Phil LaMarr

Comedian

Impressionist

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**Phillip "Phil" LaMarr** (born January 24, 1967) is an American actor, voice actor, comedian and impressionist, who was a featured cast member on the sketch comedy series *Mad TV* and has had an extensive voice acting career, with roles in animated series including *Justice League*/*Justice League Unlimited*, *Futurama*, *Samurai Jack*, *Static Shock* and *Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends*. He has provided voices for video games, such as *Metal Gear*, the *Jak and Daxter* series, *Darksiders*, *Final Fantasy*, *Infamous*, *Dead Island*, *Kingdom Hearts* and *Mortal Kombat*.

## Early life

LaMarr was born in Los Angeles, California.[1][*not in citation given*] He is a graduate of Harvard-Westlake School in North Hollywood and Yale University, where he helped found the improv comedy group Purple Crayon. One of his biggest roles at Yale was the title character in the British comedy *Trevor*. After graduating in 1989, LaMarr became a member of the award-winning sketch and improv comedy group The Groundlings. He also studied improv at The Second Cityand at the ImprovOlympic in Chicago, Illinois with Del Close. He has also improvised with Cold Tofu and Off the Wall.

## Career

### *Mad TV*

LaMarr, unlike most of the other original nine cast members of *Mad TV*, had extensive television and film jobs experience when he joined the show. Even before college, he had voiced a character on the *Mister T* cartoon show.

Some of the recurring characters LaMarr performed on *Mad TV* were Desperation Lee ("Funky Walker Dirty Talker"), Jaq the UBS Guy, "sexy player" Rick, talentless R&B singer Savante and Rocket Revengers star Lieutenant Abraham Jefferson (a.k.a. Lincoln Willis).

LaMarr has done impressions of celebrities such as:

* Bobby Brown
* Ray Charles
* Johnnie Cochran
* Nat King Cole
* Billy Crystal (as Harry Burns from *When Harry Met Sally...*)
* Diddy
* Tommy Davidson
* Sammy Davis Jr.
* Louis Farrakhan
* Morgan Freeman
* Sherman Hemsley (as George Jefferson from *The Jeffersons*)
* Ice-T
* Michael Jackson
* Rick James
* Vernon Jordan
* Don King
* Martin Lawrence
* Spike Lee
* Bill Maher
* Howard McNear (as Floyd Lawson from *The Andy Griffith Show*)
* Sidney Poitier
* Colin Powell
* Prince
* Chris Rock
* Bernard Shaw
* Sinbad
* Sammy Sosa
* Chris Tucker
* Ben Vereen
* Kanye West
* Barry White
* Michael Winslow

He has also done impressions of Moe Howard from The Three Stooges while playing an African-American version of the character.

LaMarr left *Mad TV* at the end of the fifth season (2000).

Sometimes, LaMarr fills in for Greg Proops on the Odd News small, 4 minute section on Yahoo.com. It features odd, but true recent news.

### Voice acting work

LaMarr at the 2017 WonderCon in Anaheim, California

LaMarr's voice over credits include a starring role on *Justice League* and *Justice League Unlimited* as John Stewart/Green Lantern, a major role as Hermes Conrad and various other characters on *Futurama*, and the title roles on *Samurai Jack* and *Static Shock*. Besides this he also voiced Hector Con Carne in Evil Con Carne. LaMarr reprised his role as Hermes Conrad in the *Futurama*movies *Bender's Big Score*, *The Beast with a Billion Backs*, *Bender's Game*, *Into the Wild Green Yonder*, and upon the series return in 2010. He also voices Wilt and other recurring characters in *Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends*, Carver Descartes on *The Weekenders*, Philly Phil in *Class of 3000*, and he portrayed the character Osmosis Jones in the television series *Ozzy & Drix*. He was also Gabe Wallace, and other characters in *Kaijudo: Rise of the Duel Masters*. He additionally voices Jazz, Omega Supreme, Oil Slick, and Jetstorm on *Transformers Animated*. LaMarr portrayed Nautolan Jedi Master Kit Fisto in *Star Wars : The Clone Wars* on Cartoon Network; he also played Amit Noloff, a one time character, and a Tactical Droid. He portrayed Aquaman, and voiced other characters in *Young Justice*, and he voiced Baxter Stockman in the 2012 *Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles*. He also lent his voice to the character of Lucius Fox for *DC Super Hero Girls*. LaMarr also provided voice talent to J.A.R.V.I.S. throughout the series of *The Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes*. He also portrayed Professor Thistlethorpe, a caterpillar, in Bojack Horseman.

### Film and theatre projects

LaMarr's stage credits include *The Tempest*, *As You Like It*, *Guys and Dolls*, *Asylum*, South Coast Repertory's *Make the Break* and the Sacred Fools Theater Company's inaugural production of *The Fatty Arbuckle Spookhouse Revue*.

