god he's so cool. every generation deserves a teen heartthrob who embraces his status as a weird freak character actor https://t.co/0uUYkjSsVU

— John DiLillo (@JohnDiLillo) November 2, 2023

8 December 2023

Rob has been receiving rave reviews about his voicing of the Grey Heron “Watched The Boy and the Heron a second time today—this time with the English dub, which was incredible (yes Robert Pattinson definitely steals the show). I also enjoyed it so much more this time! (@Achim) and “the new studio ghibli movie is really beautiful :,) Robert Pattinson was going FERAL in that sound booth” (@ghosthoney).

Indiewire has given us some background as to how integral GKIDS was the English dubbed version of the film and this is what they had to say about Rob:

For the most part, Ghibli’s self-referential emphasis on continuity made things relatively straightforward, but the studio threw a major curveball when it came to one of the most crucial roles: The Gilbert Gottfried-esque heron who taunts Mahito with rumors that his mother is still alive and terrorizes the boy around his new house before revealing that he’s actually a giant-nosed little man wearing a heron suit as a disguise. The mere sight of the character was enough to give Jesteadt a clear indication of who to cast in the role: “Danny DeVito. Done.” But that isn’t exactly what Ghibli had in mind. “They said, ‘Oh no, in Japan it’s actually going to be played by a young, 30-year-old hot singer-actor guy [Masaki Suda],’” Jesteadt laughed. “I was like, ‘What!?’ They said, ‘Yeah, so for the English dub we want someone who matches that age and would also be unusual in the role.” 

Enter: Robert Pattinson. 

The “Batman” star was definitely a left-field pick, but he was on GKIDS’ radar for a reason. “One of the things that we were talking about with Ghibli was his role in ‘Good Time’ and his desire to play characters that don’t fall into a typical matinee idol filmography,” Jesteadt said, and even a quick glance at his body of work would suggest that Pattinson’s art-forward tendencies have only gotten stronger over time. 

As GKIDS’ Director of Acquisitions and Development Rodney Uhler remembers, “When we introduced the film to him, he was, I would say, giddy with excitement. He was nothing but enthusiastic about the project, not only because of the film but also because of the prospect of doing this role in particular. We didn’t offer him a platter of roles — we offered him only the Heron, and he was very, very excited about being presented with a role as complicated and nuanced as this one.” 

In fact, Pattinson was so excited about the role that he showed up to his first recording session in Los Angeles ready to prove that he was the right person to do it. Voice director Michael Sinterniklaas initially had his doubts (“When Pattinson’s name came up,” Sinterniklaas said, “I thought he’s a fine actor but there was nothing in his body of work to indicate that he could do this crazy thing”), but Pattinson was quick to dispel them. “When he came to our studio in L.A.,” Sinterniklaas said, “he was like ‘OK, I’ve been thinking about this role and I recorded some stuff. Do you want to hear it?’ And he whips out his iPhone and plays some stuff that he’s just been doing in the Memos app and it was already the voice. I was like, ‘Oh, bingo, you’ve already got the character.” 

What Pattinson played for Sinterniklaas was the result of several weeks spent in pursuit of a nasal growl that sounds like a menacing cross between Gollum and the Cryptkeeper, but laced with pockets of softness that gradually allows the Heron — a puckish stand-in for Suzuki in a film about Miyazaki’s complicated friendship with his Ghibli co-founders (Takahata is represented by the great-uncle) — to soften into a reluctant ally for Mahito in his journey to the heart of another world. Not in a million years would you ever be able to guess the actor behind the bird, and even when you know who it is there are only a few moments in the movie you’ll actually believe it. 

 But Pattinson’s casting is hardly a gimmick. On the contrary, the taunting cruelty of his performance and the begrudging way in which that cruelty is embarrassed by Mahito’s flawed but genuine pursuit of a more loving future, reflects a deep understanding of Miyazaki’s creative ethos. Pattinson had never done proper voice work before, let alone a dub (after talking Pattinson through the process, GKIDS gave the actor an opportunity to opt out if he felt like he couldn’t do it), but he threw himself into the process with such vigor that recording the entire part only took a couple of days. “He knew he could do it,” Uhler said, “and he showed up and delivered magic.”

