A shattered hero must overcome battle-inflicted blindness and seemingly insurmountable odds to save his village and, ultimately, all of Earthrealm in Mortal Kombat Legends: Snow Blind, an all-new, feature-length film produced by Warner Bros. Animation in coordination with NetherRealm Studios and Warner Bros. Games. The film arrives from Warner Bros. Home Entertainment on Blu-ray on 10th October 2022 and Digital Download on 11th October 2022.
We had the absolute priviledge of talking to Imari Williams, voice actor for Tremor, last week about his role in Snow Blind. We dived deep into the history of Mortal Kombat, the world of voice acting and Imari’s career as a voice actor. As a fan of anime and animation, it was such a highlight and we’re so excited to share it with you. We really hope you enjoy! Be sure to check out Mortal Kombat Legends: Snow Blind when it’s released.
J: I watched Mortal Kombat last night and it was awesome! I’m still kind of new to Mortal Kombat so I’m still navigating that area but I think the animated films have been such a great way for new fans to access the franchise. I’m not very good at fighting games but I love the Mortal Kombat world and Snow Blind was such an exciting ride. This is your first bit of work for Mortal Kombat, right?
I: Yeah, this is my first time inside a franchise and I’ve been trying to chip in there for a long time with the movies that have come out. So this is my first catch of the line, so to speak. But I’ve been playing Mortal Kombat and combat games since I was a kid, you know? I’m generation X so I sunk my teeth into these games just as they were rolling… Right as they were rolling out with the original, on Nintendo, on Turbo-16 and all these different iterations and different advancements that went on at the time. I was an arcade kid so I was at the arcade all of the time, and that’s what Mortal Kombat was. Mortal Kombat was the most visible game for me to play at the time because… I was used to the controls for Street Fighter, but I always loved the realism of Mortal Kombat because there’s something special, like you said before, the characters are just awesome and you want to master these characters. My favourite was Raiden and Scorpion- he’s nasty and vicious! But Raiden was my favourite because he could throw his hat, in the first one he couldn’t do that but in the second one he could, and he could shock you with electricity and I loved that! I love magical stuff, I love to envision that I’m this magical deity, it’s so much fun.
J: Everyone has such cool abilities in Mortal Kombat and everyone has their own unique skill set. You’ve got all of these characters and each one of them is unique.
I: Yes, exactly. Each character brings a little something different to the table as well as their weaknesses. So you just have a wealth of choice, and I love how overtime it has aged them, you know? These characters have been around since the 90s so it’s just one of those things where you’re like “wow”, it’s that evolution that is just crazy. So, in this film Kano is a lot older, right? When I played as Kano he was this young looking dude, but in this movie he’s old… Probably in his 50s maybe 40s, so not old [laughs] I’m in my 40s and I don’t feel like I’m old, but he’s older in this version and definitely more metallic compared to when I first played as him. So it is cool to see the advancement and evolution of these characters.
J: It was interesting because like you said, we’re dealing with older and rougher versions of these characters and it reminded me of, I said this to Keith yesterday, it felt very much like Mad Max in a way.
I: Yes, yes! I had the exact same vibe. Even the colour scheme was very Mad Max so in a way King Kano worked in that atmosphere, he just fits right into that Mad Max universe, you know with the dust and the outpost design. It was futuristic yet old fashion at the same time. It’s like something stopped and something evolved over that, and I loved that design… I thought it was great. I thought the animation was really good on this as well, they’ve only just improved animation and each movie they make of Mortal Kombat the animation keeps getting better, and better.
J: Absolutely! I loved how it still pushed those boundaries in terms of keeping the brtuality of Mortal Kombat, and you’ve still got that element of the 1v1 fighting format… You really get to see how harsh these characters can be esepcially with Tremor as well. Tremor is an absolute beast!
I: Yeah, he is a nasty man! a nasty man loyal to Kano and… He’s an enforcer, you know? He’s a brute, straight up! He is brought in to burn people’s faces off if they don’t comply with what Kano wants. So I tried to bring that kind of brutality to it. You know he’s big and bad, so it was fun to voice him.
J: What was it like trying to find that voice? Did you rely on what you knew of Tremor or what previous video game versions did, or did you approach it in a new and refreshing way since Snow Blind was dealing with new interpretations of the characters.
I: You know, Tremor was like… For Tremor I just looked at what he, originally he had skin right? But this guy has molten and magma. Tremor is kinda like part rock and part man, he had that kinda look. This guy is sorta like… more evolved I would say, so with him I just read the description of what they wanted and I… [in Tremor’s voice!] everything was like rock and in Earth so I went growly and real dirty with it. You really had to bring that grit to it and I wanted to make it grittier and deep.
J: Hearing it there has made my evening (I made Imari laugh- Bonus points), I am absolutely fascinated by the voice acting world. What’s interesting about voice acting is that I think more people are recognising it as an art form, not that it wasn’t before, but with the popularity of anime and animated films being aimed at older folks, I think people are really starting to recognise its potential and the amount of work that goes into bring each character to life. So I love being able to talk to people who navigate this world.
