Fred Tatasciore, Ally Maki find emotion in 'Hit-Monkey' killer primate

LOS ANGELES, July 15 (UPI) -- Voice actors Fred Tatasciore and Ally Maki said they focus on the emotion of their characters in Marvel's Hit-Monkey, returning for Season 2 Monday on Hulu.

Tatasciore, 57, plays Hit-Monkey, a simian who wears a suit and assassinates targets but still speaks in primate grunts.

"Whatever the intention is, I'll try different energies depending on what his feelings are at the time," Tatasciore told UPI in a recent Zoom interview. "He's got to use real monkey sounds, but it has to have the emotions."

Examples of those emotions include Hit-Monkey reacting to the assassination of his monkey tribe. Season 2 features flashbacks to traumatic monkey memories.

Maki, 37, plays Haruka, a Tokyo cop who discovered the monkey assassin In Season 2. She joins Hit-Monkey in New York for his new missions, guided by the ghost of human assassin Bryce (Jason Sudeikis).

"Sometimes, I'm emotionally spent because in some of the scenes you just want to cry," Maki said. "You really are deeply in touch with the kind of themes we're speaking about, the things the characters are going through."

In Season 1, Bryce was assassinated in the first episode. When he realized the monkey could see him as a ghost, Bryce trained him to be a Hit-Monkey.

For Tatasciore, animal sounds have been part and parcel of his career as a voice actor since the late '90s. He said in his first audition for Hit-Monkey, he did not even know what show he was auditioning for.

"The audition was really just 'Can you impersonate this monkey? Can you even be in the wheelhouse of catching that voice?'" Tatasciore said.

Once Tatasciore got called for another round of auditions, he was told it was Hit-Monkey, with which he was familiar in Marvel comics. The second audition tested whether Tatasciore's primal grunts could convey emotion.

"They give you a series of emotions," Tatasciore said. "No lines, just are you sad? You happy?"

The work reminded Tatasciore of his job on Disney's Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur, in which he plays the dinosaur.

"Devil had his own set of sounds that I made for a T-Rex," Tatasciore said. "I can put in a lot of my own sensibility of what I think a T-rex was whereas the Monkey we wanted to stay specific."

Haruka is a human who speaks English dialogue on the show. Maki said Season 1 tested Haruka's sense of right and wrong as she investigated assassins, let alone gun-toting monkeys.

"She's fighting for justice, so I think she's going even deeper into what that means and what is justice," Maki said, adding that it "was really fun to deal with that question of morality a little bit more this season."

Maki also acts on screen in Apple TV+'s The Big Door Prize, Max's Hacks and films like Shortcomings and Home Sweet Home Alone. Her voice work also includes family-friendly fare like Toy Story 4's fictional toy Giggle McDimples.

"With every character, I really try to find the heart and soul behind the character," Maki said. "In kid stuff, a lot of times you need a lot more energy, so sometimes I'm exhausted after."

That said, Maki enjoyed a stint on Paramount+'s revival of Mike Judge's Beavis and Butt-Head because she could play various characters who react to the giggling idiots.

"That one is almost like cardio in a sense," Maki said. "It's a good test of coming up with different things on the fly."

Tatasciore has also played animated versions of iconic comic book characters in Hulk, X-Men and Batman shows and movies. He said comic book characters allow multiple interpretations.

"Look how many people play The Joker, and they're all good versions," Tatasciore said. "When I play Solomon Grundy, I'm going to put my own spin on it."

Tatasciore has performed roles in which his job was to capture a previous actor's performance. In Kung Fu Panda's animated series, he took over Dustin Hoffman's role, and in Star Wars animation, there is still only one Darth Vader.

"I've got to sound as much like Dustin Hoffman in doing it, whereas [with] Hulk I have a little leeway because they hired me to do my own version of it," Tatasciore said. "If I have to play Vader or something, I have to sound exactly like that. There can't be any variance."