Ryan Potter isn’t your typical teen star. For one, you won’t find sexy selfies or celebrity name-dropping on his Twitter. In fact, he says he doesn’t even like spending much time on social media because, “It just takes so much time away from your real life — what’s going on around you.”
19-year-old Potter voices 14-year-old Hiro Hamada in the new Disney Animated Classic Big Hero 6. Prior to the film, he starred in the show Supah Ninjas which ran for two seasons on Nickelodeon. It was there he got to work with the first of two people he notes for having incredible insight: George Takei. According to Potter, “Even if George said, ‘Make sure you arrive to set five minutes early,’ I’d be like, ‘Oh my God! I never thought about that! That’s so amazing! Thank you for your wisdom!” The other person on that list? John Lasseter.
Potter started the process of bringing Hiro to life nearly two years ago and says it’s been an incredible ride so far even though the film hasn’t been released yet. He credits this to the early fans who have hyped the film from the beginning. As he put it, “When we released a 30-second teaser of the trolly car going down San Fransokyo there were already people pulling it apart, finding Easter eggs and with that 30-seconds and with the comic books people were already creating fan art, people were already creating fan fiction…and this was a year before the trailer came out!”
Once the film is released, Potter has different plans for his career than you might expect. He says he is currently applying to film schools and hopes to direct indie films and music videos in the future. “I’m just working with friends on music videos, videos for YouTube — whatever it is just to kind of continue to create but in a different aspect,” he said.
Here’s more of our conversion with Ryan Potter:
Q: So you’ve mostly done live-action, was this your first foray into voiceover?
Ryan Potter: It is; it’s my first animated film, but I did a little Netflix commercial voiceover-wise and I was on the radio. But besides that this was my first voiceover anything. It’s really exciting.
Q: How does that compare? I know it’s got a be a lot different without actors to bounce off of and stuff.
RP: You know, I like animation a lot better than live action because you have complete freedom to do whatever you want in the booth. You don’t have to wait on another actor to say something… If you mess up you start over. With animation you can just ramble until they’re like, “OK, we’ve got enough.”
Q: You’re half-Japanese, right?
RP: I am half-Japanese.
Q: And Hiro is of Japanese descent?
RP: Yeah, you know… Hamada is a Japanese last name but what’s cool about the Hamada family is that they’re Asian-American and you don’t necessarily have to specify what kind of Asian he is. A lot of the characters are mixed race and it’s really cool to see characters that are ambiguous on screen — you don’t have to label them a certain way. But it’s San Fransokyo — it’s San Francisco and Tokyo so they’re leaning more towards the Japanese side.
Q: I saw this on Wikipedia so it might be wrong, but you actually lived in Tokyo when you were very young?
RP: I did! I was born in Oregon but I was raised in Japan and I lived there for about seven years in this part of Tokyo called Yoga — it’s just the best name.
Q: Have you been back since or do you have memories of when you were over there?
RP: I try and go like every other year but I mean I lived there until I was seven years old so I remember a good amount from my childhood of Japan. Going to Japanese markets, going to the park, I went to preschool there, festivals in Japan, taking the train, taking the bus. There’s a lot I remember about Japan but also when I go back it kind of re-sparks some memories. It’s just a phenomenal place to live.
Q: So looking at San Fransokyo are there elements where you’re like “OK, that’s definitely like Tokyo”?
RP: Absolutely. San Fransokyo — what the animators did and the filmmakers did is just mind-blowing, it really is. Because the geography of San Fransokyo is San Fransisco, it’s got the hills and it has the Bay and all the different bridges, but what they put on top of that geography is Tokyo. There are all these very high-tech buildings but they still have the lanterns in some areas or they have the little ramen bar at the train station — just these very subtle things that the film makers put in that are very Japanese.
Q: For a young actor the two biggest houses are Nickelodeon and Disney; do you feel you’ve kind of switched sides? Is that weird for you?
RP: You know, I never felt like I switched sides. I don’t feel I was even part of a side just because it’s all been so surreal being able to work for both of these companies. Both of these companies built my childhood; they were my childhood. Never at one point was I like, “Oh yeah, I’m part of these guys.” I was very fortunate and very blessed to work with both of them.
But working with Disney Animation — every animated film growing up these guys were a part of. Being a part of the Disney family is very special; it’s an amazing experience.