I: I love people who love voice acting. I mean, I love voice overs! A lot of people don’t really know what goes into it. At first, I always had this deep voice and everyone was like “oh you should be on the radio, you’ve got this radio voice” but I didn’t know what to do on the radio… Like, what does that mean? How do you do that? With voice over acting when I first started out I didn’t know who any of my favourite voice actors were, if that makes sense. When I first started doing Rescue Bots I worked with Maurice LaMarche who is just… famous! He was on Futurama, The Simpsons, then he was in Frozen and Zootopia! He‘s one of my favourite people, I love him and he’s been a great mentor of mine. You know, he was on Rescue Bots with me along with Steve Blum who is also another mentor of mine. Jason Marsden who was in Young Justice, he was also in A Goofy Movie as Goofy’s son. All of these people… Lacey Chabert who was on Party of Five and The Wild Thornberrys, she did a bunch of other stuff! Then you have my friend Parvesh Cheena and Shannon McKain who were all new to that world… We had all of those people in front of us to learn from, it was unbelievable! They were the people! When I did my first animation job at Transformers: Rescue Bots with all of these people and it lasted like 4 years. I was learning from these people, having them teach me the magic and spontinuity of voice acting.
What voice acting really is… It’s believing in your character. Number one, right? You have a clear idea of what you want that character to be, and then maintaining those choices you make for that character. And also acting and really feeling what you are doing with that character. There are feelings behind that voice and behind the microphone! The voice is like the drummer of the band. We all love the drummer, right? But who do we really look at? It’s the person playing the guitar solo- the leader of the band! But that band ain’t nothing without the drummer, you know what I’m saying? That’s what being a VA is! We help bring the characters to life and that’s what I wanted to do with Tremor and with every other character I do, I try to give it its own uniqueness and I want it to be believable. There’s nothing worse than hearing someone who doesn’t care about their character when they do voice over acting! I believe that when we start doing stuff, we set out to nail that character.
J: You absolutely did it!
I: Thank you so much!
J: I think what’s great as well, and I’m sure you must feel it as well, is that you are now immortalised in the Mortal Kombat franchise! You’re in there… You are Tremor!
I: Yes! I mean, it’s hard to really realise that and when you said that it’s like “wow, that is so freaking rad” and I always told myself that I would never forget the jobs I do for animation and as I’ve progressed I have forgotten jobs because you just kinda move on. The whole thing is that you wanna have fun, right? But you also have to survive and stay relevant. Along with voice acting, there are a lot of nos that come with the yeses. So when you get a yes, that is a… Gift from above! That’s a blessing and so you want to nurture that and take care of it. There are a lot of nos… But then you step back and you’re like “wow, I’ve done some really cool characters” and I’m like… Why am I not more proud? You realise that a lot of voice over artists were very humble. It’s so funny, everyone’s different of course I’m not going to relegate people to a stereotype or something, but the people in that community are so humble and supportive as well as just… Really caring about what we do! It’s a really great community, it’s so awesome! I have peers that I work with and when I work someone, I never forget them. You’ve read lines together and you’ve done this really cool thing together. I love what I do [laughs].
J: It’s so good to hear! You can really tell just how passionate you are about what you do. You really do put your all into each role you take. As a huge anime fan, you were there for Re:Zero and Demon Slayer! They were the shows that really, really heightened my love for anime.
I: Demon Slayer is one of my all-time favourite shows! I fell in love with that show and when I got the chance to voice Rengoku’s father, I jumped at it! I’m still waiting for them to call me back so I can record that. You know, we don’t make much doing anime, which is a whole different topic because for years we’ve had actors here bring these roles to life and present them to an english audience, so when you do a dub for an anime you do it for the love. It’s people like you who hear what you do and… Celebrate you! When you go to cons, you meet these awesome people who support you. Honestly, we’re nothing without the people who appreciate what we do.
J: At the end of it, you’re the person who brough this character to life. You are the voice and you embody that character. When people see Tremor or when they watch Demon Slayer, that’s you. It’s because of your work that people are able to get attached to these characters, it’s your voice that when Tremor first appears… It’s genuinely frightening and imposing! That’s what I love about voice acting. It’s what you can manifest and project with just your voice. There’s no physicality there, you’re not on set, you’re in a room locked away but your entire being is thrown into that character. It’s such a force when you see Tremor or anyone you voice, really.
I: I feel like a king over here [laughs]. I feel very fortunate to be here, I set out to be an on-camera actor, and I ended up being a VO actor instead and I just really want to take care of it and nurture it. Allow myself to grow and try to evolve into the best VO actor I can be.
Mortal Kombat Legends: Snow Blind is produced and directed by Rick Morales (Mortal Kombat Legends franchise, Injustice) from a script by Jeremy Adams (Supernatural, Justice Society: World War II), who also penned the screenplays for the series’ first two films. All three films are based on the video game created by Ed Boon and John Tobias. Jim Krieg (Batman: Gotham by Gaslight) is Producer. Sam Register and NetherRealm Studios’ Ed Boon are Executive Producers.
