Steve Blum

Steve Blum has one of the most recognisable voices in American animation and almost none of the public recognition that should go with it, because the parts that made him famous arrive through anime dubs, cartoons and video games rather than film premieres. The instrument is the asset: a low, sanded-down growl that reads as tired rather than tough, which is why he keeps getting cast as men who have already seen how these things go.

Spike Spiegel in Cowboy Bebop is the performance most people mean, and that series is not among the credits listed here. What is here covers the rest of the range. Amon, the masked revolutionary in The Legend of Korra, is the best-written role he has been handed. Starscream in Transformers: Prime is played as a wheedling courtier. Zeb Orrelios in Star Wars Rebels is a large angry alien with a soft middle, and Wolverine, whom he has voiced across a decade of Marvel cartoons, is the growl used exactly as intended.

Games are the other half of the working week: Tank Dempsey in the Call of Duty zombie modes, Sub-Zero in Mortal Kombat, Ares across three God of War titles. Then there is the invisible tier that pads out this filmography, the additional-voices credits on Incredibles 2, Lilo & Stitch, Hotel Transylvania 2 and dozens more. That is the ambient crowd noise of American animation, and Blum is in more of it than any credit list can properly show.