Jon Hamm says he owes Will Arnett a pretty penny for using his voice as inspiration for his role in the Fox animated sitcom “Grimsburg.”
While the “Mad Men” star isn’t new to the voice-work game — he’s provided vocal skills to Mercedes-Benz commercials, American Airlines commercials and played animated characters like Scallops in the Netflix series “Big Mouth” — he mentioned in an interview with People that just using Arnett’s voice just “takes care of most of the decision making” when it comes to doing voiceovers.
“There’s a funny thing about Will, who once you hear his voice, you can’t not hear his voice, and he’ll say the same thing,” Hamm continued. “He’s been working in the voiceover and animation world forever, and I love how his voice sounds, and I probably owe him royalties at this point. But he’s the number one guy for me. I think his voice is just super resonant.”
When constructing the sound behind his character Detective Marvin Flute, “the greatest detective to ever catch a cannibal clown or correctly identify a mid-century modern armoire,” Hamm said Arnett’s voice came to mind, as it often does when he’s asked to do voiceover work.
“Part of it was understanding that he was going to look like that,” Hamm said of his creative process with the character. “Part of it was understanding that he’s probably not getting a lot of sleep, and part of it was trying to find something that sounded pretty funny, and the biggest part of it was I just always, whenever I’m asked to do a voice, I just imitate Will Arnett.”
Hamm isn’t wrong, Arnett does have a pretty unique voice, and arguably his best known use of it was when he played humanoid horse BoJack in Netflix’s hit adult animated series “BoJack Horseman.” It’s a voice that Arnett just can’t stray away from even if he tries to imitate someone else.
“The funny thing about Will is that he’s trying to do an impression of me and it just sounds like him,” Hamm said.
“Grimsburg,” which stars Hamm, Erinn Hayes, Rachel Dratch, Greg Chun and more, premieres Sunday.
