Dee Bradley Baker and Matthew Wood talk their Star Wars origins and more at NYCC 2021

On Friday afternoon, New York Comic Con 2021’s The Voices of Star Wars Animation featuring Dee Bradley Baker and Matthew Wood panel allowed both actors to share their Star Wars “origin stories” as well as answer fan questions about working on various projects — some of which we haven’t seen yet (but they know what’s up).

Wood got his first Star Wars job by sending his resume via fax. Did we mention he made it on Mac Paint? And he was still a teenager? How many of you reading this don’t even know what a fax is? Baker got his start at Skywalker Ranch, but not before he dressed up as a Jawa about a dozen times too many, if that’s possible.

Baker and Wood have both voiced multiple characters (and creatures) throughout Star Wars animation and beyond, beginning with The Clone Wars in 2008 and continuing on through The Mandalorian and more.

Star Wars at New York Comic Con 2021

Baker’s legendary voice work extends to many animated projects you’ve likely heard of, but his Star Wars credits continue to expand. He now voices an impressive number of characters in The Bad Batch. During the panel, he said the original idea was to have different actors voice the distinct members of the Batch, but it ended up making more sense to use the same voice for every clone including Clone Force 99 (Omega, however, not included).

Wood said he got to play around in post-production during The Clone Wars, having voiced characters without mouths that gave him the freedom to improvise his own jokes for Dave Filoni to OK or veto. Thankfully, plenty of the Clone Wars battle droid humor made it past the boss.

Both actors also responded to a fan’s question about working with Tom Kane with endless praise for the longtime voice acting legend, who was forced to retire recently due to health issues.

If you’ve ever wondered how Baker jumps from voice to voice in The Bad Batch, for example, the actor explained that he simply visualizes the character he’s about to voice and uses that to tap into the “right” voice for the character that’s speaking. For him, voice acting is less about “doing voices” and more about the visuals and emotions associated with each respective character.

This is not the last we’ll see of either Wood or Baker in Star Wars. The Book of Boba Fett and The Mandalorian season 3 are coming faster than Baker can switch from voicing Crosshair to Wrecker.

Missed the panel featuring Dee Bradley Baker and Matthew Wood? You can watch it again with a digital ticket or a Metaverse Membership. You can find more info on the official NYCC website