to my house and watch it so I started this twitch Channel and I came I had I had to get a babysitter and I was like I gotta leave I only could stay for my scene and then I was like I gotta go back to my babysitter so I've all still only seen my scenes my scene thank you thank you James do you when did when did this hit big for you we didn't hear quite from you yeah and I think she only asked you and yeah I feel there's a little bit of imposter syndrome going on because like all of these people have beautiful arcs they have they have these great these great characters they've worked together they're creating this Dynamic and I would come in like every three months four months so [Applause] I mean it was very strange but I knew that things were happening because I loved reading the scripts I'm like oh couldn't I be that Prince can I could I be the king of omashu and not knowing that the Cabbage Merchant would be so so beloved can I ask James were you like is that what you were cast as or were you playing like a guard and then that was an incidental or like were you doing other roles when you were there were you just always the first time it was completely not a recurring character he was someone that was a foil in you know omashu right and I I played the guard that interrogated him and so the reason why he sounded like this was because the guard sounded like this so I had to do something else um and then so that was it I was yeah just doing kind of little Parts here utility utility rolls they're called and then all of a sudden they would be calling me in I'm like oh what is it oh it's a cabbage okay how many lines oh that line okay okay so you never know what will you know bear fruit and the Beautiful Thing is vegetables what will bear cabbage oh man James I admire your character as cabbage man who've never had a formal name I always love those characters because you're right they're the ones who wind up being popular for whatever reason so my question to you is as the Cabbage man did you ever think you would be on a panel like this never not not for a moment I still can't quite believe that I'm here anyway so thank you um what are your guys's thoughts on M Night shyamalan's adaption of avatar The Last Airbender there is no movie in bossing say yes [Applause] you guys ever wonder what happened to your cartoon mom in the show my cartoon my mom yeah and it's in the it's in the comics what happened to your mom yeah we have the same mom she loved me more than she loved you yeah she told me that the reason I cut my bangs I I didn't read the comics I know I didn't like that Azula was helping them I was like I don't want to be good she's not mean she doesn't stay good don't worry okay good good yeah she's mean through and through yeah I remember you were reading those on I was reading them you're a good you're a good I'm always rooting for my sister kids I got a lot of kids I know it's in but it's in it's in the search you can go see some stuff I'll definitely check it out when I when I have the chance to write Comics but I think for your uh your answer though cheers to have such major arcs from when you got hired to like the end point of the show nope character specific just like you don't expect like when when we made that pilot I had no idea like it was so uncommon for a show to be that serial for a kid's cartoon to be that serialized that I didn't expect arcs at all right and then when it started to be clear that we had arcs it was a very for me then a very surprised that first book I was like I asked Mike and Brian like am I the Wiley Coyote just be honest with me I'm never gonna catch this guy right I just want to keep catching him but I'm not going to catch him I'm just like he just threw my fingertips every time but then they're like no wait you know something's gonna happen yeah same I mean my voice was so blase I really thought that my whole life would be blase I mean I thought May would just be like I don't know background which I mean that's what was cool about her you know saving her man her boo little red light a little lightweight little thing going on oh we're gonna make some babies uh so yeah I know I didn't expect that at all it was great great fun yours is one of my favorite lines in the whole in the whole series I think towards the end I guess I love Zuko more than I fear you it's one of my favorites man you missed calculator thank you thank you how did you guys get into voice acting I was a very unfunny stand-up comedian I had no I had no jokes I was just like so here's my impression of you know and I would just I'd do the whole Wizard of Oz I want to go home I want to go home and yeah I'm not rich at all I'm just a little girl are you all right and there are munchkins sitting in the county at the end of us I welcome you almost legally but we can verify it legally to see if she is morally ethically physically spiritually positively absolutely thank you I'll get a bull hand behind my back anyway I did the whole movie and um to my pretty little dog too anyway um but uh yeah and so then they were like that's great can you you need to write jokes but you should go do some cartoons or something while you're doing that Polly Shore's mom worked at The Comedy Store and she my name is Mitzi yeah and she yes and so she just she's the one she can blame her for all of this because