Movies are full of questions. Regardless of their quality or final box office performance, every project has curiosities and little details that audiences love to know. In the case of trailers, there is a common component, a reference... a voice. Deep, profound, forceful, impossible to confuse. The man behind that voice is Redd Pepper, and as happens so many times, he came to the world of trailers by pure chance.
Some movies get lodged in our heads and simply refuse to leave. They occupy our thoughts all day, and even steal our sleep. But the problem usually isn't their content, but those secondary details that accompany it. An actress's last name, a song from a critical scene... even the movie's name itself can slip away. Max presented an extraordinary article teaching us how to find out a movie's name, but that's just the tip of the iceberg. Then there are other elements, curiosities. A car, a suit, continuity errors. Recently we talked about the antique pistol that appears in Predator 2, and I'm convinced few knew its real story. These curiosities also extend to trailers. From scenes and dialogues that never appear in the movie, to some effects and voices. Today, we'll talk about a very particular voice.
A Career Born on the London Underground
Men in Black, Independence Day, Armageddon, Space Jam, The Lost World, The Blair Witch Project... different projects and genres united by one man, Redd Pepper. This British voice actor began his brilliant career in 1996, when he drove trains on the London Underground. Pepper got bored easily, and every time that happened he added a bit of pepper to his announcements. This caught the attention of a TV executive, who ran to the front of the train and gave him his card. Pepper went from battling the daily grind on the London Underground to earning between 3,000 and 4,000 pounds per trailer at minimum, but beyond the money, he also achieved a legendary status in the film and TV industry.
More Than Just Trailers
Pepper's work has gone far beyond trailers. We've heard him in audiobooks, commercials, and several video games (Mass Effect: Andromeda, Shadow Man, Blade and Gothic are some) in which he lent his voice to different characters, and created sound effects. According to Pepper himself, he has already accumulated hundreds of trailers, and he can't remember even half... maybe because he doesn't really see it as a job, but enjoys it to the fullest. On more than one occasion he has been confused with another great voice actor, Don LaFontaine (1940-2008), but personally they always sounded different. What do you think?
