October 21st, 2022 
W.R. Miller 
What do you do if you live on a prison asteroid run by a megalomaniacal warden, and you uncover an abondoned starship capable of near-transwarp speeds? Do you take it? 17-year-old Dal R’El does, with the help of his fellow adolescent escapees including Gwyndala, 17-year-old daughter of the warden. So off the kids race toward the United Federation of Planets, hoping for protection and to learn more about themselves and the various worlds they encounter. Little do they know that the starship they’ve taken, the U.S.S. Protostar, has been infected with a virus that could wipe out the entire Alpha Quadrant. Such is the current scenario with Star Trek: Prodigy, the CG-animated series from CBS’ Eye Animation Productions and Nickelodeon.
Dal is voiced by Brett Gray; Gwyn is voiced by Ella Purnell. Paramount+ granted the opportunity to interview both, albeit briefly, over Zoom on October 8, 2022, on the occasion of the soon-to-premiere second half of Prodigy’s first season. Previously, Gray had starred as Jamal Turner on the Netflix series, On My Block (2018-2021); Purnell starred as Tess in Sweetbitter (2018-2019), Jackie in Yellowjackets (2021-present), and Jinx in Arcane (2021-present). The actors revealed their takes on the voice acting process and offered a tease for their characters’ future.
Bob Miller: Is your acting technique the same behind the mic as it is in front of the camera?
Brett Gray: No.
Ella Purnell: No. I think if I did what I did behind the mic in front of the camera, I wouldn’t be working anymore. (laughs) I think me and Brad are very similar that when we’re recording, we get very, very physical. You have to overcompensate to carry the emotion into your voice, and I’m always jumping around and punching the air and doing things. And I don’t do that on-camera as much. (laughs)
Brett Gray
BM: How do you perform a character through the voice alone as opposed to on-camera?
BG: It’s cool because I never thought about it, but you really can get a lot based off of just the sound. Sometimes when I’m in the booth and you’re recording a new episode, there’s nothing but silence. Then your voice goes and then there’s silence. And then your voice goes, you give it like an A, B, and C version. You can hear the subtle differences in emotion in just how you say something or emphasizing a word or where your voice is placed at the moment. So it’s been a cool discovery for me of using sound more intentionally in everything I’m doing.
Ella Purnell
BG: Come on.
EP: Okay. (laughs)
BM: Do you guys record as an ensemble?
EP: No.
BG: I wish.
EP: Oh, yeah, I wish as well. We record on our own. Sometimes, if you are lucky, they’ll have [ensemble recordings]. Or if you’re just badly organizing late to the game, then they’ll have recorded other people’s stuff so you can head back and respond to that. But I love what Brett said, and I completely agree that you get to use sound more intentionally, and learn more about yourself as an actor.
BG: Totally.
BM: Well, what have you learned as a voiceover actor when you started voice performing?
BG: Be more like Ella. (laughs)
EP: It’s funny, I learned the same thing but about Kate [Mulgrew]. A lot of times, I’m so painfully self-conscious now. You read something and you’re like, “I can’t do that.” And then you just do it and you just shut up and stop being a little baby and you do it. And usually, it’s around efforts. It’s like falling from a 3000-foot drop, what sound you would make. And you come out with all these weird things, and you’re able to be challenged to be so much more creative, especially around emotional scenes. I used to think there’s only really one way I can do crying scenes, but there’s not. There’s a thousand and it’s really pushed me to explore.
BM: Brett?
BG: If you are falling from a 3000-foot ledge, it can shift your emotion in your entire body depending on how you scream or yell or emphasize something. And so yes, it’s taking that into my acting. Sound is also very vulnerable, being in front of a microphone and there are other people listening very closely, and just you, it’s like practicing that stage of vulnerability where it’s like, “Okay, I have to eat a sandwich right now in this scene, so there’s gonna be people just listening to me make chewing sounds.”
Ella: (laughs)
BG: And again, it’s like Ella’s. Then you find all these weird things that you can then take with you, and there’s a boldness that sound recording can lend itself to other ways, where now if I have to eat a sandwich on-camera, I’m more used to being vulnerable enough to make the sound. Whereas sometimes for me specifically as an actor, the sound is the hardest part because it’s the most, for me, emotionally shifting. If that makes sense.
BM: Can you say how fan reaction has been to your characters?
BG: Oh, the fan reactions are great. Everybody loves the show. I think that it’s been awesome to see people see Dal as this annoying character who is very self-involved and self-confident—I would say cocky more so than self-confident. And watch him become a leader and become a team player and a better friend. That’s been really satisfying for me to see.
EP: I think people don’t know if they can trust Gwyn yet, what we’ve seen so far. And she has this cold heart exterior that is really just a survival technique. It’s a coping mechanism—
BG: Totally.
EP: —that she adopted from childhood. But she’s about to lose a lot of that, and just chill out and have some fun, and it’s gonna be great. We’re gonna love it.
Now at the midpoint of the first season, Star Trek: Prodigy’s next batch of ten episodes begins streaming on Paramount+ on Thursday, October 27. Season Two is currently in production.
Star Trek: Prodigy comes from CBS’ Eye Animation Productions, CBS Studios’ new animation arm; Nickelodeon Animation, led by President of Animation Ramsey Naito; Secret Hideout; and Roddenberry Entertainment. Alex Kurtzman, Heather Kadin, Aaron Baiers, Katie Krentz, Rod Roddenberry and Trevor Roth serve as executive producers, alongside co-showrunners Kevin and Dan Hageman. Ben Hibon directs, co-executive produces and serves as the creative lead of the CG-animated series. Aaron Waltke and Patrick Krebs also serve as co-executive producers.
Special thanks to Leigh Wolfson, Manager, Communications, Paramount+ and MacRae Martinez, Production Coordinator at PremiereTV.
He has just completed Batman: The Animated Interviews, a five-volume work featuring the executives, producers, directors, writers, actors, designers, storyboard artists and composers involved with the making of Batman: The Animated Series and its spinoffs. BearManor Media is the publisher.
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