Yuri Lowenthal

Yuri Lowenthal (born March 5, 1971) is an American voice actor, producer, and screenwriter known for his work in cartoons, anime, and video games.

Some of his prominent roles in animations and anime include Sasuke Uchiha in Naruto, teenage Ben Tennyson in Ben 10, Jinnosuke in Afro Samurai, Simon in Gurren Lagann and Suzaku Kururugi in Code Geass.

In video games, he voices Lorath Nahr in Blizzard Entertainment's Diablo III, The Prince in Ubisoft's Prince of Persia, Hayate/Ein in Dead or Alive, Matt Miller in Saints Row: The Third and Saints Row IV, and Peter Parker / Spider-Man in various video games associated with the character, notably the incarnation featured in the Marvel's Spider-Man series by Insomniac Games.

He has a production company, Monkey Kingdom Productions, with his wife, Tara Platt, where they have produced several feature films and a live-action web series called Shelf Life.

He co-authored the book Voice-Over Voice Actor.

Yuri Lowenthal was born in Alliance, Ohio but raised in Nashville, Tennessee, later moving to Northern Virginia.

His father worked for the United States Agency for International Development and he spent two years in Niger in Africa.

He did not do much acting until the end of high school when he tried out for drama class in his senior year, but it was enough to get him interested in acting.

His early exposure to anime was from shows such as Speed Racer, Star Blazers, and Battle of the Planets.

At The College of William & Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia, he took classes in theatre but majored in East Asian studies where in his third year, he studied abroad in Osaka, Japan.

He also participated in the school's gymnastics program and ROTC.

After graduating in 1993, he joined the Japan Exchange and Teaching Programme (JET) where he served as a Coordinator of International Relations, helping out foreign English teachers in Shiga Prefecture.

While at JET, he continued to participate in theatre and acting.

After two years there, he still wanted to try acting full-time, and moved to New York City and participated in theatre in shows that were off-off-Broadway.

He spent six years in New York doing theatre and indie films.

Yuri Lowenthal moved to Los Angeles and worked in live-action and theatre roles.

To supplement his on-camera work, he and his wife Tara Platt took a voice-over class that was taught by Rick Zieff.

Zieff later happened to be directing the English dub for an anime show called SD Gundam Force; he got his first ever anime dub role there and soon tried out for other anime roles as well as other voice-over work in animation, commercials, and video games.

Lowenthal recalled that his first voice appearance in a video game might have also been for SD Gundam Force.

Lowenthal's first major role in video game voice-overs was as the Prince in Ubisoft's Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time.

In an interview with Critical Gamer, he describes that role as "a very lucky break for me, because it ended up being a super game. We audition all the time for all different kinds of projects, and video games are one part of that, a part that I love."

He said that "[he felt] that [he] in a way originated that role".

Lowenthal did not return to voice the Prince in Warrior Within, being replaced by Robin Atkin Downes.

Lowenthal felt that this was a conscious decision by Ubisoft to fit in with the game's overall tonal shift and thought it was the right decision.

For The Two Thrones, he returned to play the role, as fans had stated their preference for his portrayal of the character.

The Prince became one of Lowenthal's favorite roles, and he was pleased to return to the role for The Forgotten Sands.

According to Lowenthal, his well-received performance put pressure on him in future games from both fans and staff, as he needed to remain true to and improve on his original portrayal.

This ultimately gave him little creative freedom with the character after The Sands of Time.

For the reboots following the live-action films, the staff wanted a different portrayal of the Prince to Lowenthal's, and so recast the role.

Lowenthal continued voicing in other anime shows, including the lead character Haru Glory in Rave Master, which had a run on Cartoon Network's Toonami line up.

He also voiced a character in Zatch Bell! which had a notable run on Cartoon Network.

He starred in a number of anime shows such as: Girls Bravo where he played Yukinari, Scrapped Princess where he voiced Leo Skorpus, Kyo Kara Maoh, where he voiced Yuuri Shibuya, and Saiyuki Reload where he voiced Son Goku.

When he auditioned for Naruto, which was being directed by the same person who did Rave Master, he had tried out for multiple roles including Sasuke Uchiha and Iruka, and got a call back for Sasuke.

In an interview with Silionera, Lowenthal said that "It certainly allows me to go to some dark places as the series continues. And it makes Sasuke that much more interesting as a character. And that much more fun to play."

The Naruto anime became one of the more popular anime shows in the U.S., and its sequel Naruto Shippuden has also aired on Adult Swim.

In 2007, Lowenthal was cast as Jinnosuke, aka "Kuma", a teddy-bear-headed warrior, in the anime feature Afro Samurai which starred Samuel L. Jackson as the title character.

In an interview with Eastern Kicks, Lowenthal said that what he liked about Jinno was that he "starts off as one guy and ends up in a very different, very very dark place. Plus I got to kick Sam Jackson's ass. And they keep bringing him back from the dead for me to play again. And he's a twin-sword-wielding insane cyborg death machine with a giant teddy bear head. What's not to like?"

He also said that they recorded the voicing for Afro Samurai separately so he did not get to meet Jackson personally until a release party for the related video game years later.

Luke Carroll of Anime News Network described Lowenthal's voicing as a "good performance" but "not enough to make it more than an average dub at best".

Dennis Amith of J-ENT!