“Ultimately, what matters most for us is the ability for an actor to convey the nuance and the emotional truth of the role ... using the only tool that they have at their disposal, which is their voice,” he said. He noted that live-action films require an actor to look the part of their character, but his animated pictures call for them to be skilled at communicating their character’s persona. “There are very few actors in the world that can do that. There are a lot of great actors that can't do that.”



That is why previous Laika films have hired voiceover artists who look “absolutely nothing like the characters they play,” Knight added, referring to the casting of Christopher Mintz-Plasse, known for playing nerds, as the bully in ParaNorman. The studio also cast Ben Kingsley, a prolific actor with a career spanning over 40 years, as a bombastic pest exterminator in The Boxtrolls.

Major animated motion pictures used to employ relatively unknown voiceover artists 20 years ago, but that is no longer the case today, according to Ilana Martin, a celebrity vocal coach. She acknowledged that animated movies now require a high caliber of voice acting — and celebrity: These days, “quality” is equal to fame, or rather, familiarity.

“Due to the fact that [animated] characters feel more lifelike than they used to feel, the voices have to sound more familiar and nuanced than they used to sound,” she told BuzzFeed News in a phone interview. Unlike Mickey Mouse’s high-pitched mouse squeak, for example, characters now “have to feel like they’re part of your family,” which is one reason celebrities have taken over the world of cartoon voice acting. “The family that we know sonically [are] … people like Chris Rock, Scarlett Johansson.”

Since filmmakers — consciously or not — tend to hire “familiar” talent for animated projects, the trend means lesser-known, less-experienced actors are at a disadvantage. Thus, just as it is with live-action films, Asian-American actors have a more difficult time landing roles in animated projects.

According to Linda Lamontagne, the casting director behind shows like BoJack Horseman and Family Guy and films like The Nut Job and Angry Birds, “If Asians had more opportunity, they could probably be better at their craft and more desirable if they worked more. ... Delivery, voice, comedic timing — that’s usually what wins in the shows that I work on,” she told BuzzFeed News in a phone interview.

Those are the reasons cited for why white actors often portray characters of color on shows like Avatar: The Last Airbender, The Simpsons, and The Cleveland Show. Lamontagne, who is half Taiwanese, noted that she’s made a concerted effort to cast more actors of color, especially Asian-Americans. For characters of color, Lamontagne first auditions “minority” actors, and for undefined characters, she practices colorblind casting. Most recently, she cast Ken Jeong in BoJack Horseman and Ali Wong in Angry Birds. But she runs into a frequent problem. “It’s the person who has done a lot more who can deliver … Usually the more famous person has worked a lot more,” she said, further explaining the Catch-22. It also doesn’t help that big talent agencies represent few Asian-Americans, she said.

Additionally, the issue of voice casting Asian-Americans — and people of color in general — is exacerbated when filmmakers need to appeal to distributors. “A lot of the times the distributors want [big] names so they can put seats in the theaters to promote and market the movie,” Lamontagne said.