OPEN SEASON SCARED SILLY: AN INTERVIEW WITH ACTOR WILL TOWNSEND

Career opportunities can open doors for us in unexpected ways, and 26-year-old Will Townsend landed his first acting role in Open Season Scared Silly.

“This is my first role in voice acting and acting professionally in general. I fell into this backwards, and didn’t intend to get into voice acting but now that I’m here it’s where I am now and it worked out really well,” said Townsend.

Townsend voices Elliot and Mr. Weenie in Open Season Scared Silly and explains how it all began.

“I had done the storyboard voices for these characters- that’s kinda how I got in. They have people in the office that do the storyboard voices for the characters, and professionals come in and do a couple of lines each day while they are figuring out the story of the movie. As a courtesy the director threw in my tape with the rest of the audition tapes and that’s how I ended up getting cast for it,” said Townsend.

Since this is Townsend’s breakout role in acting, he says that he experienced a wide range of emotions while he was in the recording booth. 

“I was a little intimidated the first time I had to go into the recording booth. There were a bunch of posters on the wall signed by famous celebrities that had been in that room before and I wasn’t sure if I was worthy of their time, the editors that are always in here, but once you get going and see the director those feelings start to go away. I think determination was the first emotion but then excitement when I found out I got the role and the two characters actually have my voice for the first time,” he said.

Townsend explained the challenging moment he went through when he got the role. “The challenging part for me was having to go back and re-record all the lines I already done in the professional sounding booth again and it was a lot harder than I thought it was going to be.” 

However this experience was rewarding for Townsend since he realized that he could do this as a career.

“After this experience I felt like I should keep doing this as a career and I can’t wait! I think the coolest part for me was seeing the two characters that I voiced in the movie talk to each other which was incredible but also super weird, and surreal to know that I voiced both these characters and now they are having a conversation with each other. It was a little trippy but also one of the coolest things I’ll ever experience in my whole life,” Townsend said.

“Elliot is very energetic and enthusiastic about getting his ideas out there. He always has this grand idea of adventure, and he just wants to get his friends involved and go on grand adventures with them. He just loves to be around people which is very similar to myself. He’s very idiotic but his friends support him. Mr. Weenie is essentially like most dogs you’ve ever met, where he’s either super excited that his owner is there, or he’s super sad that his owner is gone and thinks that they’ve left him forever. He just wants someone to take care of him and when that happens he gets very excited about that, and just wants to be a part of the team.”

Townsend also got a behind-the-scenes look at the animation.

“I loved the creativity for the characters, how they move and how they interact with each other but the part I loved most was being able to sit in a few meetings with the visual effects team that were syncing the characters lips to my words and matching it to the 3D animation. That was one of the coolest things as well that I have been able to witness- just seeing them slowly sync it to my lips, animation, and moving the characters accordingly was great. So all in all the whole package came together really nicely,” Townsend said

 Outside of his career Townsend is an avid gamer, and details what drew him into the gaming world.

“What drew me in at an early age was when I first got a Nintendo 64, and like any kid on Christmas I loved being able to check out here and there for an hour and be a part of this world that you can interact with. Movies are great and you can watch them, but gaming is when you can interact with that world. Maybe I didn’t realize it at the time but that is what keeps me coming back- the stories that you can create and mold as you go whether it’s a linear story or not you can still be a part of that experience. I even go home during lunch and sometimes play. I live that close to the office.”

Townsend completed the The Last of Us recently for a second time, and said that it had one of the best stories he ever experienced.

Townsend has hopes to break into the video game industry, and expresses that the video game industry is huge. 

“100 percent! Absolutely. I would love to add my voice into the video game industry. I don’t know much about it but it would be a dream come true. Video games have been a part of my whole life and to be able to voice a character in a video game would be incredible. I think that would be the goal down the road with this voice acting career. The gaming industry is continually growing and it’s something that means a lot to people, so to play as a character that I voice would be really cool.”

Townsend’s career has just started but it’s clear that he is a passionate individual open to many possibilities.