‘Star Trek Continues’ actor Todd Haberkorn on his experiences in the much-loved franchise
Todd Haberkorn is well known for his acting and voice-acting work in video games, TV series and films. Among credits in ‘Kung Fu Panda’ and ‘Destiny 2’, he’s also been involved in two very popular projects – the web series ‘Star Trek Continues’, in which he played Spock on-screen, and voicing a number of aliens in the last ‘Star Trek’ movie! He talks about the difference between on-camera acting and voice acting, and the amount of make-up it takes to be a Vulcan…
What was it like working on the web series ‘Star Trek Continues’?
“It was a perfect combination of talent from the cast and crew, together with a passion for the franchise of ‘Star Trek’. The biggest challenge for me, playing Spock, was a combination of having that haircut and being the first in the make-up chair at 3am. I definitely fell asleep in that chair a few times while the make-up masters were making me a Vulcan!”
And you did voice work for the last ‘Star Trek’ movie?
“I did indeed! Kevin, the alien who befriends the Enterprise crew, was me – along with a bunch of other aliens in that film. I’m happy to be a part of the ‘Star Trek’ universe.”
How did you get started in acting?
“I started on the stage, far away from voice-overs… Musical theatre, specifically.
From there I moved into non-musical stage productions. After many years of that adventure, I turned my sights to the on-camera world.
I was enjoying on-set life, when voice-over said, ‘Hey, come try us out for a bit!’ That ‘bit’ turned into an almost 20-year career that continues to this day. And I never thought, when I was a kid, that this was even a possibility in my universe. Even though I was always acting out voices from my favourite movies in my room.”
How are the styles of acting different between on-camera and voice-over?
“Not all acting is the same. It’s like sport – football and baseball are both sports, but they require completely different approaches. With on-camera, you’re living in a constant state of blink-of-an-eye existences. If you’re doing your homework as an actor, you’ve prepped the entire journey of your character for the film.
And using that as a backbone, you have to navigate the production shooting your journey out of sequence because of the reality of filmmaking. So, on your first day with a film you could be shooting your death scene, and not shooting your opening scene until day 40. With voice-over, we tend to go through a script in a linear fashion. And the biggest difference is we don’t (usually) have to memorise lines!”
You have hundreds of credits from the world of voice-over. Any favourites?
“Picking a favourite would do a disservice to all the other roles I’ve slipped into. But right now, I’d say the Drifter from the ‘Destiny 2’ video game and Natsu from the ‘Fairy Tail’ animated manga series. Those experiences stick in my mind because we had such great crews guiding the production ship. Also, the fan base for those properties is so passionate – you can’t help but join in!”
What upcoming projects should we watch out for?
“‘Genshin Impact’ is still going strong (I play Razor), more ‘Fairy Tail’ is being animated, and ‘Destiny 2’ just dropped some DLC too. We’ve also got some more animated episodes of ‘Hello Neighbor: The Series’ coming down the pipes… stay tuned!”
