A spin-off of the How To Train Your Dragon franchise, Dragons: Rescue Riders centers around a band of humans and dragons who work together to protect their small village of Huttsgalor. One of those villagers is Axel Finke, who is voiced by actor Jacob Hopkins and a more morally complex character than most of the outright heroic cast
During an exclusive interview with CBR, Hopkins spoke about his role as Axel in Dragons: Rescue Riders, talking about what originally attracted him to the series when he was a child, and what it's like to grow up as a voice actor.
For Hopkins, his introduction to the franchise came in his youth and was more focused on the original books. "I remember when I first read the books," Hopkins explained. "I was in third, fourth grade. I read the first book at my school library, I loved it. I continued on with the entire series. Snotlout became my favorite character.
"And I was like, this is such an awesome series. And then they started making the movies. So I grew up with this series, and watched all the movies. I even watched the TV show that they had on Cartoon Network, [DreamWorks Dragons]. And I was like, this is awesome. This is my childhood right here. And then years later, I get called to audition for this How to Train Your Dragon spinoff series, called Dragons: Rescue Riders. It's like, 'What?; So that was really awesome."
Hopkins also talked about playing a morally complex character, explaining, "He's a human in the dragon world. And I always quote Starlord and Deadpool on this: He's a little bit of good, a little bit of bad, a little bit of both. He's the con man, you never really know what his true agenda is, either with his evil genius Uncle Magnus Finke or the Rescue Riders, depending on what works out for him. He's unpredictable and he's a really fun character to play."
The somewhat trickier elements of Axel's morality, especially in the most straight-forward series, is something that appealed to Hopkins not just as a performer but as a fan. "Earlier I mentioned Snotlout was my favorite character in the books. He was my favorite character because in the books he dealt with that morality. There was a certain part in the books where Snotlout had to deal with going with his family or going with Alvin the Treacherous, and that was his big character arc. And I was like, this is a really cool character arc, because I love those characters that aren't clearly good or clearly bad, they have to have this internal struggle.
"I do get to play that with Axel many different times. And that wasn't something that was very apparent... at first you would think that he's a bad guy. He's very conniving, sneaky. But as the series progresses you see that he's mistreated by... his uncle. And you see that really what he wants is a place to belong, someone to be loved by, and those are a lot of really good layers to play, especially as an actor."
Hopkins has been featured in various shows and films for most of his life but has also carved out a very impressive voice-acting resume -- having provided the voice of the titular Gumball from The Amazing World of Gumball, which ended its eight-year run on Cartoon Network in 2019. Reflecting on his experience with voice-acting and how it led him to take on the role of Axel, Hopkins recalled, "I first started acting when I was five, but I transitioned to voice acting when I was 11. The very first audition and gig that I got was Gumball. So for me to be starting out, and especially at that young age, and getting one of the top Cartoon Network shows... that was surreal to me. I basically learned everything I needed to know about voice acting while doing that.
"I quote Mark Hamill on this, it's liberating because you're stepping out of your own body and becoming an animated character that shouldn't even exist on this plane of existence. That's the fun part about voice acting, that you get to step into this fantasy world, and pretty much do anything. That was super fun to me as a kid, the idea of playing pretend times a thousand. That was awesome. Now that I'm 18, I've grown up and the reasons have changed for why I love voice acting. That's still a part of it, but I've grown to really, really love the voice acting culture. I was a fan of all types of cartoons when I was younger, but now I'm a part of that. And I've been doing it for seven years... it's really, really humbling and incredible."
KEEP READING: The Most TRAUMATIZING Classic Christmas Specials, Ranked