'90s X-MEN Animated Series Actor Talks About Voicing Wolverine and His Struggle to Let the Character Go
With Hugh Jackman’s 17 year run as Wolverine at an end, there is someone that can sympathize with the loss that he is going to feel when he is no longer the most popular of the X-Men. Voice actor Cal Dodd was the voice of Logan/Wolverine for the classic '90s X-Men animated series. He was the only voice we knew for the show's five year run. THR recently sat down with Dodd and talked to him about his time as Wolverine, the time he got to meet Jackman before the filming of the first X-Men movie, and what it was like to let the character go.
When talking about landing the part of the voice of Wolverine for the first time Dodd said:
"I went over to the studio and these guys from New York were there. They had been casting for months. This was the last person they were trying to cast, Wolverine.
"They gave me this script and a picture of Wolverine. I said, 'Yikes! Who is this person? What is this?' I had not an inkling of what I was about to get into. So they gave me this script to read. I said, "What do you hear him sounding like? They just said: 'Steve McQueen, because he's very introspective and very quiet and kind of a loner.' And Ward Bond, who is from the '30s and '40s and stuff, from Wagon Train, and they said Clint Eastwood. I said, 'Yeah, I get I can see that.'"
He went on to explain that he threw in a bit of Wolfman Jack in his voice and he recounted moment he read the script at the audition, saying:
"I read the script and one of the particular lines I will never forget: 'You like picking on people smaller than you. Well pick on me pal, I'm smaller than you!' I loved his attitude. I'm looking through the glass at these people and they all in unison stood up and started clapping and said, 'Bingo!' They were so exited. 'Jesus. We got him. Finally.'"
When talking about meeting Hugh Jackman for the first time he said:
"I love Hugh Jackman. I met him before he was going to shoot the first movie. They were in town at some function, and I was there because we were the animated cast and he just came up to me and he joked, 'I'm really tired of listening to your voice!' Because he had no other reference for a Wolverine but the animated series. So he had to listen to the voice to try to emulate that, or that sort of feel of him and the character. He said, 'It's a great voice. I don't know if I'll be able to nail it or not but, I'll give it whirl.' When I saw the very first movie, I thought 'This guy's huge!' Wolverine was 5'3 or something. I quickly got used to it and there were lines he would say, and I was itching in my seat. 'Exactly, that's what he would have said.' I loved Hugh. 17 years he's been doing it. Good lord. He'll never forget the role. You can't. that's a huge a part of his life."
Dobb then talked about his struggle to let the character go when he was done with the series:
"I hated the fact that it was gone. Then I heard they started a new production in L.A. [X-Men: Evolution] and I wondered, 'Why wouldn't I do that?' It was a younger version, younger X-Men. It was a huge gap in my life. I was doing it for five years and I became him. I created this guy, I created this voice. It was so a part of me that it was unbelievable. I just bought the whole five year series and I'm started to watch it bit by bit. It's so good. It was like losing my right arm. I loved the guy. Because it was like me. He was like a brother."
He went on to say that he still thinks of his time as Wolverine all the time and when asked what comes to mind when he thinks about the legacy of the series, he shared this touching story:
"[Executive story editor] Eric [Lewald] has this great story in his book he just got finished about the making of X-Men. A fan of the show, who was now maybe in his 30s, sent in this letter explaining his life and what the show meant at the time. He was overweight and was being picked on and he was considering suicide, but he was so in love with the X-Men Saturday morning cartoon and Wolverine. They were mutants and they were picked on and not liked by the general public. He identified totally with that. He was about to jump off this roof, but then he said, "I can't do this, I'm going to miss the Saturday morning X-Men episode." That's the kind of impact it had on kids."
Cal Dodd was awesome in the role of Wolverine! He did a fantastic job bringing the character to life in his animated form.