For many fans of a certain age, Steve Blum is more than just a prolific voice actor; he’s the very voice of their childhood and adolescence. As the actor behind some of anime’s most memorable heroes (Spike Spiegel), villains (Orochimaru), and personalities in-between (Zabuza), as well as Toonami itself (T.O.M.) and notable characters in other works (Wolverine, Sub-Zero, Starscream), Blum has become one of the most beloved talents of western animation fandom. Maybe it’s no surprise that he’s also a fount of wisdom and experience.
At Anime Frontier this year, Blum gave an interview covering a variety of subjects, dropping insights about AI in voice acting, teaching other voice actors, and other topics. Here are some of the highlights from that interview*:
On the early days of voice acting…
When I started, it was a completely different universe. And I didn’t even know that I was a voice actor in the beginning. So that was part of it; I just didn’t even realize that what I was doing could be a viable job. But the industry, everything that we did back then, and especially in anime, went directly to video. There was no American TV market for any of that stuff. So everything was on VHS at $85 bucks per episode. It was really, really hard to get.
On better days for voice actors…
[When I started], it was…subbers versus the dubbers. So whenever we dubbed anything in the early days, we got a lot of hate mail. I got my life threatened at conventions…and so I kind of walked away from all that for a while. It was a little bit terrifying. So now, so many years later, and with the help of Toonami and now Adult Swim, it really made [anime] accessible to everyone in the United States. So hence, we’ve got these giant conventions now with people who are loving this stuff. So it made it a much friendlier atmosphere for us.
On changes in the voiceover industry…
It’s rough now, probably rougher than it ever was. But at the same time, it’s more accessible to more people because everybody’s working from home. So you can literally be anywhere in the world and start a voiceover career. It used to be you had to be in New York for commercials, you had to be in L.A. for big animation, Texas for anime…but now you can literally do it from anywhere since COVID. So that was the one blessing that came out of that. And the other thing that’s really changed is AI creeping in and starting to show its ugly head. And we’re fighting that tooth and nail to try to get control of it now before it gets completely out of control.
On AI’s threat for voice actors…
I think it can’t be understated. The biggest issue for me is that there are these disreputable companies that will give you this giant contract. And somewhere in there, it’ll say that they have permission to clone your voice and use that data. And essentially, they own you—they own your voice. You can’t even use your own voice for the rest of your life…they [can] sue me for using my own natural speaking voice, because now they’re the owners of it because I might have signed something in a contract that I didn’t read. So thankfully, there is an organization called NAVA, the National Association of Voice Actors, that is really fighting hard to combat this and get language into the mainstream so that people understand it. They read these contracts, they have an addendum that you can actually take and submit to a studio if they don’t have that language in their contract, particularly in the non-union, world.
SAG-AFTRA is trying to do that; they’re starting to put some language in but they missed the mark in this last negotiation…the big celebrities are protected for their likenesses but we’re not protected for our voices. We’re always the guys that are left behind. So it is an insidious threat for us.
Cameo is being taken over in certain sectors by AI. I stopped doing Cameo because they started using AI functionality to create these little, you know, gift things at 20 bucks a pop, putting real actors out of work. And one of my best friends is one of the actors who got put out of work by that.
And so it’s already happening. It’s been happening for a while and it’s just getting worse. So we just have to be super diligent. And I’m not so concerned about me—I’m kind of in the third trimester of my career, and I’m good. And I know how to fight it. I’m really concerned about the new voice actors who are coming up who may not know any better…they are gonna get taken advantage of. So that’s who we’re fighting for.
On teaching and mentoring other voice actors…
I didn’t want to do it. I was terrified of it. And I don’t like any kind of structure at all. I’m by nature just a creative. But at every convention, I found that there were so many teaching moments that I just couldn’t help myself, because I can’t stand seeing people getting taken advantage of…so I just couldn’t help myself. I felt like I had to impart whatever knowledge I might have to tell the next generation. And the people around me just kept prodding at me to start teaching until I finally relented.
…in my classes, I try to give [students] everybody’s backstory. Everybody’s got a different path. Everybody’s got a different philosophy. Everybody’s got a different way of managing and negotiating the pitfalls of this business and the dangers of this business. Everybody’s got different vocal techniques, warmups, cooldowns…
On exploitative voiceover classes
So I see in a lot of these other classes that there are predators who will make promises to students and give them bad information because they are not professional working voice actors. They might have some theater experience or radio experience…but this is a whole different beast. And if you really don’t know what you’re doing and you’re not working in this all the time, you’re not giving them current information, unless you’re sourcing that which a lot of these guys don’t.
