Phil LaMarr

Phil LaMarr
LaMarr in 2014
Born	Phillip LaMarr (1967-01-24) January 24, 1967 Los Angeles, California, United States
Occupation	Actor, voice actor
Years active	1983–present
Website	website.mac.com/phillamarr

Phillip "Phil" LaMarr (born January 24, 1967) is an American actor and voice actor. He was one of the original cast members on the sketch comedy series MADtv, and has had an extensive voice acting career, with major roles spanning animated series Justice League/Justice League Unlimited, Futurama, Samurai Jack, Static Shock, and Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends. He has also done voices for video games such as Metal Gear Solid 2 and 4, Mercenaries series, Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance, the Jak and Daxter series, Darksiders, Final Fantasy XII, inFAMOUS, Dead Island, and Angry Birds Toons.

Early life

LaMarr was born in Los Angeles, California.^[1] He is a graduate of Harvard High School in North Hollywood, and Yale University, where he helped found the improv comedy group Purple Crayon. One of his biggest roles at Yale was the title character in the British comedy Trevor. After graduating in 1989, LaMarr became a member of the award-winning sketch and improv comedy group The Groundlings. He also studied improv at The Second City and at the ImprovOlympic in Chicago, Illinois with Del Close. He has also improvised with Cold Tofu and Off the Wall.

Career

MADtv

LaMarr, unlike most of the other original nine cast members of MADtv, had extensive television and film jobs experience when he joined the show. Even before college, he had voiced a character on the Mister T cartoon show.

Some of the recurring characters LaMarr performed on MADtv were Desperation Lee ("Funky Walker Dirty Talker"), Jaq the UBS Guy, "sexy player" Rick, talentless R&B singer Savante and Rocket Revengers star Lieutenant Abraham Jefferson (a.k.a. Lincoln Willis).

LaMarr has done impressions of celebrities such as:

He has done impressions of Moe Howard from The Three Stooges while playing an African-American version of the character.

LaMarr left MADtv at the end of the fifth season (2000).

Sometimes, LaMarr fills in for Greg Proops on the Odd News small, 4 minute section on Yahoo.com. It features odd, but true recent news.

Voice acting work

LaMarr's voiceover credits include a starring role on Justice League/Justice League Unlimited as John Stewart/Green Lantern, a major role as Hermes Conrad and various other characters on Futurama, and the title roles on Samurai Jack and Static Shock. Besides this he also voiced the Grim Reaper "Grim" in The Grim Adventures Of Billy And Mandy and Hector Con Crane in Evil Con Carne. LaMarr reprised his role as Hermes Conrad in the Futurama movies Bender's Big Score, The Beast with a Billion Backs, Bender's Game, Into the Wild Green Yonder, and upon the series return in 2010. He also voices Wilt and other recurring characters in Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends, Carver Descartes on The Weekenders, Philly Phil in Class of 3000, and he portrayed the character Osmosis Jones in the television series Ozzy & Drix. He was also Gabe Wallace, and other characters in Kaijudo: Rise of the Duel Masters. He additionally voices Jazz, Omega Supreme, Oil Slick, and Jetstorm on Transformers Animated. LaMarr portrayed Nautolan Jedi Master Kit Fisto in Star Wars : The Clone Wars on Cartoon Network; he also played Amit Noloff, a one time character, and a Tactical Droid. He portrayed Aquaman, and voiced other characters in Young Justice, and he is the voice of Baxter Stockman in the new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

Film and theatre projects

LaMarr's stage credits include The Tempest, As You Like It, Guys and Dolls, Asylum, South Coast Repertory's Make the Break and the Sacred Fools Theater Company's inaugural production of The Fatty Arbuckle Spookhouse Revue.

On the big screen, LaMarr is most well known as the ill-fated Marvin from Pulp Fiction. He has appeared in Kill the Man, Free Enterprise, Cherish, and Manna from Heaven. He appeared in Speaking of Sex starring Bill Murray and Catherine O'Hara, and Back by Midnight with Kirstie Alley, Rodney Dangerfield, and Randy Quaid.

