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They may have met as strangers nearly three decades ago, but over the course of 49 episodes, Gundam Wing voice actors Mark Hildreth, Scott McNeil, and Brad Swaile forged a brotherhood that remains as strong today in person as it was in the recording studio where they voiced their iconic counterparts—Heero Yuy, Duo Maxwell, and Quatre Raberba Winner. Their easy rapport is built as much on camaraderie as it is on playful ribbing and teasing.
Recently, they sat down with The Beat to reflect on the lessons they took away from Gundam Wing and the enduring legacy the franchise has left on fandom.
Nancy Powell: So how does it feel 30 years later?
Scott McNeil: Older.
Brad Swaile: Much older. Just as exciting, though.
Powell: And what life lessons have you taken away from Gundam?
McNeil: No matter how impressed you are with yourself at the time, you cannot actually just jet up into the sky and fly.
Swaile: At least not with that attitude.
McNeil: That’s what they keep telling me!
Swaile: Be careful getting into Gundam building, depending if you have limited wall space.
McNeil: You got an issue in your house.
Swaile: I mean, it’s a good problem to have, but it’s still a problem, according to some.
Powell: How did you get involved in the franchise?
McNeil: We auditioned.
Swaile: Pretty much.
McNeil: It was like a case of, there’s this new show coming in. Here’s a bunch of the characters if you want to go in and read for them. We did read for a bunch of them, I presume, and then sat around and waited, and then got a phone call going, hey, you know that show you auditioned for? Well, guess what? You’re playing a guy named Duo Maxwell. And I’m like, cool. Then I saw him, and I thought it was a girl, then it turned out it wasn’t a girl. And that’s all good.
Swaile: And when you grow up, like I did in the 80s, you get used to Transformers, or Robotech, even. When you see giant robots, you get excited. And when you get to work on a show where you pilot a giant robot, a Gundam, then you get even more excited. So, it was really fun to work on the series because visually, it’s stunning. The music’s awesome. It’s a cool story. But it was really even more exciting to watch when it hit North America, how quickly it took off and how popular it was. Everybody knew Gundam Wing. And I like to think that Gundam Wing and the success of Gundam Wing really helped to plant a seed for Gundam becoming a staple here in North America, because then we went to Mobile Suit Gundam, then SEED Destiny, then double-O [Mobile Suit Gundam 00], and now it’s Gundam, Gundam, Gundam. And it’s a good world to live in.
McNeil: Yeah, it was an amazing thing to watch, that we had done this thing and then started traveling a bit and going to events like this. And we were like, wow, we’re involved in something amazing.
Mark Hildreth: A hundred percent.
McNeil: This entire world. It was fundamental in bringing a lot of this, I think, to North American markets, and changing the market up a little bit. I think this particular show had a lot to do with more female viewers watching, because the pilots were so pretty.
Swaile: True story.
McNeil: And, so it really opened things up a lot whereas before then probably it was a little more niche and it was more blow it up, and it’s cool.
Swaile: Also, Gundam Wing, for me, was the first opportunity to get invited to a convention, and I didn’t even know these things really existed back then. And that was a real eye opener because I saw so many people in the same building, with the same nerdy hobbies that I’ve always been a big Halloween dork. I love toys, I like music, all that kind of stuff. And I found my people, and I’ve not let them go ever since.
Hildreth: But also, we were very fortunate because we happened to be in a city where they chose to cast and create the English version of this show, and we are part of, and still are, part of this wonderful community of actors and voice actors in Canada. And some of us have worked together many times before and had a sort of a rapport with each other. I always say we were the luckiest ones because we got to jump on a moving train.
Gundam Wing was a massive hit before we ever were lucky enough to come on board. So, you get to go into a little recording booth in Vancouver and see this incredible animation and the music and the sound effects. And it was unlike any other animated series that I had done. I had done a bunch before Gundam Wing, but never seen anything like this, with the tone, the depth, the breadth and all of the philosophical themes. It wasn’t Looney Tunes. All of a sudden it was like this operatic space story that we got to just strap ourselves into and see where it went. So, for actors, you’re very lucky when you get to do something that’s so outside of the box of what you’d normally be doing in that particular genre.
