Regardless of age or gender, Noonan voices everyone in the actors own vocal range.
The film debuts even sooner on Digital HD March 15 and becomes available On Demand on March 29.
Tom Noonan:That shows how creative he is, right?
I dont even know if hes seenManhunter.
He first took note of me after seeingWhat Happened Was.
Thats your great 1994 movie, which won the top prize at Sundance that year.
Its also about one night between a slightly awkward couple.
Yeah, I guess it made an impression on him.
That was in the very beginning of email and we had a correspondence for awhile.
And he said me.
That was obviously an unconventional choice, since youre 6 feet 5 inches tall.
Yes, its true if you look at it that way.
But I have a feeling Charlie would say its totally normal.
Well, he put me intoAnomalisafirst.
Right, it was originally a play in Los Angeles.
What was the initial conversation like with him about that?
I read it but I never really thought of my part as playing a lot of different people.
Was the movie easier, since you didnt have to perform in front of an audience?
Charlie didnt want me to affect my voice.
He wanted everyone to sound like me.
Were you worried that the scheme of having you voice all the characters wouldnt work?
I was worried the play wouldnt work, but it worked great from the first time we rehearsed it.
It was so funny and it completely clicked.
The movie, I had less to do with.
I never was involved with deciding how much of my voice would be in it.
But its in there so much that theres even an audio montage in the very beginning.
I never asked Charlie about this, but I think they did struggle with how to introduce my voice.
And that was the solution they came up with.
How long did it take you to record?
It took two or three days when we did the original recordings in December of 2012.
They came to New York a couple times and I went to L.A. once.
They also did a day or two of just me singing.
But in total it was about six days more.
And you had to record background noise of all those conversations we hear, like at the hotel bar.
They did that in the hotel lobby and on the plane.
You cant even hear much of what I said.
Theres a preacher carrying on, yelling and shouting.
There were calls coming in for the driver to pick up other passengers.
Its all barely audible but its in there.
Is this the beginning of a new career in voicework for you?
I loved doing it but I dont have much confidence in myself.
Why did you think that I would be able to voice all these people?
And he just laughed.
Im sort of good at just being this one person.
But thats what makes it work so wonderfully.
Well, but Im living under this delusion that Im a great voice person.
I dont have a lot of confidence in my voice.
I know that I sound okay but its real facile.
I cant do accents.
But thats what he wanted.
The singing part during the movie was really great because I was a musician before I was an actor.
I wrote a lot of songs but I didnt really sing very much.
And thats something Id love to do more of.
Will we get to hear you doing some more of it?
Im working right now on Louis C.K.s new show.
Its calledHorace and Pete.
And they had me playing the piano in one of the episodes and theyre threatening to have me sing.
So perhaps youll hear that soon.
Is it true that your college roommate at Yale was Ben Carson?
Thats actually true, yeah.
For how many years?
Only for sophomore year.
And he was a really pleasant guy.
I dont have any dirt on him.
And he would study from 4 in the morning until breakfast.
What did he think of you?
And I was making these huge sculptures in our dorm room.
Was it just the two of you in the room for that year?
No, it was two bedrooms with three students.
He and the other guy were friends.
My memory is that they were religiously bent, but I dont know.
Sometimes I make things up.
Have you reached out to him over the years?
About five years ago I was watchingCharlie Roseand it was just on in the background.
And I heard this voice and it sounded familiar.
And I looked at the screen and there was this guy talking to Charlie.
I thought, I know this guy.
How do I know this guy?
Is he a jazz player I used to know?
Or did I play basketball with him?
And then Charlie said Ben and I said Ben!
Thats my old roommate.
Thats before he began running for president, right?
Yes, then he was running Johns Hopkins [Hospital] and had written a book.
So I contacted the hospital the next day and I left a message for him.
And six months or a year later, I wrote him a letter, but I never heard back.
Im very happy that hes done so well.
