This month, a dozen Disneyland Paris fans were surprised to meet Bret Iwan, the original official voice of Mickey Mouse since 2009, on his first trip to France and Disneyland Paris. During this privileged time of exchange, they were able to chat with him about his career path, his experience, his projects… and even hear him interpret our favorite mouse! The meeting ended in good spirits with a group photo with Mickey himself at Meet Mickey Mouse. We took the opportunity to ask Bret a few questions.
What project did you start doing the voice of Mickey Mouse?
When I started out, my very first project was for Disney’s Animal Kingdom park, when at the end of the day Mickey would say to visitors “Thank you all for coming!”. So I recorded and lent my voice for this short passage. Shortly afterwards, I also lent my voice to Disney on Ice. It took 2 hours to record Mickey’s voice for this show.
Since my debut, I’ve had the opportunity to make a number of recordings.
I also had the opportunity to work on my very first TV program with Mickey Mouse Clubhouse for seasons 4 and 5. Most recently, two weeks ago, we worked on the reboot of the series, which will be arriving soon.
Working with Mickey and his friends is really great and exciting.
In France, several voice actors have lent their voices to Mickey, including Laurent Pasquier, Roger Carel and others. Have you had a chance to listen to them?
Today I heard the French voice in the show Mickey and the Magician, and I loved it! You have to tell Mickey’s voice what a great job she did!
How do you work with the different intonations and voices you can lend Mickey?
Mickey has an intermediate voice, and different intonations. So I tried to work on my Mickey intonations. Each project requires a different approach depending on the audience. If it’s 6-year-olds, we’ll speak more slowly, use a calm voice, be emotional, to connect with this audience and make them feel safe.
In video games, you can afford to be more adventurous, for example.
It’s a challenge to work out the best way to use Mickey’s voice. Like an actor who has to play a role, you have to wear different hats.
If you weren’t a voice actor, what would you have liked to do?
That’s a very good question. I’ve often said to myself that even if I wasn’t working in animation and dubbing, I’d have liked to stay in the arts. Maybe architecture, I love design and construction. In fact, one of my favorite things about visiting Disneyland Paris today is admiring the magnificent architecture of the destination. You can see how the Imagineers have applied everything they’ve learned to create the park, and every detail is magnificent. In fact, it’s one of my dreams to paint concept art for future Walt Disney Imagineering projects.