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Mick Wingert

Mick Wingert is an actor, born 1974.

Somebody has to be Po when Jack Black is busy, and for most of the last fifteen years that somebody has been Mick Wingert. He took over Po and Zeng for Kung Fu Panda: Legends of Awesomeness, played Po again in The Paws of Destiny, and has voiced Iron Man across most of Marvel's television animation: Marvel's Avengers, Guardians of the Galaxy, What If...?, Marvel Rising, a stack of Lego specials, and more recently Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man.

This is a real craft and it collects almost no credit. Matching a film star closely enough that a child does not notice the swap, while still giving a reading of your own so the show does not sound like an impression, is harder than originating the part, and Wingert does it in two entirely different voices for two studios at once. He also teaches it, working as a voice-over coach.

There is a decent joke buried in his film credits. When the Kung Fu Panda features come round and Black returns, Wingert is still on the call sheet, as Farmer Goose in the third film and an old bunny in the fourth. His most visible role now is probably none of the above: Heimerdinger in Arcane, a tiny, fussy, extremely old scientist, is the one part on this list where he is not matching a movie star, and it is the most character work anyone has handed him.

Movies (17)

TV (13)

Where to start with Mick Wingert

Arcane first, and not only because it is the best thing here. Heimerdinger gives Wingert an accent, an age and a set of manners to build rather than a target to hit, and the difference in the performance is audible.

Then Kung Fu Panda: Legends of Awesomeness, where the Po handover happens, and listen to how much of Jack Black he keeps and how much he quietly drops. What If...? is the best of the Iron Man work, because an anthology keeps dropping the same voice into different situations, and Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man is the newest of it. The Cuphead Show! is the wildcard, a 1930s cartoon pastiche that lets him be loud. For the features, Kung Fu Panda 3 and Kung Fu Panda 4 are a curiosity: he is in both, playing villagers, while somebody else voices the character he has carried for years.

Genres Mick Wingert works in