Photo Credit: MTAC
Per Matt
Micah Solusod is a Dandy of a guy.
In a group interview at the 2015 Middle Tennessee Anime Convention, Mr. Solusod discussed working as a voice actor on Space Dandy, hints about another possible season of the anime and ponders creating a Youtube series that combines anime and food.
What projects have you been working on lately?
– “I’ve been doing these broadcast dubs at Funimation, where we dub things as they come out in Japan. I’m playing Soo-Won, in Yona of the Dawn. I am Seido Takizawa in Tokyo Ghoul, Shigeru Miura in Death Parade and I’m reprising my role as Mizuki in Kamisama Kiss. Oh! And I was in Dragon Ball: Xenoverse as one of the custom voices. That’s all the new things.”
How were you approached for working on Space Dandy?
– “The approach was actually very scary. I actually did two auditions prior, both of which I bombed completely. I was really down about it. So, I was waiting in the Funimation lobby and Zach Bolton — one of the directors — turned the corner, saw me and just stared for a second. He asked, ‘Are you busy? Follow me.'”
“Zach Bolton is the Assistant Producer at Funimation. He looked very serious and he told me to follow him. I thought I was in trouble. He’s not saying a word as he’s walking to his office. I saw the other director of Space Dandy — Joel McDonald — pass us by. He saw me and he started laughing. I’m thinking, ‘What is going on? Am I in trouble? Are we going to bury a dead body?’ I didn’t know. We go into his office and he never closes his door, but this time, he did. I’m thinking, ‘OK, something’s going on. I am very scared.'”
“He told me, ‘What I tell you, you cannot repeat to anyone, not even people at Funimation. There is a select number of people I am telling this to. First of all, are you going to be available for the next twenty-something weeks?’ I said, ‘Yes. Why? It depends.’ He goes through this whole thing about how I could not talk about this, there’s a non-disclosure and it was a long, very serious conversation with no jokes. Finally, I said, ‘As long as I don’t have to kill somebody, I think we’ll be OK…'”
“He says, ‘All right, you’re going to be auditioning for this show called Space Dandy…'”
“I though, ‘Oh, my gosh! Really? All of this, just to ask if I’ll audition for Space Dandy?’ Yes! I will do it. Then I realized I know nothing about the show and I really hope I’m prepared for this. So, I read for Meow and I read for Bea. After that, I didn’t hear anything. There was just no talk about it and of course you can’t talk to your friends about it, because you don’t know if they got an audition for it, or not. I had a friend ask me what I was doing in Zach’s office. I had to lie to him. For weeks we didn’t hear anything and then I was hanging out with some friends, those of us actors who draw, and we did this thing called Voice Balloons at a local comic-book shop. One of the actors said, ‘I’m going for this thing called Space Dandy. Do you guys know what it is?’ All of us sat up and said, ‘What do you know?'”
“I thought, for sure, I wasn’t cast. A week later of self-loathing, I got a call that said, ‘You’re going to be recording an hour for Space Dandy. Can you come in?’ Yes! I found out that I was playing good ole Bea. Turns out, he’s probably one of my favorite characters!”
Did you know anything about your character before working on the show?
– “None of us knew anything. We recorded the first episode and everyone dies at the end! Everyone was wondering where this was going. We found out that for each episode, the Japanese didn’t know what they were doing, either. All we knew was that Watanabe was overseeing the project and he was handing each episode out to a certain team. Each team was given free reign, essentially, for the characters. This is who the characters are. Make whatever story you want. So, each episode is a stand-alone and the more we did it, the more we realized we could do whatever we wanted, essentially.”
“It was a fun, neat project. The deadlines were a little strict, because the episodes were going straight to TV. The cool thing was it was broadcast in English, before it was dubbed in Japan. We got to establish the characters, in a sense.”
Do you know if there will be any more episodes of Space Dandy?
– “I don’t know if there’s any more, but I know on the Japanese Website, normally, when Studio Bones finishes a show, they’ll have a picture of the characters and it says, ‘Off Air.’ But next to Space Dandy, it says, ‘Hmmm.’ That’s it. So, maybe there’ll be more. Who knows? We’re hoping. It was one of the best things I’ve ever been in.”
What’s something you do outside of acting?
– “I like bowling. I’m oddly and stupidly good at it. I was on my high-school team. A lot of my friends go out and bowl, occasionally. My bowling ball smells like Tootsie Rolls. I don’t know why, but it’s awesome. I bowl, I perform music occasionally, I draw and I like cooking, quite a bit. I’ve actually had an idea of doing a YouTube series of cooking smart, but applied to food and anime.”
What pairs well with Space Dandy?
– “Probably things that you can get at Hooters. (laughs) I wouldn’t know, because I’ve never been to a Hooters, but I’ve heard they have wings and things.”
You mentioned you’re a musician. What instruments do you play?
– “I’m a drummer, by trade, but I play the guitar and I’m learning to play the keyboard, right now. I’m actually working on an EP. There’s a game that I’m recording for. My character’s a musician, so I’m writing his EP, because he advertises it, in the game. As a special edition, we’re going to release that EP.”
What are some of the charities that you’re involved with?
– “In general, I like donating to GlobalGiving. That charity gives food back to Third-World nations. We’ve recently done an online charity for clean water. We called it the ‘Water Party’ for Free! the anime. A bunch of voice actors from L.A. and some from Texas offered signatures and cards exclusively for that charity project. I love charity.”
Special thanks to Heavy Metal Hobbit for recording this interview at MTAC.
For More Information:
– Micah’s Website
– Micah’s Twitter