Enjoying Gears of War 2? Sure you are. But when you finally put your controller down to, say, eat food to continue living, perhaps you’d be interested in finding out a bit more about the voice behind series star Marcus Fenix. Voice actor John DiMaggio — who many will surely also know as the voice of Bender in Futurama — recently did an interview with TheFukerton.com, where he explained what it’s like to be a star in two fanboy-beloved franchises.
“I can only put it to you this way: It’s like a double nerd boner,” DiMaggio elegantly said. “It’s huge. It’s a double-ended nerd boner.” He went on to explain how, despite the fact that’s he’s done minimal on-screen work, fans are still familiar enough with him to recognize him on the street. “I’m not even on stuff a lot. I get on-camera gigs here and there, you know, it’s cool, but people see my face and they’re like, ‘Hey, you’re Bender!’ or ‘Hey, you’re Marcus Fenix!’ And I’m like, ‘Dude, you haven’t even seen my face. How the hell do you know this?'”
DiMaggio did have plenty of nice things to say about his rabid fans, though. “Listen, you gotta respond to fans. You have to take care of the fans,” he said later on in the interview. “Sure, sometimes [getting asked to do the voices] gets a little tiring, but that’s part of the job.”
Other topics discussed included the recent controversy over voice actor payments after the release of Grand Theft Auto 4; NFL talk, including how the New York Jets are “blowing it” with Brett Favre and the Pittsburgh Steelers’ “big-time punch-in-the-mouth defense;” and — perhaps the most entertaining story — the awkwardness DiMaggio felt meeting the higher-ups at Microsoft, as he once played Steve Ballmer in the 1999 made-for-TV movie, Pirates of Silicon Valley. Steve Ballmer, of course, is now the CEO of Microsoft.
You can check out YouTube videos of both parts of the interview right here.
Last Updated: November 11, 2008
