I was born in India and grew up all over the world, mostly in Dubai. I’ve lived in Oman, The Turks and Caicos Islands, The UK and I’m currently living in the Czech Republic with my wife and 2 year old son. He does get loud, which is sometimes a problem being a voice actor. I was always interested in doing voices and accents from when I was a kid. It made people laugh and I kind of got addicted to it. But, I had no idea how to pursue that as a career so I had a few regular, boring 9-5 jobs until I took the plunge 3 years ago and went into voice acting and narrating full time. It’s the best choice I’ve ever made and I’ve never looked back.
I’ve been fortunate to have been cast as Qui-Gon Jinn. I’d always been a fan of Liam Neeson and like any voice actor, had practiced the monologue from Taken countless times – more for fun than to any real objective. But with a little more practice, I could adapt it into Qui-Gon Jinn’s voice, which is a mix of Liam Neeson’s version from Episode I , and from other iterations of the character. Qui-Gon is the quintessential jedi-master. He sees far into the future with all his decisions and care more about what affects choices have for the force and the universe as a whole. Without him to take the chances he did, and developing the talent to manifest as a force ghost, the story as we know it would have been very different.
It’s Star Wars! I’ve been a fan for as long as I can remember and to be a part of that universe in any way would have been an absolute blessing. I had auditioned as soon as I saw the listing, which was a little late into the casting process, and manage to be included in the background cast – for me, that was enough. That was such a special opportunity and I was listed to play Chewbacca and a few other characters. When the casting opened for Qui-Gon, I leapt at it because I knew I could do it justice. And, as a bonus, I got to keep Chewbacca as well. I’ve been known to do impressions of some of the weird and wonderful characters such as Gollum, Dr. Zoidberg, Stitch and Chewbacca, so to be able to use my very niche talents has been incredibly fulfilling.