Warner performs in Freakazoid!, one entry in a body of voice work as substantial as his screen career. His register is instantly recognisable: precise, unhurried English diction used for characters who consider cruelty a matter of good taste, which is why animation kept casting him continuously for decades.
He was British and trained for the classical stage, playing major Shakespearean roles before a screen career that ran from the nineteen sixties to his death. He worked across science fiction, historical epic and horror, and he took voice work seriously enough that several of his animated antagonists are considered definitive.
Recurring subjects: civility concealing something monstrous, men who explain their reasoning at length, and villainy played without theatrics. He delivered dialogue with complete clarity and used silence deliberately between phrases, and his voice carried authority even in comic material written specifically to undercut it.
He appeared in an extraordinary range of significant productions, from a nineteen eighties computer world adventure to a historical disaster epic, and his animated antagonist in a nineteen nineties superhero series is regularly named the definitive version of that character. He returned to Shakespeare on stage late in life, decades after leaving the classical theatre behind.
For viewers who want antagonists delivered with impeccable manners. Suited to families for the animation, and to anyone tracing a character actor across four decades of genre cinema and television.
