Among Us adds yet more stars (and actual voice actors) to its cast
At this point, who isn’t in the cast of Among Us? The CBS animated series, based on the pandemic-favorite multiplayer video game, has gathered a staked group of stars to voice its colorful little astronauts. Today, four new players have joined the cast: Patton Oswalt, Debra Wilson, Phil LaMarr, and Wayne Knight. They join a previously announced cast that includes Dan Stevens, Randall Park, Yvette Nicole Brown, Elijah Wood, and Ashley Johnson.
Each Among Us character has been given a little bio, so here’s the latest. Oswalt plays White, a “Contest Winner,” whose tagline is “No trauma, no drama.” His task is “Someone else will get to it,” and his fun fact is “wealth can be a personality trait.” Wilson plays Yellow, the “indignant, opinionated, prankster” and “Ship Cook #1.” Her task is “pizza” and her fun fact is she’s “best friends with Brown.” Brown is played by LaMarr, Yellow’s fellow ship cook. His task is “also pizza” and being best friends with Yellow. And finally, there’s Knight’s Lime, an Engineer and “Doomsday prepper, conspiracy theorist.” His task is “getting stuff pretty much mostly fixed-ish” and his fun fact is that he’s “afraid of intimacy.”
It’s unclear just what kind of show Among Us is going to be (beyond “irreverent animated comedy”), but it’s clearly attracted a lot of buzzy talent. This batch of astronauts, at least, includes some veteran voice actors in LaMarr and Wilson (also both veterans of MADtv). The rest of the cast has voice acting credits, of course, but besides Johnson, they’re all more well-known for live-action roles than for voice work. As we’ve seen time and again over the last few decades, mainstream animation projects tend to favor celebrity casting over dedicated voice actors. (We’re all looking at you, Chris Pratt.)
Industry insiders who spoke to Backstage in 2019 said most jobs in the space still go to everyday voice actors, but it’s clear that major releases favor major names. “It’s star f–kery,” an anonymous voice actor complained to The New York Post back in 2018. “I cannot do voice-over full-time right now, it’s not enough to pay the bills. … It’s not enough to raise a family on.” In the same piece, voice actor Dominic Armato said his “number-one goal for years was to do an animated movie,” which never panned out: “My agent told me half-seriously that the easier route would be to make my name in live action and circle back as a celebrity.”
All this to say, while Among Us has an exciting cast, it’s nice to see tried and true voice actors on the call sheet as well—and may more of them get the chance to be part of this type of project in the future!