On the big screen, LaMarr is most well known as the ill-fated Marvin from *Pulp Fiction*. He has appeared in *Kill the Man*, *Free Enterprise*, *Cherish*, and *Manna from Heaven*. He appeared in *Speaking of Sex* starring Bill Murray and Catherine O'Hara, and *Back by Midnight* with Kirstie Alley, Rodney Dangerfield, and Randy Quaid.

LaMarr's recent film appearances include *Fronterz* (2004) and *Choose Your Own Adventure: The Abominable Snowman* (2005). As of April 2006, LaMarr is filming *Cook Off!*, in which he will appear as Rev. Thaddeus Briggs, Esq.

LaMarr made a cameo appearance in the Will Ferrell film *Step Brothers* in which he is viewing a house for sale with his wife.

LaMarr also was in the Yum Corp Sexual Harassment training videos.

LaMarr played Cowboy Curtis in the Los Angeles and Broadway productions of *The Pee-wee Herman Show*. The LA production ran from January 12 to February 7, 2010 at the Club Nokia @ LA Live. The New York show opened on November 11 and ended its limited engagement on January 2, 2011. The New York production was recorded for an HBO special that aired in March, 2011.

LaMarr also appeared in *Spider-Man 2* as one of the riders standing behind Spider-Man in the subway train as he was trying to save the train.

### Video game voiceover work

LaMarr at San Diego Comic-Con International promoting *Futurama*.

LaMarr performed the English voice over work for Vamp, a villain of *Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty* and *Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots*. Additionally, LaMarr voiced the characters Reddas from Square Enix's *Final Fantasy XII* as well as Ramza in the PSP version of *Final Fantasy Tactics: The War of the Lions*. He also did several voices, including Skelter, for *Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines*.

He also did the English voice acting for the parts of Sig and Count Veger in the *Jak and Daxter* video game series as well as voicing several characters in the game *Marvel: Ultimate Alliance*, as well as the voice of Gadon Thek in *Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic*. As well as a featuring in the Sega CD game *Make My Video C+C Music Factory*, he also was the voice of Chris Jacobs in both *Mercenaries: Playground of Destruction* and its sequel, *Mercenaries 2: World in Flames*. He plays the character John White/The Beast in the PS3 titles *Infamous* 1 and 2. Also, he plays the character Dr. Bradley Ragland in the game *Prototype*.

He also was the voice of the grumpy Kane in the game *The Legend of Spyro: A New Beginning*, and Marty in the video game tie-in of *Madagascar*. LaMarr also voiced the merchant "Vulgrim" in the action/adventure hybrid *Darksiders*.

He played the role of "Mr. Sunshine" in the 2008 crime game *Saints Row 2*, and reprised his role in *Saints Row IV* in 2013.

He reprised his role as Kit Fisto for the video game: *Star Wars: The Clone Wars - Republic Heroes*.[2] LaMarr voiced Rick Grimes in the animation film of *The Walking Dead*.[3]

He also voiced Sam B, one of the playable characters in *Dead Island*, and recently made his debut in the *Kingdom Hearts* series in *Kingdom Hearts 3D: Dream Drop Distance* as Phoebus, a character originally from *The Hunchback of Notre Dame* and voiced by Kevin Kline.

LaMarr returned to the *Metal Gear* franchise as the voice of Kevin Washington in *Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance*.

He also provided the voice for Deon Govender in "Hunt the Truth", a marketing campaign for *Halo 5: Guardians*.

LaMarr, in addition, provided his voice for a number of audio logs in 2016 puzzle game, *The Witness*.[4] He also voiced Kotal Kahn in *Mortal Kombat X* (2015) and *Mortal Kombat 11* (2019)

### Webisode project

LaMarr had been announced to appear as a regular character in a webisode series, *Naught for Hire* produced by Jeffrey Berman and Ben Browder (*Farscape*), that has been in development since 2010. His character Mark One was described to be that of an elevator with mood-swings. It is unclear whether or not he will be solely the voice of this character or if he will appear in person similarly to that of Max Headroom, a concept which Browder has pulled from before when writing for *Farscape* episode "John Quixote", which used an elevator displaying a talking human interface on a screen within.[5][6]

### Kickstarter

LaMarr is working on co-creating and voice-acting in a project titled *Goblins Animated*. The Kickstarter launched on October 23, 2017 and finished on November 22, 2017. LaMarr is working with Tarol Hunt, Danielle Stephens and Matt King to produce the cartoon. Voice actors on board are Billy West, Maurice LaMarche, Jim Cummings, Matthew Mercer and Steve Blum