An interview with Chris Tergliafera conducted by ANIME Impulse discussing his various voice roles, including his role as Muhammad Avdol. It was posted on their YouTube channel on May 17, 2019.
Interview
Hi, I'm Chris Tergliafera, and I'm here with ANIME Impulse.
How did you make Sigma's voice so evil?
The process of creating such an evil voice for Sigma really came from the fact that, when I grew up playing fighting games, I was the really aggressive characters, like Scorpion, "Get over here!" And then whenever I found out—it was Marvel vs. Capcom—they wanted that Sigma that was kind of losing his circuitry, descending into madness, it was really a chance for me to just go... ape with it. Every line with that, I always feel like it's at an 11. To just be so evil and everything, you know, "Try and run!" It was just a lot of fun, doing it.
Your best shonen protagonist voice
How a Tergliafera-approved shonen protagonist would sound... This is something I've thought about a lot, because anime is full of them, and not as much of me, you know? I'm all these heavies, all these grunts, all these mature characters that usually get beat up by this protagonist. I can do that voice, and here it is: "You cannot break my resolve! My friends and I will see this through!" We buying that? I think it's pretty good.
Most demanding role?
Sigma was my most vocally-demanding role. He lives down in this area (deep voice). Even when you're doing dialogue, it's not very pleasant. It's a fighting game, so you're talking about going through the light efforts, the medium efforts, the heavy efforts, and you're doing about four or five of each. And then you're doing the deaths, and they're loud, screaming deaths...
Strangest VA direction
The Mariah episode. That was one where I went into the booth and the director said, "We're probably not gonna win any awards for this episode" (laughs). I was like, "Alright." And that was the strangest direction, because a lot of it, I'm talking like this (muffled) because my... I forget which cheek it was. But whatever it was, I just mimic that, so it sounds like his face is actually smushed up. That was truly bizarre, because Avdol becomes bashful looking under stalls at women's legs. And then whenever he was magnetized to Joseph, and the thrusting, and... It was an odd time (laughs). Also, I think I went in after Richard, so I heard Richard's voice, and he's just got that cantankerous old man voice for old Joseph. That was the most bizarre, where it was like, "Hey, put your hand up to your face and act like it's smushed, because that's what's going on."
Feelings on Avdol's death(s)
My reaction to Avdol's fake death was, "He's dead!" He got shot in the head, he got stabbed... I was certain it was over. When I got home, I contacted my friends, and... I always wanted to make sure I never knew ahead what was going to happen in JoJo's, so there was never that, "Well, I know I'm gonna die in this episode." I wanted to be fresh for it, like, "Oh, God! I died!" So that first death was pretty permanent, and then I went back and talked to my friends, and they were like, "No, no, no, he's still alive." I was like, "Okay. Well, don't tell me the second one." Anyway, when the second one happened, I was like, "It's not really it. That's not how I go out! My arms, and this void? I looked at something that said 'don't look back' and I looked back, and that did me in?" I thought it was... you know. I wanted to die at DIO's hand. I wanted that one-on-one matchup, and then it was just kind of like, "Yeah, he's gone." And then I asked, "Am I done?", and they were like, "Yeah, you're done." I think I have one more loop: when Avdol goes up to heaven or wherever he goes, he kind of goes, "Hmph," like, "good job." But that was about it. The first death, I thought, should've been the second death. The first one was... I should've came back from the void. I still think Avdol should come back from the void. Maybe they will, in a very later part of it (laughs).
Favorite fan interaction
I did a shout-out to this guy's girlfriend, who was taking a test, and I did it in my Gundham Tanaka (from Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair) voice. They really liked it, but a year later, he sent me this really nice email. I was going through kind of a rough time, and it was just so cool to have someone that you didn't even know care about your work enough to email you and tell you this thing, how you affected their life. And really, I just love any interaction, especially with little-known characters at these conventions. Somebody came up to me about Noie in Fairy Fencer F, and I really like Noie. He was this nihilistic cowboy who wanted to become a bug when he died, and I was like, "Oh my god! Someone actually cared about Noie!" I did, but I didn't know anyone else did. And another great fan thing was... King Brown, maybe? It's on my Twitter somewhere, but this really awesome Gundham Tanaka piece of art. I don't know how it's done, but it's got these tiny strips and paint... It's really, really cool, and King's done them for a lot of other voice actors. And every time I walk into one of their places, it's always up there. So, King, you're doing really good work. It's also the only piece of artwork on my wall. I'm very minimalist, but Gundham is right up there, my window's here, my PC that I built is right here (gesturing)... Gundham's always looking out for me.
How was being on Testament of a Sister New Devil?
My experience working on Testament of a Sister New Devil was... interesting. I think this is a family interview, so I won't go into the specifics of it, but Belphegor... Belphegor is a bad dude. There's some bad stuff. I'm not cracked up for it (laughs). But somebody's gotta do it, and Belphegor gets what's coming to him, so... Don't go to the demon world, if Belphegor is there.
Future Cosplans?
My friend Emma Bowers... From Bojack Horseman, she does Princess Carolyn, and she's asked me to be Jonah. So I'd say, if Emma makes it to any one of these cons, I'll do Jonah.
If you were in a football anime, what position would you play?
If I was in a football anime, I think I would be cast as probably... Either two characters: it would either be a tank-top tiger type, a linebacker character that's really boisterous and in-the-face, sacking quarterbacks; or a big lineman that's really stoic and protecting the quarterback. But what I want to play is the running back. The quarterback's the one big guy that everyone's kind of looking up to, but then there's that running back character that finally gets his due. It'd be nice to have a real big hero moment like that.
Dream Role?
My dream role... There's so many roles that I grew up on, that I think were astounding, and I don't really want to go back and say, "I wish that was me!" The type of role I would like to do, though, was Mass Effect, a huge influence on me. The storytelling in that, the relationships you made with the other characters... And I really liked Wrex's character, the Krogan. There's this one scene (I think it's in the third one) where he kind of embraces Shepard and he's like, "No matter what happens, you were a friend of the Krogan," and you just kind of embrace. And it's just this friendship that you felt, with this computer game character. I really want to play a role where people have that sort of connection over time, where we go through this entire journey in this video game world, and they have that strong a connection with this character. We're in battle together, we go through all these things, you make choices that I might like or might not like... So really, that sort of character, something like Wrex from Mass Effect.
What does voice acting mean to you?
Being a voice actor is the ability to live a lot of different fantasies and lives without ever leaving the voice booth. It's such a fun, fantastic experience where you're not judged by how you look... You are judged by how you sound (laughs). But you're able to inhabit these different worlds, and it's such a neat experience, that you get to live all these different lives in the booth, and you get to go through these different circumstances. So it's really just about imagination. I really can't believe it, that I get to do this, and that some people actually care about it. I feel like I should be doing it for free. I'm not doing it for free (laughs), so don't get any ideas, producers. But I would say it's about living a multitude of different lives and going on adventures.