Phil LaMarr

Phil LaMarr, born in Los Angeles in 1967, has one of the strangest career shapes in American comedy: a face millions of people have seen exactly once, attached to a voice millions of people hear every week. The face belongs to Marvin in Pulp Fiction, a small part in the back of a car that has outlived most leading roles from 1994. The voice belongs to about a third of the cartoons made since.

He was one of the original featured cast members on Mad TV and stayed five seasons, which is where the range came from. Sketch performers learn to build a character out of one vocal decision, and he has been living off that discipline ever since. He is the title character in Samurai Jack, a performance made almost entirely of stillness and pauses, which is a strange thing to attempt with only a microphone. He is Hermes Conrad in Futurama, whose comedy runs on bureaucratic exasperation. In the DC Animated Universe he plays both John Stewart's Green Lantern and Virgil Hawkins, better known as Static, two very different registers of hero.

The rest is a long list of shows that defined children's television across three decades: Carver in The Weekenders, Bolbi in Jimmy Neutron, Wilt in Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends, Ollie Williams and Judge Blackman on Family Guy, plus heavy work across the Star Wars animated series and a substantial video game career. He is, in the most literal sense, one of the most heard actors alive.