McNeil: A lot of the stuff that I had been doing prior to this was a lot of North American Saturday morning cartoons. They tend to wrap up in 22 minute chunks. So, it’s like we’re gonna save the world and do good things. And then remember, kids, don’t throw your brother into lava. And so suddenly, starting in on Gundam and the whole anime thing, suddenly these are not story arcs are that take place over 22 minutes. These are 300 episodes. It’s not just about performing funny cartoons. This is about furthering and helping create for people that are watching and viewing this, this amazing world.
Hildreth: And serialized too. You’re right. It didn’t wrap up every [week]. And was a day, in the old days when we were making Gundam Wing, where there was no HBO, there was no Netflix, there was no Amazon. You didn’t have these Breaking Bad type shows that went over multiple seasons. So, Gundam Wing was way ahead of its time, at least in North America. And to do that in an animated series was even more unheard of.
Swaile: It was definitely a pivotal time for anime here in North America too. I remember back then you’d often have to explain to people what anime was. Fast forward 30 years later, you do not have to explain it anymore to everybody here in North America. It took a while but it’s here now and it’s not going anywhere. Thank goodness.
Powell: How much did you know about the franchise going in and would you consider yourselves experts coming out of this?
McNeil: [Laughing] There’s a lot to learn.
Hildreth: It’s a whole world. Personally, I knew very little about Gundam Wing and anime going into it. We were trying to calculate this the other day, which we shouldn’t be doing, at exactly what age we were when we did it because it was a minute ago, but I think I was 20 or 21 and I had just come out of a classical theater training school, a conservatory. My head was sort of in Shakespeare, and just great theatrical storytelling and plays. Plugged into this story, like Scott was saying, it wasn’t just a 22 minute wrap it up, zany, madcap humor. It was these characters not only flying around in space and going through these epic space adventures and shooting each other out of the sky, but also certain philosophical and moral themes that were being explored. So, personally speaking, not knowing much about anime, that’s what came off the page to me the most right off the bat, that this Heero guy has a lot on his mind [laughing].
McNeil: Scott nodding silently in sage agreement.
Swaile: Growing up, watching Saturday morning cartoons as a kid, you have kind of an idea of what cartoons are, what animation does. Then you start to watch some of these anime titles, and you eventually realize, oh, just because it’s animated doesn’t mean it has to be simple or zany or whatever. You can have these really complicated ideas presented in an animated format. And that kind of opened my eyes to a lot of other anime projects. So, here’s people that have been doing this type of stuff for a very long time, and we’re now just discovering how effective it can be at getting a message or a story across.
McNeil: We got to go along for the same ride that viewers did because we did not know at the beginning what was going to happen. It was like, there’s these five pilots and these big mechs. Sounds pretty cool. This is massive overseas and that sounds great. Let’s do this. We got to enjoy and discover the arcs of the stories and the characters and the interactions of the characters, for want of a better term, on the air simultaneously with the way that the viewers were watching it. How does this story unfold? So, we got to watch the show when we were watching the show.
Hildreth: You go to the studio and you get the next four scripts and you go…
McNeil: Whoa, into the ocean? He’s gonna die, for sure! He’s not dead? Noooo!
Powell: Now that you’ve been to a couple of these conventions, is there a particular character you would like to most cosplay?
Swaile: I know you can’t see this in print, but I am currently kind of cosplaying as Quatre. So that’s a good one, but I also brought something I made ages ago. This is probably 20 years ago when I made this [unveiling a homemade shield]. And this is the shield of Sandrock. The idea was that I was gonna cosplay as the Gundam Sandrock, and as far as I got was the shield. And then I ran out of time and energy. I pulled it out of a closet, and here we are.
Hildreth: That is so rad! That’s a visual representation of why you have no wall space…
Swaile: Absolutely correct. And, of course, you know, if you build something yourself, when you’re done with it, you can’t throw it in the garbage. You know how many times I caught myself doing this? That’s something I’ve never done before, and I’ll never do it again.
Powell: Impressive!
Hildreth: And you made that!
McNeil: I would like to think that this exactly is what Duo would look like, 30 years later. To viewers at home, Scott has very long hair and a beard.
Swaile: So, what you’re saying is you’re in cosplay right now?
McNeil: I’m absolutely in cosplay!
Hildreth: I mean, I don’t know who I would cosplay, but we get asked every now and again, are you ever gonna come back? Well, I think probably, based on my age, I’d have to cosplay as Heero’s dad at this point, which I could probably be up for.
Stay tuned to The Beat for more coverage from SDCC ’25.
English (US)