Over a decade has passed since a pathway called a “gate” which connects this world and another dimension suddenly appeared, and people with superhuman powers called “hunters” have been awakened. Hunters use their superhuman powers to conquer dungeons inside the gates to make a living, and Sung Jinwoo, a hunter of the lowest rank, is considered the Weakest Hunter of All Mankind. One day, he encounters a double dungeon, a high-level dungeon hidden inside a low-level one. In front of a severely wounded Jinwoo, a mysterious quest window pops up. On the verge of death, Jinwoo decides to take on the quest, which makes him the only person who can level up.
Solo Leveling -ReAwakening – features a catch-up recap of the first season coupled with an exclusive sneak peek of the first two episodes of the highly anticipated second season in one momentous theatrical fan experience.
As Solo Leveling – ReAwakening hits Australian cinemas on December 5, Nick L’Barrow spoke with the English dub voice actor for Sung Jinwoo, Aleks Le, about his preparation for voicing the intense fight scenes, his inspirations in the voice acting world, and the first time he experienced epic sound design of the show through cinema speakers.
Nick: Aleks, it’s a pleasure to meet you! How are you today?
Aleks Le: I’m very happy to be here. Thank you so much.
Nick: Thank you for your time! This was my first experience with Solo Leveling, and you’ve made a fan out of me. This movie was an awesome recollection of the first season. But, to start us off, I’m curious to know what your process is in finding Jinwoo’s voice. What were some of the characteristics that you either saw in the script, or even his character design, that informed decisions you made about finding his voice?
Aleks Le: I think one of the important things we kept in mind was his transformation in terms of where he was going to go, the person he was going to be. And so, that gave us a lot to think about where a comfortable place would be for him to start vocally.
I feel that something I really enjoyed about this character in particular is that he’s not like other anime protagonists or heroes. I wouldn’t even call him a hero, actually. I mean, he does a very noble sacrifice in the first episode, where he lets his friends get out safely so that he could take the fall, but you could tell he immediately regretted it after because he thought about himself and his family, and what it would mean to his family if he was dead.
I think he is a victim of circumstance. And just based on that fact, and that fact that the world building made everything so grim and grounded, that really helped us find the tone for this character. I was really happy to take this naturalistic approach to the performance, and kind of give it a lot more of myself in terms of injecting my own DNA in it than I would for a lot of other characters. I tried to make him sound a lot like me, a lot like how I talk, a lot of my mannerisms, and a lot of the word choices that I use. I feel that the setting and the story allowed me to add a lot of that, which was super fun for me as a performer. To just put a lot of myself into a character.
Nick: I’ve spoken to a few voice actors who talk about the intense physicality that can go into this craft. I saw a behind the scenes video of you doing screams and yells for Jinwoo, and the way you manipulate your body for sounds was incredible. What does the preparation look like for those moments? And what are the keys to finding a great yell?
Aleks Le: That stuff, for me, is actually the easiest stuff to do, because I’ve been doing this for many years. Five, six years. I’ve done a lot of video games, I’ve done a lot of cartoons, a lot fighting games, and battle efforts. You know, it’s like breathing at this point. I’ve had many years to build up the tools and the arsenal needed to deliver on fight scenes and do a good job. Or at least try to do a good job on a lot of very physically intensive scenes. It’s all about breath support, voice control, and pacing yourself throughout these long sessions. But that’s kind of easy, you know?
I think the harder thing to do is nail the other moments. Like, the moments that speak to the character, or the moments that require a lot of really intricate dialogue that needs to be said in a certain way. The fight scenes are beautifully animated, and I think even if I did a really bad job on them, the animation could more than enough make up for it. So, I’m not too worried about those moments, even though I still try my very best to make them as impactful as the animation deserves. But, I truly think those are some of the easier things that we do on this show, as crazy as it looks on screen.
Nick: How important is finding characters to play, like Jinwoo, who despite being in these fantastical worlds, do feel grounded and have a lot of nuance and substance and intricacy to them?
Aleks Le: I think my favourite thing about being an actor is doing the character studies, you know? Any story that had a character who goes through a lot of changes, or a really long journey of self-discovery, or regression, self-destruction, whatever it may be, I find that truly fascinating.
