Like so many industries battered by the continued pandemic, the leisure business has been closely impacted by the coronavirus and compelled to pivot in surprising methods.
However as firms slowly ramp up manufacturing once more beneath a myriad of security precautions, a Scarborough, Ont., man has spent 2020 charting new territory by bringing to life a number of the most iconic fictional characters.
“(In a) 2020 world, the one factor we now have is nostalgia to maintain our spirits up,” Eric Bauza instructed International Information throughout a prolonged interview recent off a recording session for House Jam: A New Legacy, a sequel to the favored 1996 movie House Jam.
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Whereas the film, scheduled for launch in 2021, stars NBA star LeBron James, it is perhaps shocking for a lot of to study that his co-star is Toronto-born voice actor Eric Bauza, who has additionally spent this 12 months debuting because the voice of Bugs Bunny within the HBO Max present Looney Tunes Cartoons produced by Warner Bros. Animation.
“To know that I grew up on these things, one thing that’s broadly obtained as House Jam, to have the ability to contribute to the following model of it’s one thing else — one other Willy Wonka golden ticket for me,” he stated.
“Some child from Scarborough is the voice of Bugs Bunny? What the heck is occurring? Now I do know it’s the tip of the world.
“On the finish of the day, these cartoons are for youths. We’re making them for youths. I’m a giant child, however I’ve bought a child — a four-year-old — and it’s all for him now.”
Bauza, who lives in Los Angeles now, makes no secret about his love of Canada, particularly Toronto and the group of Scarborough. The Cardinal Newman Catholic Excessive College and Centennial Faculty radio, tv and movie graduate proudly boasts about his Midland Avenue and Eglinton Avenue East neighbourhood the place his dad and mom nonetheless stay at present.
“In a non-pandemic 12 months, I might be there each three to 4 months. I might at all times make it again — at all times, at all times, at all times,” he stated, including he misses stopping into locations like Aunty Mary’s Fish and Chips on Lawrence Avenue East or chains not obtainable in L.A. akin to Swiss Chalet.
“This would be the first time in 41 years that I cannot be in the identical room as my mother and pa on Dec. 25. I’m not the one one.”
The journey for Bauza to his present place has been one he described as a “gradual construct.” For the ultimate 12 months of his faculty program 20 years in the past, he went to California anticipating an internship.
“I used to be so Canadian I used to be sporting like a three-piece wool swimsuit for a job interview in L.A. in the midst of August,” Bauza famous, including he in the end determined to return again to Toronto to graduate.
Nonetheless, he stated he stored getting messages from contacts — a few of whom have gone on to develop into nice associates — encouraging him to return again to work. A quick stint at Sheridan Faculty in animation helped lay the groundwork for a graphic designer’s job, the means to get a commerce visa to work an prolonged time frame in the US.
He finally started to tackle voice performing jobs and was in a position to work within the business full-time in 2007. Bauza’s first entry into the world of Looney Tunes got here roughly 10 years in the past by turning into the voice of Marvin the Martian. In that point, he stated there have solely been two openings to tackle the signature position of Bugs Bunny.
“That simply goes to indicate you the way typically they’re keen to open it as much as new blood and if there’s a new concept, which was Looney Tunes Cartoons,” Bauza stated, noting the most recent iteration of the franchise takes a back-to-basics method.
“It’s simply going to Elmer attempting to get Bugs and Bugs placing one over on Elmer. Daffy goes to be loopy, he’s not going to be the grasping Daffy just like the ’80s.
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“It’s the method of what’s humorous is humorous … and Bugs Bunny simply may occur to be holding an iPhone, however we’re not going to make it the main focus of the cartoon. It’s simply going to be a part of the brief.”
And it isn’t simply Bugs Bunny and Marvin the Martian that he voices. Bauza can be the drive behind Daffy Duck and Tweety.
“When you’re within the pocket with one, it’s not laborious to get into one other one,” he stated.
The roles have seemingly been many years within the making for Bauza. He stated his earliest publicity to the characters got here as a youth.
“International had the Bugs Bunny and Tweety Present and that’s what I might watch — me and my brother — each Saturday. That was my coaching, my introduction to Mel Blanc,” Bauza stated.
Blanc, a 60-year veteran who was finest referred to as the “man of a thousand voices” and an unique voice of Bugs Bunny and different Looney Tunes characters, was a robust supply of inspiration for Bauza, as have been the lads who adopted him.
After Blanc died in 1989, he recalled a movie competition on the Cinesphere at Ontario Place the place Jeff Bergman picked up voicing the beloved characters. Whereas it was not the very same, he stated it was “rattling shut.”
“In these performances, I hear a man in a sales space precisely doing what made him fall in love with the character. He’s bringing all of his finest reminiscences to this character to make it come again to life,” he stated.
“You’ll be able to put your self in a field so tightly simply to attempt to make the voice sound precisely that you simply lose the performing, you lose being daring to do out-of-the-box stuff.”
Quick-forward to March, when Looney Tunes Cartoons premiered on HBO Max in addition to Teletoon, which is owned by International Information mother or father firm Corus Leisure, in Canada. He stated there was numerous stress in debuting a signature sequence of characters.
“When it got here out, I assumed, ‘finish of my profession. They’re going to rake me over the coals for not being Mel Blanc’ … however with this, there actually hasn’t been numerous destructive response. In fact, there’s going to be diehard followers (who scrutinize the voices),” Bauza stated, effortlessly talking every so often within the voice of Bugs Bunny.
“Any time I’ve been doing this, you smile and there have to be one thing proper I’m doing as a result of it simply brings you again to once you heard that voice for the primary time as a child and even once you revisit the ‘toons now you’re type of identical to, ‘Oh yeah, shoot, there was one thing to that present.’”
As Bauza’s position on Looney Tunes Characters has made headlines, followers on social media shared a way of pleasure within the Scarborough actor’s rise within the business, particularly as somebody who’s a Filipino-Canadian taking up a place that has been held by older white males all through the franchise’s tenure.
“I hope we will additionally take a look at ourselves and nonetheless have the ability to chuckle at what makes us distinctive, and chuckle at our variations and likewise respect our variations and actually concentrate,” he stated.
“If I can do it, you are able to do it.”
Bauza additionally fondly recalled these occasions in his early years watching Looney Tunes along with his brother and fogeys whereas trying again at his profession.
“It’s wonderful. My dad and mom can watch (the present) with out having to subscribe to something,” he stated.
“It’s enjoyable to see all of it type of come again now, however with me a part of it. I left house. I left my house. I left household. I left numerous issues.”
In the meantime, when not in entrance of the microphone, Bauza is an integral a part of Retrokid, a Nineteen Eighties- and Nineteen Nineties-inspired retailer that has clothes traces impressed by well-known Canadian establishments and exhibits akin to Mr. Dressup, Inspector Gadget (a Canadian co-production) and BiWay, to call just a few.
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