All episodes of Creature Commandos are now streaming on Max, and fans finally have the first taste of James Gunn’s DCU. Gunn has a history of working with the same actor multiple times on his projects, as evidenced by his Creature Commandos cast, several of whom appeared in his Guardians of the Galaxy trilogy. One of the Gunn veterans is Maria Bakalova, who voices Princess Alana in the animated series, and previously voiced Cosmo in Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 3. Bakalova also recently starred alongside Sebastian Stan in The Apprentice and Amandla Stenberg in Bodies Bodies Bodies. During a recent episode of Collider Ladies Night with Perri Nemiroff, Bakalova was asked about the biggest challenges of playing a character in animation vs. live-action, and it’s even more difficult than you can imagine:
“My god, kudos to all the voice actors out there. It’s such a hard job to do. You basically only use your voice. We’re privileged, to a degree, to be able to use physical appearance, to be able to walk in a different way, to talk in a different way, look at people in a different way with a camera when we’re acting on a set. You use your eyes a lot of times, you use your hands a lot of times, you use your smile a lot of times. With voice acting, you basically only use your voice and your emotions and how you feel in the moment, and what you are trying to achieve by just literally using your voice only. It’s a very hard job to do, especially when James does such a great job, but challenging, by building characters that are so layered that they pretend they’re one thing and they’re something more than that. You have to do it believable because the other characters have to believe that that’s one thing, and then you reveal later that it’s a different thing. It’s a very challenging place to be. But he is in charge, so you trust him, and you know that, at the end, it’s all going to be good.”
Bringing different emotions to life without being able to use body language or anything other than your voice has to be an immense challenge, and is part of why outstanding voice performances in animation deserve just as much respect as performances in live-action. From an outside perspective, it may seem like voice acting would be easier because you’re only using your voice and not your full body, but in reality, relying on one part of your body to convey things like tone, intentions, feelings and more is exponentially more difficult. The voice performances in Creature Commandos are part of what made the show such a hit, especially from Indira Varma as The Bride and Frank Grillo as Rick Flag Sr., and the show would undoubtedly not be held in the same regard without their phenomenal work.
What Is Next for the DCU?
Now that the first season of Creature Commandos has come and gone, fans have Superman to look forward to, which will be released on July 11 and serve as the official live-action launch of James Gunn’s DC Universe. The first trailer for Superman debuted near the end of 2024 and was a hit among fans, even breaking records on its way to earning more than 250 million views across social platforms during its first 24 hours. There was some wiggle room for Creature Commandos if the show had not been the major success that it was, but Gunn, Peter Safran, and everyone at DC needs Superman to be a smash hit both financially and in its critics and audience reception for Gunn to get the chance to see his vision at DC through.
All episodes of Creature Commandos are now streaming. Stay tuned to Collider for future updates on the DCU and watch Creature Commandos on Max. You can watch Bakalova’s full episode of Collider Ladies Night below.
In “Creature Commandos,” Amanda Waller assembles a covert team of monstrous operatives, including a werewolf, vampire, and gorgon, to undertake high-risk missions deemed too perilous for human agents.
- Cast
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Indira Varma
, Sean Gunn
, Alan Tudyk
, Zoe Chao
, David Harbour
, Frank Grillo
, Peter Serafinowicz
, Jake Tapper
, Tony Cavalero
, Viola Davis
, Maria Bakalova
, Anya Chalotra
, Flula Borg
, Michael Rooker
, Robbie Daymond
, Keith Ferguson
, Piotr Michael
, Derek Phillips
, Maury Sterling
, Paul Ben-Victor
, Joe Zieja
, Steve Agee
, Stephanie Beatriz
, Linda Cardellini
, Keston John