she said go do cartoons and then come back with some jokes and then I just never came back I still have a little I do a little I did write some jokes eventually but I didn't start comedy again until maybe five years ago but um but yeah she sent me off in a nice Direction mine actually also is from me playing the wicked witch I swear to God I was I see what I got I would say I was seven or eight and uh at like my after school program and I played the wicked witch um probably better voice than yours I think um and uh and some of my after school program then wanted to do like a radio commercial for the like to play on Radio Disney this is in like Massachusetts and so that was the first like vo thing I did was a little radio commercial for my after school program after I had been in the play so yeah who else played the wicked witch let's go down no I didn't I played the lion director was like um please stop talking and I was like oh my God he was like your voice it's so you should be doing voiceovers and I was like okay ew I'm horrible sounding and I'm not getting this part and what the f are voiceovers I thought it was like Jingles like you know American she I don't know but so anyway a year later I go back same casting director said you hear that girl I was like and I was like well can you just tell me what Where'd I go or like how to do it and he did and I followed it but I never got the part from him but I got to do voiceovers so that's how I got into it yeah um it's a little bit of a Funny Story I should never have been a voice over a person based on uh when I was starting out on camera acting and I was in the sequel to The Fugitive called US Marshals oh yeah right and I played in the sides it said the baby-faced killer I was the inciting action I get sucked out of the plane I get bled on by Wesley Snipes um and so I'm doing it and the director is just not very happy with me and like can we toughen him up can we make him tougher gonna be tougher so I'm very excited I'm in La I'm moving out here because I was in this giant show and I go to see the premiere and uh here I am on the plane and I'm walking and then out of my mouth comes something that sounds like Bea Arthur you know so hey I gotta go to the can which was not my voice at all so w they've dubbed me over um so you know I was completely mortified um so it's ironic that I then became a voiceover actor it was um they were looking for a sound alike for Jackie Chan um so I'd never done any voiceovers before and I just watched Rush Hour 12 times and you know you know the you never touch a white a Chinese man's Rich you know the uh you never touch the radio of a Chinese man you know so uh and I got that and it was five seasons and so that kind of launched me into the into the voiceover yeah just auditioning since I was a kid and I was I remember I did a Disney thing a movie called The Goofy Movie and I just was like yo Stacy talk to me talk to me talk to me baby [Applause] I don't know I just we're kid actors a lot of us are kid actors and we just we're kids and we don't know what we were doing we were going around auditions seeing each other seeing each other's parents and uh and just just whatever your audition for you kind of got to do and voice acting was early in early in the game you two Olivia right we auditioned for commercials commercials TV whatever hand modeling oh oh that's commercial I was a dancer for like Adidas and Opie and the magic shows we did everything I mean you know yeah first thing I started in commercials similarly and my first one was a Barbie commercial and so there you go father whoo that dream glow Barbie if you look it up on YouTube they have it in like seven different languages so it's my face with like Russian it's hilarious um but I started in commercials and then I went through an awkward growing phase I don't know if everybody does but I certainly did uh might chopped my hair off a bunch of teeth fell out my agent was like hey we have this new thing called voice over you should try it for a second because I I stopped booking commercials for a little bit um and that ended up working a lot better for my my audition anxiety at the time in person was tough for me as a kid because there were people just staring at you behind table and I totally absorbed whatever Vibe they were giving me so if they were just like stone-faced I was like oh they hate me so it did not go well but yeah voiceover was comfortable and I was like in My Little cocoon just making sounds and I could read that's a plus when you're a child uh in acting make sure you can read so yeah that's that's how I kind of found voiceover through commercials similarly I feel like we all did voiceovers auditions my first animated real animated gig was a show called Hey Arnold back in the day my first time right we love Hey Arnold right I love Hey Arnold all the feels um and then it just kind of goes from there you know like Dante was saying when you're a kid you just do especially like now kids have careers and managers and they get all but Tick Tock but back then you're just doing whatever yeah yeah I was a child theater actor so I didn't make any money but I did work really hard that's nice but one time somebody thought I was a little person when I was so flattered because I was in this play just being a brat like you know then throwing