SATURDAY, MARCH 25, 2006
ULTIMATE AVENGERS' NOLAN NORTH
LOS ANGELES -- The best part for Nolan North about playing Henry Pym in the Ultimate Avengers animated movie?
"When I officially got the job, I told my wife, 'Hey, I'm Giant-Man,'" North said at the recent Ultimate Avengers panel at Wizard World Los Angeles.
"She said, 'Yeah, you wish.'"
Laughs ensued, and North slyly smirked. It's probably not the first time he has used that story, but it still works.
With his fast quips and dead-on impressions, North, 35, is a funny man. But he is probably best known for his role as Dr. Chris Ramsey in the ABC soap opera Port Charles, which spun out of General Hospital. North's voiceover credits have mostly been for video games such as The Incredible Hulk: Ultimate Destruction and The Punisher.
And while Hank has his share of one-liners in Ultimate Avengers, North said it's the story aspect that he enjoyed about working on the films.
"It's the first time I've taken a character from the beginning, through to the middle and the end," North said of Ultimate Avengers. "It's nice to take him through the arc of the story and then through Ultimate Avengers 2."
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Not as intense as their relationship in The Ultimates comics, the animated Hank and Janet (Wasp) still have their problems, which will continue in the sequel.
"Hank and Janet are at a darker place," Marvel Studios' Craig Kyle said. "Their relationship still isnšt going right. You get to see how that story evolves."
Nolan noted that part of his voiceover career is ADR, or looping, for actors in movies who can't come back to do the ADR themselves. He broke out a classic Christopher Walken riff that had the audience laughing.
"There's a wonderful anonymity about voiceover work," he said. "I've enjoyed voiceover work more than anything I've ever done on camera."
And yes, there's also a cool factor about being Giant-Man -- wife jokes aside.
"To be part of something that has so much history is great," North says says. "As a kid, I broke my arm playing Spider-Man. I then moved on to Superman and broke my ankle. To be a super-hero in a Marvel animated film and not break anything was fantastic."
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Copyright © 2006, The Comics Continuum