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In terms of antagonists on The CW‘s The Flash, Amunet Black is one that stands out. A brutal crime boss who has on occasion assisted Team Flash before going right back to being an antagonist, she’s witty, clever, and very over the top — and that over the top bit is thanks, in part, to the accent that Katee Sackhoff uses to bring the delightful and sometimes demented Amunet to life. The character is quite different from some of her other live-action work, but according to Sackhoff, it’s her voice work for Robot Chicken that helps her create the much more colorful Amunet.
Sackhoff recently told ComicBook.com that voice work allows her to be over the top and touch on her theater roots, something that helped her bring her unique Amunet to life.
“Yeah, absolutely. I mean, that’s one of the things that I absolutely adore in voice work and in this avenue of work is that you’re allowed to play characters that are not aesthetically a character that you would be able to play in real life, and that is all part of voice work,” Sackhoff said. “Your voice is what is being sold and what is being bought, and your creativity in which you embody that voice. And so, it does allow you to go out of… For myself, someone who, who you’re right. I try to exist in a realism in my work that is very comfortable to view because it’s not one or the other, it’s always the accurate first reaction, the way that most people stereotypically would react to a situation. And I do think that voice work allows me to go over the top to where I started back in theater, which is when I was 14 years old, I was playing a grandmother on stage. That’s what you do. You play a character and voice work allows you to do that.”
She continued, “And so I do believe that it keeps that craft tuned, if you will, to be able to go and play characters like Amunet Black over on The Flash. Because the voice is what I first decided that I wanted Amunet to be, and it’s how I pitched her to the producers when they brought her up to me. I said, ‘I want her to have an over the top, unrealistic, British, Mary Poppins, arch nemesis accent that you can’t place.’ And they were like, ‘Why?’ And I said, ‘Why not? She’s a comic book character that is not based on reality in any way, shape or form. Why not?’ I think the voice is what created that character. And I think that’s also why people like her so much. Because love or hate that accent, it’s completely identifiable away from anyone else you’ve ever seen on The Flash. You hear that voice, you know who it is instantaneously, and that’s the power of voice.”
Sackhoff also spoke about Amunet’s voice — as well as that of her Robot Chicken character, Bitch Pudding — is one that is highly identifiable, even for those who aren’t regular fans of the series.
“I mean, maybe within the universe, yeah, people knew Starbuck without seeing her because they were viewers of the show. Same with Vic. You can absolutely identify a voice if you are a viewer of a show,” Sackhoff said. “There is no character that I have ever done, except for Amunet Black or Bitch Pudding where you know who they are without even opening your eyes. And you’ve only probably need to have seen the show once, saw the character once. You don’t even have to be familiar with it. So yeah, definitely the voices for sure.”
Disclosure: ComicBook is owned by CBS Interactive, a division of ViacomCBS.