silverware and just being and they were like you're oh you're a real child like after the show they met me and I'm like yeah I'm a real child I was like did you think I was an adult and they're like yeah we just thought you were really small Jenny did you answer this yeah I didn't answer but uh I also was a kid actor but I didn't book anything until I was like 16. so do you guys so literally uh I auditioned okay let me back up I was doing a show called Miss Saigon and I did this um a little Shook on this like uh no no no no so there's a a company called Saban entertainment and do you guys know what Power Rangers are [Applause] they called me and they're like hey does Jenny know how to do karate and they're like well we'll teach her we have the show we want her to be this Ranger and I couldn't because I was working so then like a couple months later when I came home the same company who produced sat there like we want Jenny to do a voiceover so my first voiceover gig and it was my first I guess like one of my first gigs was uh I was the singing voice of Audrey in little shop so I just sang and yeah so that was my first video thing so it was kind of weird how it all came about oh my God here we are many years later I am not 11 years old anymore Echo great question too thank you Greg well no I'm just gonna say I was also a kid actor but it was 1903. we're it was Vaudeville we did Vaudeville we toured the Midwest to all of you being such iconic members of the um voice acting industry what Sage advice or wisdom would you offer a starting out voice actor run I'm just teasing I would say create your own content right because I used to tell people the old-fashioned way of getting in like do plays do you know do improv I still think improv and plays are all great because it really is acting but so I mean you could do all the plays in improv in the world and not get in because there's it's like a different playing field now the most a lot of the new people that I'm seeing being cast are people who have it's like she created her own internet show and then it became a hit and then because like it's like nobody wants to bargain on I mean like you know bet on someone that's like you know they were they want the the person who already has followers who already has an audience out there so you know if you can make things on Twitch or you know you know Tick Tock and that they're casting a lot of influencers I've I've been seeing notices yeah I feel like it's the the easiest and the hardest time because so much is available to you as far as education goes there are so many YouTube channels so many websites and I mean the technology that you even have just on this thing to even just record your own voice and listen to it back is crazy I mean I remember my mom and I used to Lug around a little snowball microphone which some of you may have also done and we had to like find a certain kind of computer and like the sound quality was not as great so getting familiar with your own voice is now like the easiest it's ever been and like you can practice your own sounds what's kind of your go-to my natural voice is kind of clear toned and it can go super squeaky like this and whatever like that is probably not Cricket strength so like what's your Cornerstone like what's something that you feel like is maybe easy to you but you could really fine tune and make into a strength can you like copy horse noises really well like it could be the weirdest thing can you do really good Impressions because we people need those Disney all the time they're replacing people with people who can do Impressions right to keep the same characters going so just kind of finding what your strength is and then like really making it solid and then that's kind of going to be a helpful Niche when you create your own content because it's like nobody else can I don't know make the sound of a pigeon like I do I don't know there's some you used to have to be in the right place at the right time but now the right place in the right time is like your closet as long as you can get now being out there I used to be like if I could just get in front of the right people I know I could you know because now the right people is your phone I remember wanting to be on SNL really bad and they were like we you know they saw me do a little bit of stand up and they were like we you just need to make you a video you need to make a video of all your characters and I was like oh forget it like I mean because I was like I'm gonna have to find a video camera I don't even know anybody on a video camera and now it's like you know in your pocket well thank you all thank you thank you thank you everybody thank you so much [Music] [Applause] [Music]

Channel: Convention Coverage

Views: 53,885

Keywords: Avatar, Avatar The Last Airbender, The Last Airbender, Airbender, Avatar Airbender, Cricket Alexander, Greg Baldwin, Dante Basco, Grey DeLisle, Jack DeSena, Jessie Flower, Olivia Hack, DeLisle, DeSena, Jennie Kwan, avatar the last airbender, avatar, the last airbender, Avatar: The Last Airbender, ATLA, Korra, airbender, avatar aang, four nations, legend of korra, The Legend of Korra, Cabbage Man, Fire nation, avatar: the last airbender, Convention Coverage, korra, atla, zuko, Cabbages

Id: RpsGMEqSLKY

Length: 28min 3sec (1683 seconds)

Published: Sat Apr 15 2023