How Spider-Man 2’s star put Venom in Peter’s voice: ‘Once or twice I hurt myself’
Yuri Lowenthal is one of gaming and animation’s most prolific and hardworking voice actors. With hundreds of credits stretching back over two decades — the man’s resume is so big it needs its own separate Wikipedia page — we’ve rarely gone a year without the pleasure of hearing his instantly recognizable performances, most recently as Peter Parker in Spider-Man 2.
But what goes into these many roles, and what does voice acting look like as technology rapidly advances toward the stuff of dystopian science fiction? Lowenthal spoke to Polygon about his most recent video game roles, as well as a possible voice actor strike and the importance of nailing down considerations for AI usage and worker health in the Screen Actors Guild’s ongoing contract negotiations with major studios.
Of course, I couldn’t open my conversation with Lowenthal without asking about his returning to the role of Peter Parker in Spider-Man 2, released in October. He’d yet to crack open his early copy of the game when we spoke a few days before its arrival on PlayStation 5, explaining that his self-admitted lack of skill often keeps him from spending too much time with the action-heavy projects to which he lends his voice.
“You know, famously, I’m not great at playing video games,” Lowenthal told me over a video call, rarely dropping his trademark grin. “I famously 3%-ed the original Spider-Man game and then walked away out of frustration. I’d much rather just watch YouTube playthroughs or cinematics all strung together than actually play it. I’m more [into] these days, like, story-based, on-rails [games], maybe a couple of easy puzzles. Cool atmosphere, cool story, not something where I have to learn complex mechanics to fight off things that are
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