The role of the Heron is particularly important to Miyazaki’s film — and to its various dubs from around the planet, many of which were being recorded at the same time as GKIDS’ English-language version — because the bird acts as an intermediary of sorts between the real world and the fantasy realm inside the grand-uncle’s tower. And while Pattinson’s performance is rather faithful to the tone of the Suda one on which it’s based, his character speaks to the self-divided nature of the movie around him, which itself reflects the internal tension at the heart of any great dub: As Mahito discovers in his own way at the end of the film, truly honoring the spirit of an original sometimes requires you to put your own spin on it, or maybe even defy it altogether.

To read the rest of the background click on the link above.

9 November 2023

Aussie theatrical release date 7 December 2023
Thanks @Monsieur_HJ for heads up https://t.co/ME465Aek17

— Robert Pattinson AU 🦇 (@RPAustralia) November 8, 2023

Aussies and Kiwis, thanks to Crunchyroll and Sony Pictures The Boy and the Heron will have its theatrical release on 7 December 2023:

Crunchyroll and Sony Pictures International Releasing announced today it has officially acquired Hayao Miyazaki’s latest film, The Boy and the Heron, for theatrical release in Australia and New Zealand. The film will debut with Japanese subtitles and in English dub on December 7, 2023, complete with an all-star English cast!

3 November 2023

“The most striking performance in the trailer, though, is Robert Pattinson’s voice for Gray Heron. Gray Heron’s Japanese voice actor steals almost every scene the character appears in, and it looks like Pattinson may end up doing the same” #TheBoyAndTheHeron pic.twitter.com/cQot1Czgba

— RoBat (@Monsieur_HJ) November 2, 2023

Finally the English trailer for “The Boy and The Heron” has been released and we finally hear Rob’s character voice. So cool.

The English dub trailer for Hayao Miyazaki’s « THE BOY AND THE HERON »

• Christian Bale
• Florence Pugh
• Robert Pattinson
• Dave Bautista
• Gemma Chan
• Willem Dafoe
• Karen Fukuhara
• Mark Hamill

In theaters on December 8 !! pic.twitter.com/Yt4bkSzF6K

— Studio Ghibli Pictures (@ghiblipicture) November 2, 2023

18 October 2023

2 yrs ago, Rob was excited to see the Hayao Miyazaki exhibition

2 yrs later, I can’t wait to hear Rob’s voice in Hayao Miyazaki’s animated film

pic.twitter.com/wGMwbnBP3z

— love🎞 (@love__cinema) October 17, 2023

It was announced today that Rob will be voicing The Grey Heron in the English voice cast for “The Boy and the Heron”. According to IMDbPro the synopsis is as follows:

A young boy named Mahito, yearning for his mother, ventures into a world shared by the living and the dead. There, death comes to an end, and life finds a new beginning. A semi-autobiographical fantasy about life, death, and creation, in tribute to friendship, from the mind of Hayao Miyazaki.

According to THR:

The cast includes Christian Bale (Shoichi Maki), Dave Bautista (the Parakeet King), Gemma Chan (Natsuko), Willem Dafoe (Noble Pelican), Karen Fukuhara (Lady Himi), Mark Hamill (Grand Uncle), Robert Pattinson (The Grey Heron) and Florence Pugh (Kiriko). Luca Padovan joins the cast as protagonist Mahito Maki, with Mamoudou Athie, Tony Revolori and Dan Stevens featured as the Parakeets.

GKIDS handled casting and produced the English version in close consultation with Miyazaki’s Studio Ghibli. Slated for a North American release Dec. 8 in both the original Japanese and English-language versions, the film is an original semi-autobiographical story and Oscar winner Miyazaki’s first feature film in a decade.

A dedicated Film Page can be found here – together with current release dates.