The other thing that is really a motivating factor for me is that these predators will promise people work or casting opportunities as a result of their class. It’s a lie. And there are a lot of these pay-to-play agents out there…which is also crap. If you’re paying for an agent, they’re a predator with very few exceptions. But I just can’t stand people getting taken advantage of. I want people to have an easier path than I did.
And it’s a much more complicated world now, because everybody’s working from home; you have to be your own advocate. If you don’t have an agent or even if you do have an agent, you still have to fight for your own career. You have to bring a lot more to the party than you used to. And another skill set that we didn’t have to have back in the old days: we have to become engineers. So we all have to have home studios and we have to know how that equipment works.
On the feeling of voicing Wolverine…
Absolute terror at first, and confusion. I didn’t know why they picked me. I thought I just got lucky that the way I auditioned for Wolverine was really by just letting out the voice that I heard in my head when I was reading the comics. Unfortunately, I was old enough and broken enough so that my throat would go down to that place. That’s probably scar tissue that does that! I was just honored that they let me even try out for it.
On the characters he connects with the most…
Oddly enough, there’s a character named J.P. from the old Digimon days who was kind of overweight and misunderstood and super insecure. That’s exactly who I was when I was a little kid—bullied. I connected very deeply with that character. I remember very clearly – while recording those episodes in the studio, J.P. was just thrilled to be around people who accepted him as a friend. It’s quite literally who I was as a child. Playing that character actually healed something from my childhood. When people tell me their stories about how these shows and games affect their lives, I get it. Because somehow I did that for myself in the studio through the context of a little animated guy. I’m so grateful for that experience. It made me want to share the possibility of redemption and healing with anyone willing to listen.
Spike would be the other one because that was literally life-changing for me, and especially working on the Cowboy Bebop movie. The jail scene with Elektra was a point in my career where I actually had to dig for the emotional connection, which required a certain level of vulnerability that I had never really experienced in my life. I was taught to push everything down and not be vulnerable as a man—you know, people are gonna see you as weak and whatever. But I had to become vulnerable and talk about my pain. And I wasn’t quite getting it. It was such a quiet, nuanced scene, that Mary Elizabeth McGlynn, the director of the show (and now my wife, 25 years later), had to stop and help me to find that place – to open up and be completely vulnerable. In that moment, it not only changed my acting performance and everything moving forward in that area, but it changed me emotionally as a human being, too, and it made me see the value of vulnerability.
On connecting with fans…
“Humbling” is, I think, too light a word for the enormity of people coming to me and saying that I’m the voice of their childhood, or how a performance got them through the death of a loved one or these really amazing life changing moments that somehow I had a part in…It’s beyond humbling. Yeah, every time somebody tells me one of those stories, it hits me really deep…and motivates me to keep moving forward.
My father was a doctor. And for years and years and years, he kept pushing me to follow in his footsteps and take over his practice someday. And I just wasn’t built for that. And one of my struggles back when I was really broken was that, “If I go into voiceover, I’m not really doing something of value.” That was my internal monologue. And I thought, “Oh, this is really fluffy stuff. But it’s literally the only thing I’m good at. And I guess I’ll settle for this.” I had no idea that these stories would touch people the way they do.
So it continually motivates me to move forward and to come to these conventions and to reaffirm that connection with people. And when I sit at a signing table, I look every person in the eye and…I try to connect with them. And at least let them know that I hear them. I’m listening to their stories, even if it’s exactly the same words that the person before them, and the 300 people before them said. If they want to share that experience, I’m going to listen because it changed their life in some way. And by doing that, it changes my life and makes me a better, richer, fuller person. So yeah, that connection goes really, really deep.
Steve Blum is active on social media platforms including X and Instagram. You can also look into his voice acting classes at Blumvox Studios.
*Thank you to our friend Davies from ConFreaks & Geeks for providing us the full audio he recorded for this interview!
- From Hokkaido to SXSW: Rejay’s Expanding Sound - 04.02.2026
- First Impression: Go For It, Nakamura-kun!! - 04.01.2026
- First Impression: The Food Diary of Miss Maid - 03.31.2026
[…] at the con. In the meantime, check out our interviews from last time, including with Chiwa Saito, Steve Blum, and Marisa […]