‘Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero’: Aleks Le and Zeno Robinson Talk Bringing Gamma 1 and Gamma 2 to Life
Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero puts Gohan and Piccolo in the spotlight, pitting the well-known anime characters against a number of new antagonists. Among those joining the franchise are Gamma 1 and Gamma 2, two androids who believe they’re superheroes.
Aleks Le and Zeno Robinson play Gamma 1 and Gamma 2, respectively, in the English dubbed version of Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero. During the press junket for the film, Showbiz Cheat Sheet spoke with the voice actors about joining the long-running franchise and bringing the Gammas to life.
Aleks Le and Zeno Robinson on joining ‘Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero’
Like many fans heading to theaters to see Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero, Aleks Le and Zeno Robinson grew up watching the anime. Needless to say, both actors were thrilled at the prospect of joining the long-running franchise. As Le put it, “What appealed to me about this movie was, it’s Dragon Ball!“
The actor went on to talk about how much Dragon Ball shaped his own voice acting career, as well as how incredible it felt to work on the movie with the stars he once looked up to:
“I know for both me and Zeno, we both grew up with Dragon Ball, and it’s such a huge part of not only our childhoods but how we carry ourselves as actors and where our roots are from. So, joining the franchise has definitely been an incredible, life-changing experience. Not only am I here acting alongside my heroes, but I get to introduce a whole different generation to new Dragon Ball content – which, if I’m being serious, 10 years ago, if you told me there was going to be more Dragon Ball, I would have lost my mind.”
Robinson was also eager to join the “legendary franchise,” noting that “being a part of its legacy is a blessing and an honor.” And for the Gamma 2 voice actor, Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero’s Gohan-centric story proved part of the appeal.
“Well, for me, about this one specifically, it’s Gohan-focused,” Robinson said. “And I loved Gohan as a kid. Gohan was my favorite character. Team Gohan was super cool. And when he went Super Saiyan 2 for the first time, I was like, ‘Wow, I want to do that.’ And he became my favorite character ever since.”
Aleks Le and Zeno Robinson collaborated while auditioning for Gamma 1 and Gamma 2
Gamma 1 and Gamma 2 voice actors Aleks Le and Zeno Robinson had a unique experience auditioning for Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero. Because their characters come as a pair, they had a collaborative audition process — one that confirmed what kind of dynamic their characters would share on-screen.
“So, Zeno and I basically auditioned together,” Le explained. “I had auditioned for Gamma 1, and Zeno auditioned for Gamma 2. And they said they would love to hear us and how our dynamic would play. So, it was interesting because we’d never really done an audition together either. This was the first time where we really got to collaborate and figure out our dynamic before we even found out that we’d gotten the roles.”
“We were in mind for these two specific characters,” Robinson added. “And so, I even sent Aleks my audition so he could hear what it sounded like, if it had helped him to get ideas.”
According to Le, it did help — especially since their characters are polar opposites in terms of personality:
“It definitely helped a lot to hear Zeno and what he was doing because Zeno’s character, Gamma 2, is a lot more personality. He’s a lot more eccentric. It’s always harder to play a serious character. So, to hear that and to under that, oh, I have to reel him in — that’s my role as Gamma 1 — it really set the tone and was super helpful to establish it early on.”
How the ‘Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero’ stars approach nuanced villains
Like most of the new Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero characters, Gamma 1 and Gamma 2 are incredibly nuanced. The pair of androids believes in what they’re fighting for, even if the main characters and audiences don’t agree. And Aleks Le and Zeno Robinson put effort into understanding their perspectives.
“You really need to understand that anybody who’s doing anything in life will never view themselves [as being] in the wrong,” Le explained. “And it can be based on information that they have received or it can be based on how they’ve grown up or view the world.”
Le went on to describe how he approaches voicing antagonists, knowing that they don’t view themselves that way:
“And for me, I never want to portray a character as necessarily evil. I want to understand why they’re doing the things they’re doing, and I want to understand their justification for their actions. So, definitely, personally, I took it upon myself to view how he sees it and consider how Gamma 1 was conceptualized and what it was like for him to meet our characters in the movie. And then I got a better understanding of why he’s doing the thing he’s doing.”
Robinson agreed with Le’s perspective, noting that he tackled his role with a similar strategy.
“Even kind of going through the movie and the process — and not really knowing what their objective was — I knew that they had seen themselves as heroes,” Robinson recalled. “I knew that’s how they saw themselves, as superheroes. So, I really just kind of wanted to lean into that.”
Aleks Le and Zeno Robinson on what they love about the film
Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero‘s new characters — including Gamma 1 and Gamma 2 — give fans a reason to be excited about the film. However, there’s plenty more to love about the latest addition to the franchise. Aleks Le and Zeno Robinson delved into their favorite aspects of the movie. In particular, Le enjoyed how reminiscent of the original Dragon Ball it felt:
“My favorite part is that this whole movie just feels like an awesome callback to earlier Dragon Ball, prior to Dragon Ball Z. There were a lot of family moments, there was a lot of humor. There was just so much that spoke to my younger self when I first consumed anything Dragon Ball. And I feel like this is a great starting point for anyone who hasn’t seen Dragon Ball. There’s just so much fun to be had in the movie, and the action set pieces were mind-blowing.”
Meanwhile, Robinson cited the interactions between his and Le’s characters as a highlight.
“Avoiding spoilers, especially near the end, my favorite part is really a lot of the interactions between Gamma 1 and 2 when they’re not fighting,” Robinson said. “Like when they’re just chilling at the base and being really goofy.”
He continued, “That stuff, I think, was the most fun to record, and [those] were my favorite parts – just seeing the relationships between these two characters, also played by me and my bro, outside of all the action.”
There certainly are plenty of heartfelt character moments mixed in with the action sequences. The combination will no doubt appeal to longtime Dragon Ball fans.
Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero is currently playing in U.S. theaters.
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