{"id":831770,"date":"2026-07-29T18:09:08","date_gmt":"2026-07-29T18:09:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/831770\/"},"modified":"2026-07-29T18:09:08","modified_gmt":"2026-07-29T18:09:08","slug":"ghost-in-the-shell-actor-tony-weaver-jr-is-happy-to-be-here","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/831770\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Ghost in the Shell’ Actor Tony Weaver, Jr. Is Happy to Be Here"},"content":{"rendered":"

Prime Video\u2019s English dub of The Ghost in the Shell<\/a> features some familiar voices like Suzie Yeung<\/a> and Bill Butts in the leading roles as Kusanagi and Batou. It also features a notable new talent in Tony Weaver, Jr., who plays Section 9 sniper Saito.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Before this, dub watchers may have heard him in Snowball Earth from earlier this year as Nishimura. These roles mark the beginning of Weaver\u2019s voice acting career, which he\u2019s recently decided to jump into alongside his other jobs: running his charity Weird Enough, writing middle grade graphic novels\u2014his 2024 debut, Weirdo<\/a>, was drawn by Jes and Cin Wibowo and won Harvey and Eisner Awards\u2014and making videos on YouTube<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know what balance is, and I sure haven\u2019t found it,\u201d laughed Weaver. When he recently spoke with io9, he described himself as \u201cpretty competitive\u201d and always setting high expectations across his various skill sets. What helps him manage it all is his team and Weird Enough itself being self-sufficient enough for him to compartmentalize and determine what\u2019ll dominate his focus on a daily basis. He may decide to focus on his charity one day, and the next, he\u2019ll be in full writer mode for a book or script. And when it\u2019s time to shift to voice acting? That\u2019s what evenings are for.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Typically, content creators will build themselves up before transitioning to new, usually more creative ventures. For Weaver, pivoting to voice work isn\u2019t a surprise so much as it is overdue: he graduated from college with a BFA in acting and always planned to enter this space. But at age 19, he had to choose between this or his then-rising charity and opted for the latter. With Weird Enough as his focus, it\u2019s gotten big enough to include full-time staff and impact \u201cover 500K kids a year\u201d through outreach programs and providing books to kids in underfunded schools.<\/p>\n

It was only recently that he realized voice acting didn\u2019t need to be an unfulfilled dream. So, he decided to \u201cmake my voice heard, even if it\u2019s only by a handful of people\u201d; since 2022, he\u2019s made nearly 800 YouTube shorts covering a number of topics, like the kids literary crisis<\/a> or toxicity in online spaces<\/a>. Some videos require him to play multiple characters, and the scripts for those help prepare him for entering the competitive voice acting space.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cYou have to sit with an audition knowing the greats are sharpening their blades,\u201d Weaver noted. \u201cIf you want to be in an anime, you\u2019re competing with thousands of equally qualified people.\u201d Even with that competition, he happily talked up voice actors he\u2019s befriended and who showed him the ropes\u2014during our interview, he shouted out Dan Da Dan\u2019s AJ Beckles<\/a> and Anairis Qui\u00f1ones, Zeno Robinson<\/a> (My Hero Academia), and other Black voice actors who helped him understand the industry once they understood he truly wanted to do the work.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Without them, Weaver probably wouldn\u2019t have landed Snowball Earth or The Ghost in the Shell. Online or in real life, it\u2019s important for everyone to have a community or two in their lives. He knows he\u2019s got his own thanks to his work, and loves reaching out to them in a way that\u2019s \u201ccommunicative, but not extractive.\u201d Even so, he freely admitted the size of it has taken him by surprise\u2014for instance, he was surprised to learn Power Rangers actor Karan Ashley and an unnamed executive \u201creally high up\u201d at a major company both follow him online and love his work.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Understandably, learning the scope of his reach puts some pressure on Weaver, while also inspiring him across his various pursuits. When it comes to voice work, he made clear his work in this space is thanks to a team effort that goes beyond him. \u201cI believe that every obstacle I\u2019m able to surmount is a path that I\u2019m leaving for other [Black] voice actors to walk in,\u201d he explained. \u201cZeno left footsteps for me, the same way Cree Summer<\/a> and Phil LaMarr left steps for all of us.\u201d <\/p>\n

His contribution to that path comes in providing VO advice and making videos encouraging other performers<\/a> take on the second role. While any actor can join in, he makes them in part to help address continued disparity for what Black actors can be in voiceover roles, since they\u2019re often \u201chungry for the opportunity to show they\u2019re capable and doing something.\u201d\u00a0Like those actors, Weaver\u2019s hungry, both to continue his voice acting dreams and to deliver a performance that lets him stand alongside his mentors and friends. Whether he books a leading role or keeps getting supporting parts, he hopes to be in this for the long haul. Or to put it another way\u2026 <\/p>\n

\u201cNo matter what the opportunity was, I\u2019d love to step into the world of another character,\u201d he declared. \u201cI\u2019m in this for the love of the game.\u201d<\/p>\n

Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel<\/a>, Star Wars<\/a>, and Star Trek<\/a> releases, what\u2019s next for the DC Universe on film and TV<\/a>, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Prime Video\u2019s English dub of The Ghost in the Shell features some familiar voices like Suzie Yeung and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":831771,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[64,63,197427,105,404686,34723],"class_list":["post-831770","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-technology","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-science-saru","tag-technology","tag-the-ghost-in-the-shell","tag-voice-acting"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/831770","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=831770"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/831770\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/831771"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=831770"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=831770"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=831770"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}