And it gives me a lot of opportunity as an actor to really kind of just open up my own knowledge of life and everything that I’ve personally gone through, and just see what I can inject into those moments. I think that’s the most fun part about this character for me.
Nick: You mentioned earlier the incredible animation, and I believe a lot of anime has such a cinematic feeling to it. When you found out Solo Leveling was going to be played on cinema screens, what was your initial reaction to that?
Aleks Le: I was super stoked! Throughout working on the first season, we had a couple of moments where I was involved with some of the finer details of production, as in listening to the mixed to make sure that we had the right sound effects, or if a voice had a certain effect to it.
And I remember one of those days, our sound mixer took me to his mixing room, and he has a surround sound system like a movie theatre. I had already seen the episode on my phone and my laptop, but he was like, “Oh, let me show you how it sounds in the mix room”. And when he played it for me, and the sound effects, and the voice, just came blasting through my ears. The whole ground was shaking. That was a completely different experience.
I haven’t seen it in theatres yet, but I hope that experience can be recaptured in the movie theatres, and I’m very excited to hear if they’ve mixed it for the movie theatres. I just find watching something like that through movie speakers, on a big screen, is a completely different experience. I really can’t wait to see some of those high-octane action sequences in theatres. I’m excited for this weekend.
Nick: I’d love to talk more about the journey you’ve taken in your acting career. And I guess, much like how Jinwoo gets stronger each battle, I’m curious to know how each project you do or each character you play has helped you become a better actor over the years?
Aleks Le: I mean, there’s a lot of ups and downs in this career. Every anime character I’ve done has taught me something different. Whether it’s about the limits of my own voice, how much my range can fluctuate in a day, how much I can scream in a day. It’s also taught me about what it’s like to work with different directors, different approaches to the script. And it’s taught me about fan reactions. You learn something new from every project. It’s there for you to see it if you want to, or you can just completely ignore it. For me, I like to take in every bit of information that available to me, whether that’s pre-production, post-production, fan reactions, anything like that. You learn through those processes.
It seems glamourous from the other side, just booking all these big roles and getting to act in these big titles. But it’s not always easy, because every time there is a big job, it’s not handed to me, you know? I have to fight off 100 other actors, 1000 actors, who also want the same job. And I’ve had to do that for every role in my career. There was 1000s of roles a year that I don’t get. There’s always something to learn about yourself, and I think this career requires a lot of mental resilience, and really, really thick skin.
Nick: Thank you for sharing that, man. I appreciate that. In the spirit of the show, and the ranking system for the fighters, I’m curious to find out who your inspirations in this industry are. Who do you consider to be S-tier ranked voice over artists?
Aleks Le: [laughs] I mean, ever since I was younger, I’ve always loved Yuri Lowenthal. He’s always been a favourite besides Johnny Young Bosch, which is why it meant so much to me when he texted me telling me he was watching Solo Leveling and told me I’m doing a great job! That was amazing. Chris Sabat is also one of my heroes, and he also gave me one of my first jobs as well. He was even kind enough to throw a wrap party for me and the show at his house. We had a really cool party with the rest of the cast there, playing the show on the TV! It was very awesome.
Sometimes people are like, “Don’t meet your heroes”. And I agree! But for me, I’ve had some really amazing heroes that I was nervous about meeting, but in the end, the ones I look up to the most are all very much amazing people.
Nick: That’s incredible. I’ll close out on this, and with season two of Solo Leveling on the way, were there elements of Jinwoo that you left in season one that you were excited to explore in this new season?
Aleks Le: I think season one was doing a lot of set up work in the world building, so we met a lot of the key players in season two, and they briefly interacted with Jinwoo, but not to the extent that they’re going to be in season two. I’m super excited to see his interactions between the rest of the cast on the show, because they’re going to be some really fun moments. And you can see a little bit of a teaser of that at the end of ReAwakening.
I’m also excited to see him interact with his own shadows, because they’re not just mindless soldiers. They also have really fun personalities. That’s going to be super fun as well, to see a more light hearted side of him with his own army, through his journey. There’s lots of cool non-solo interactions coming up that I’m super stoked for.
Thank you to Aleks for his time, and to Sony Pictures and Crunchy Roll for organising the interview. Solo Leveling: ReAwakening is in Australian cinemas, in both Japanese subbed and English dubbed, from December 5.
