Hank Azaria is defintely at the top of the list. Yes, he’s a good actor but his work on The Simpsons is absolutely awesome. He does more voices than anyone, and Matt Groening observed “Some of these characters have only one or two lines. But Hank hits it out of the park every time.”
‘Some’ live-action roles? While he does so much voice over work I wonder where he finds time to do other roles, he’s had some very prominent live-action work.
The Kurgan - antagonist in The Highlander film
Captain Hadley - head prison guard in The Shawshank Redemption
Sgt. Zim - drill sergeant in Starship Troopers
Meachem - the preacher in Cowboys & Aliens
And this is barely representative of all the work he has done, in both TV and film. He is a very in-demand character actor. He does fine voice over work, but I can’t see how one could say he does ‘better’ voice over work than act.
He was absolutely riveting as Brother Justin in Carnivàle; he was arguably the best character in one of the best TV dramas ever.
I didn’t actually know he did much voice-over work until I read this thread.
Does H. Jon Benjamin do any live acting?
ETA: I’ll nominate Phil LaMarr as a better voice actor than live actor.
While I tend to enjoy Keith David in most of his acting roles, a strong case could be made that his voice-over work.
I’m old enough to remember him as “Viking,” the top dog at juvenile prison (and Sean Penn’s arch-enemy) in*** Bad Boys.***
It’s funny how often Clancy Brown plays psychos and crooks, because he’s actually a rich, prep school kid and the son of a Congressman. He has a very nice, pretty wife and a couple of nice kids, and seems like a great guy.
But, in his words, “What can I tell you? The few movies where I played good guys didn’t do very well.”
Wasn’t he the short-lived-but-good-guy cop in Fox’s Sleepy Hollow too?
I never saw it, but if you’re right, that’s just another case of an unsuccessful project where he played a good guy.
He was the chief of police, beheaded in the first episode, but that didn’t prevent him from playing a recurring role.
Kristen Schaal is ok on The Daily Show and her stand up is alright, but her best role is Louise on Bob’s Burgers and her voice is in a massive amount of those things.
He’s in Jon Benjamin Has a Van, but I’m not sure that really counts as acting.
OK, OK, I didn’t mean to slight Clancy Brown. I don’t think I’ve seen any of his movies. I first heard of him in connection with the animated Superman series and recognized his name from the credits of SpongeBob. I don’t mean to imply he’s a better voice actor, but he’s more familiar to me as one. I’ll defer to everyone else that he’s an excellent live actor, too. But to me he’s in the same category as Billy West or Tom Kenny as someone whose voice I hear most often and rarely actually see.
Not really familiar with the name Clancy Brown, but I recognized his face immediately. I probably know him most from The Shawshank Redemption.
They cut that off before the best line.
Yeardley Smith and Hank Azaria co-starred on Herman’s Head which ran for 72 episodes on Fox from 1991-1994.
The great June Foray also picked up live-action work from time to time, but that’s sure as heck not how her inevitable obituary is going to lead off.
Eddie Murphy has certainly done much better as voice over for many years.
Yeah, but Frees didn’t do it “from time to time”. It was essentially his job.
I would’ve said that his obit would say he was the voice of Boris Badenov and Ludwi8g von Drake. Since he diked in 1986, we can check – I’m half right. The NYT obituary doesn’t mention Ludwig von Drake.
Agreed. He far surpasses Heath Ledger and Jack Nicholson.
Interesting thing about Hamill – he was doing voice work years before he was Luke Skywalker – he’d done voices for The New Scooby Doo Movies in 1973, and had the lead male role in the animated series Jeannie the same year, then was on Fred Flintstone and Friends in 1977. In doing the Joker, the Hobgoblin, and his many other voices, he was arguably returning to his roots.