The first season of Netflix's 2021 He-Man and the Masters of the Universe gave Prince Adam and his compatriots a new origin story and put the young heroes face to face with Skeletor in a battle for the fate of Eternos. As He-Man, Battle Cat, and Krass adjust to wielding the power of Grayskull, they are tasked with fighting off hordes of ferocious villains. The epic battle resumes in the recently released second season, which introduces a slew of new characters to join the heroes as they adjust to life as Masters of the Universe and travel all over Eternos to stop Skeletor from spreading havoc.
The prolific voice actor David Kaye sat down with CBR to discuss his role as Cringer. Kaye expressed his appreciation and admiration for his fellow cast members and his life-long love of cartoons. He then dove into the high stakes of He-Man and the Masters of the Universe Season 2 and his process for developing his character.
CBR: Prior to your role as Battle Cat, were you a He-Man fan?
David Kaye: Yeah, I pretty much knew the opening by heart when I was a kid. I grew up with Bugs Bunny and Tex Avery and weird cartoons. He-Man was the first show that I watched because I liked it.
So as a fan, was it difficult adjusting to this new version of Cringer?
When I was doing a Transformers: Beast Wars back in the '90s, I never watched the cartoon. I did my own thing just based on what I was given, and it worked out. So with this one, I knew there was a chance to go old school. I like the king's right-hand man on Game of Thrones, Liam Cunningham. I've always liked his voice. It's like a warm blanket. I used to play around with it and I thought, "Wait a minute -- here's an opportunity to do my ode to that character. Let's try that." So I tried that, and they seemed to buy it, thank goodness.
That's the relationship. He's all in with them, but he's going to be very protective and look out for his best interests. So it works. Then, when he's in his Battle Cat mode, he's ratcheted up a bit. I loved when he first got his claws.
How did you handle the transition between Cringer and Battle Cat?
Well, Collette Sunderman, our director who I love dearly -- I always maintain that if it wasn't for her, I wouldn't be in animation -- went around the room going, "Okay, now we're in battle mode, and we want to up everything." So it's just a matter of bringing more energy and a little more grit, a little more power. We all went around the room and made sure we hit that level, just a little more grit in here now he's in battle mode. He grows into it. He starts to become more comfortable as the episodes go on and it becomes second nature to him.
How did your approach to him change going into the second season, now that he already has the power of Grayskull?
He has a little more swagger because he knows now that he has his power. The stakes, of course, are higher, and that just goes with how you approach and how you play the character. I have to say that I miss terribly "MOTU Tuesdays." We used to call them because that was our recording day, and everybody was there. I had not worked with and met Antony Del Rio [who plays Duncan on the show] before, but my God, that kid is good. Anyone who wants to get into voiceover and do animation should really listen to him. He was one of the people in the cast who I just loved to listen to and watch.
It was just a great team. We're very fortunate to have such a wonderful cast, you know. Not all shows are lucky. We genuinely miss MOTU Tuesdays and being together. The last couple of years, we haven't been in the studio. I'm glad we got a chance to do most of the episodes, but then we went online. Everybody was in a box.
Was most of the second season recorded remotely?
I think it was. It's hard to believe how quickly those two years have gone. I think most of it we've done remotely, which is amazing because I watch it and I listened to and I couldn't tell. I don't know if that is good or bad. I just really miss being in person because there's nothing like being in the room and doing a radio drama together and feeding off that energy
Did working away from the rest of the cast change your relationship with the character?
No, because a lot of times if I'm working in a studio all the lines are generally fairly short. You go over them a few times when you're doing a scene so you get to know the lines by heart. So if you close your eyes you can envision everybody there anyway. I see the scene sort of happening. I see the characters and I see me reacting. I don't see me, David Kaye. I envision the character [and] what's happening.
That's really important. When you're going to zoom and when you're on your own, you need to have that imagination. I am in no way comparing myself to classic composers like Mozart, but they were able to hear every instrument. I don't know how they did it -- like a symphony in your mind. With animation in the booth, you have to hear it and see that world. So it's really important to have a goofy imagination, which served me okay.
When you're recording an action scene, how much of an idea of what the final product will look like do you have?
If you have a scene that calls for action, you can imagine some of what's going on. You just know how you play those actions. Again, you know, stakes are higher. The director and the writer will be there to let us know when we play it too soft. Because there are a lot of battles going on outside, automatically volume levels go up, because you're competing with background music and they're going to be putting in an explosion. So that all has to be lifted up based on the writers' direction and the voice director in the booth and what they need to get out of you. They have to have even more of the vision.
I have to admit here that I rarely have seen an entire episode of anything I've ever done. Even Beast Wars. I've seen clips and little things, but I've never actually followed all the way through until during the pandemic. We were binging more and consuming more entertainment. I thought, "Hey, the [He-Man] series has dropped. Let's just go turn it on." So one morning around 10 o'clock I took a look. Three episodes went by and I thought, "This is good! This is really good." I kept bingeing it for a season. I got hooked and I forgot I was in it. I was really impressed. I'm really enjoying this journey.
Throughout the new season, Krass and Adam struggle to find a balance between their lives in their old tribe and their new roles as Masters of the Universe. Where do you think Battle Cat fits in with this dilemma?
He knows the stakes now. Now we've realized that this isn't just a one-time thing. Now I gotta look after this kid forever, so that has to be always in the back of his mind. You don't think about [that] when you're doing it, but there's a little thing back here that goes, "Hey, don't forget, you gotta lookout for the kid. This is it. This your job now." When I go through the script, I need to have an overall big picture view of what's happening. We don't get scripts until the day before we record, so we're kind of in the dark, which is a good thing. We want that element of surprise in our performance. So to be in the moment and be real and try to bring truth to everything that we do is the most important thing.
He-Man and the Masters of the Universe Season 2 is available to stream now on Netflix.