LaMarr's recent film appearances include Fronterz (2004) and Choose Your Own Adventure: The Abominable Snowman (2005). As of April 2006, LaMarr is filming Cook-Off!, in which he will appear as Rev. Thaddeus Briggs, Esq.

LaMarr made a cameo appearance in the Will Ferrell film Step Brothers in which he is viewing a house for sale with his wife.

LaMarr also was in the Yum Corp Sexual Harassment training videos.

LaMarr played Cowboy Curtis in the Los Angeles and Broadway productions of The Pee-wee Herman Show. The LA production ran from January 12 to February 7, 2010 at the Club Nokia @ LA Live. The New York show opened on November 11 and ended its limited engagement on January 2, 2011. The New York production was recorded for an HBO special that aired in March, 2011.

LaMarr also appeared in Spider-Man 2 as one of the riders standing behind Spidey as he was trying to save the subway train.

Video game voiceover work

LaMarr performed the English voice over work for Vamp, a villain of Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty and Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots. Additionally, LaMarr voiced the characters Reddas from Square Enix's Final Fantasy XII as well as Ramza in the PSP version of Final Fantasy Tactics: The War of the Lions. He also did several voices, including Skelter, for Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines.

He also did the English voice acting for the parts of Sig and Count Veger in the Jak and Daxter video game series as well as voicing several characters in the game Marvel: Ultimate Alliance, as well as the voice of Gadon Thek in Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic. As well as a featuring in the Sega CD game Make My Video C+C Music Factory, he also was the voice of Chris Jacobs in both Mercenaries: Playground of Destruction and its sequel, Mercenaries 2: World in Flames. He plays the character John White/The Beast in the PS3 titles Infamous 1 and 2. Also, he plays the character Dr. Bradley Ragland in the game Prototype.

He also was the voice of the grumpy Kane in the game The Legend of Spyro: A New Beginning, and Marty in the video game tie-in of Madagascar. LaMarr also recently voiced the merchant "Vulgrim" in the new action/adventure hybrid Darksiders.

He played the role of "Mr. Sunshine" in the 2008 crime game Saints Row 2, and reprised his role in Saints Row IV in 2013.

He reprised his role as Kit Fisto for the video game: Star Wars: The Clone Wars - Republic Heroes.^[2] LaMarr voiced Rick Grimes in the animation film of The Walking Dead.^[3]

He also voiced Sam B, one of the playable characters in Dead Island, and recently made his debut in the Kingdom Hearts series in Kingdom Hearts 3D: Dream Drop Distance as Phoebus, a character originally from The Hunchback of Notre Dame and voiced by Kevin Kline.

He recently returned to the Metal Gear franchise as the voice of Kevin Washington in Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance.

He also provided the voice for Deon Govender in Hunt the Truth, a marketing campaign for Halo 5: Guardians.

In 2015, he voiced the character Kotal Kahn in "Mortal Kombat X"

Webisode projects

LaMarr is set to appear as a regular character in the forthcoming major webisode series Naught for Hire produced by Jeffrey Berman and Farscape's Ben Browder. His character, Mark One, is described to be that of an elevator with mood-swings. It is unclear whether or not he will be solely the voice of this character or if he will appear in person similarly to that of Max Headroom, a concept which Browder has pulled from before when writing for Farscape episode John Quixote, which used an elevator displaying a talking human interface on a screen within.^[4] A date has not yet been set for the series' release.

Filmography

Film

Television

Video games

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Phil LaMarr.

• Official website
• Phil LaMarr at the Internet Movie Database
• Phil LaMarr at Anime News Network's encyclopedia
• Phil LaMarr @ BehindTheVoiceActors
• An Audio Interview with Phil LaMarr by SiDEBAR
• Phil LaMarr Interview w/ Legions of Gotham