One Piece's Franky Voice Actor Reveals How He Channels the Pirate

One Piece is full of all kinds of wacky characters with even wackier personalities, and one of the [...]

One Piece is full of all kinds of wacky characters with even wackier personalities, and one of the definite standouts is the Straw Hat Pirates' shipwright, Franky. Bringing this character to life in the anime must be a tough job, so ComicBook.com was able to ask the voice behind the English dub of the character, Patrick Seitz, and the process it took to bring Franky's "suuuuuuper" personality to the screen.

When asked about how Seitz gets into Franky's headspace, it turns out it takes a party like atmosphere in order to properly convey such a larger than life character. And that makes the perfect kind of character for Seitz to play.

As Seitz explains, "The fortunate thing for me about Franky is that he is broad, and loud, and emotional, and I am broad, loud, and emotional." With their similarities, Seitz is able to unleash his inner self for his Franky performance, "I've had to temp that down often in life, and in acting, so I feel like it's not so much having to channel something specific as it's taking myself off the proverbial leash, and doing that."

Rather than try and fight this energy, Seitz says it's more appropriate to steer into it, "you're either going to record that stuff with the right energy, or you're not going to do it at all. You can't half ass One Piece." Seitz has a pretty Franky-esque routine when getting prepared to record too.

When he gets ready to record for Franky, he takes on Franky's cola lifestyle, "Usually on One Piece days, I grab a coke and some Cheezits, and just start the day by chugging a bunch of cola, which is not great for my health, but it's at least true to the character. He runs on cola, so will I damn it." But this more relaxed routine makes it easier for Seitz to pick up Franky where he left off, too, "It's usually pretty easy to get back in. As with any recurring character, we play a little bit of a vocal reference from the past sessions, make sure it's not uneven anywhere."

Unfortunately for fans of Seitz's work in the English dub, Seitz does not have any updates for when new episodes of the dub will be released either, "I'm not sure where things are currently at the moment. Part of that is the gap between when stuff gets recorded and when it comes out," Seitz explained. But with Seitz's work in the dub allowing him to channel Franky's hyperactive energy, fans are willing to wait for as long as it takes to hear from his Franky again!

What do you think of Patrick Seitz's take on Franky? Are you surprised to hear his routine? Let us know your thoughts in the comments!

Eiichiro Oda's One Piece first began serialization in Shueisha's Weekly Shonen Jump in 1997. It has since been collected into over 80 volumes, and has been a critical and commercial success worldwide with many of the volumes breaking printing records in Japan. The manga has even set a Guinness World Record for the most copies published for the same comic book by a single author, and is the best-selling manga series worldwide with over 430 million copies sold. The series still ranked number one in manga sales in 2018, which surprised fans of major new entries.

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