Q: And your TV dad [on Supah Ninjas, Randall Park] is in the Disney family as well now on ABC [Fresh off the Boat].
RP: He is! Man, Randall is without a doubt the most unfamous famous person I know. Without a doubt he is one of the most talented and funny people out there. He puts out like web series and content online and that is some of the funniest stuff… He’s just so under appreciated because he’s so talented.
Q: Did you get to do stunts on Ninjas at all?
RP: I did a really good amount of my own stunts but I still had stunt doubles… But the stunt coordinator rehearsed with us a lot and he got to a point where he felt comfortable with us doing a lot of our own stuff. Even Carlos [Knight] and Gracie [Dzienny] got to do a lot of their own fighting and stunts. I mean there were certain things liabilty wise we weren’t able to do but for the most part they let us do a lot of our own stuff. Whether it made it into the final cut or not was a completely different story because the stunt guys, that’s their profession — what they do looks a lot nicer than how we do it.
Q: So when you watch Big Hero 6 are you kind of jealous that it’s not live-action and that you didn’t get to do some of the stuff?
RP: No, because I got to do it in the booth; I got to act it out. A lot of the action that takes place — obviously the flying I wish I could do that — but for the most part I would run around the booth, I’d jump around, I’d throw myself — whatever the action was I would do it. I didn’t feel like I missed out; I felt like I was part of it. And once I got to see the film and the way it came together it was — oh man, I don’t know — I felt like I didn’t miss anything.
Q: So when you’re in the booth is it just off the page with the directors setting it up or is there any sort of animation that you get to refer to?
RP: There was no animation and I told the guys I didn’t want to see any animation until it was 100% done. So what they had was some storyboards… but they would also create it visually. So a lot of the time they’d be like, “Oh we don’t have time for storyboards; here’s what’s going on,” and they’d create it for me visually.
But, yeah, it’s what was on the page and I would often times go off the page and just ramble. There was nothing pre-animated, it was all animated afterwards.
Q: So have you gotten to spend time with the cast now after the fact?
RP: Yeah, it didn’t feel like we missed a beat especially with Scott Adsit (who plays Baymax). We’d been working together for a year and seven months but we never even saw each other one time, but when we saw each other we didn’t miss a beat. It was like I was talking to Baymax and for him it was like talking to Hiro.
It was the same way with all the other cast members but I am a huge fan of each and every one of the cast members: James Cromwell from Babe, Maya Rudolph from Bridesmaids, TJ Miller from every freaking stand-up special he’s done, Damon Wayans Jr. from New Girl, Jamie Chung from her playing the token Asian girl in every film that I watched growing up, Genesis Rodriguez from her just being incredibly gorgeous — I’m just fans of every single one of them so it’s a little surreal being able to stand next to them and sit on the same panel with them and be in the same film with them. It’s like, “You sure? Me? You guys sure you wanted me? I’m the guy? OK.” I’m very honored to stand next to them and work with them.
Q: How did you get involved with the film?
RP: A director I had worked with in the past knows the casting director over at Disney and I guess they had been looking for this role for quite some time and he was like, “Well have you met Ryan?” and they said “No,” so he let the casting director know about me and I went in. It was just an awesome awesome audition experience because they were happy to have me and I was happy to be there. It didn’t feel like an audition, it just felt like we were going in and creating. I think that’s why I’m sitting here because it felt very comfortable and felt like it was meant to be.
Q: So you said that you watched a lot of Disney films as a kid, how do you think this one holds up in that cannon?
RP: It’s hard to talk about Big Hero 6 honestly because it sounds pretentious. I am such a big fan of this film and what the other cast members and creators of the film have done with it.
Growing up, my favorite Disney animated film was Treasure Planet because it was a more male-orientated film and the theme of the film has more to do with a father-son relationship. A lot of Disney films touch on a lot of different things but [Big Hero 6] in particular is very boy-heavy with the action and everything but it has the Disney heart so both boys and girls can watch it. It’s just so well done — it holds its own with other Disney films and, to be quite honest, it sits in the top three personally for me. It sits alongside Treasure Planet and sits alongside Peter Pan because it has those Disney themes and Disney messages but it has that action that I love from Marvel films — it’s a perfect blend… I keep saying it to people, I’m a bigger fan of the film than I am a part of it.
Big Hero 6 opens November 7th in theatres everywhere!