You probably don’t know who Rob Paulsen is. But you probably know at least one or two of his animated characters. The award-winning Paulsen is the voice of, among others, Pinky from Pinky and the Brain, Yakko from Animaniacs and Raphael (and later Donatello) from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
Paulsen, a Michigan native, has been working as a voice actor in Hollywood for over 30 years. He'll be in Milwaukee all weekend for the Wisconsin Comic Convention, giving talks and meeting fans.
He chatted with us from his home in LA about his unexpected career and how his Midwestern upbringing has kept him grounded in the land of Hollywood:
"My sweet mom and dad were pretty careful in saying, 'Yeah, look son, if you have a horn worth tooting, someone will toot it for you,' " he explains. "And so I’m fine being in the background between Pinky and Yakko and Donatello and Rafael and Carl Wheezer and Snowball and all the rest of the knuckleheads."
