Pascal Casanova

Pascal Casanova, born on September 17, 1961, is one of those actors whose voice you know long before you know their face. Trained in the Classe Libre at the Cours Florent, he cut his teeth on stage first and foremost, and not just any stage: from 1990 to 2000, he was a member of the Compagnie Francis Huster, where he worked through the great classical repertoire, from Lorenzaccio to Cyrano de Bergerac, by way of Giraudoux's The Trojan War Will Not Take Place and Camus's The Plague. A demanding theater career, which he even passed on by teaching at the university level, at Paris-Tolbiac.

He then put that stage actor's power to work in dubbing, with a delightfully wide palette. He is the recurring French voice of Danny McBride, carrying his abrasive humor in Vice Principals and The Righteous Gemstones, but also of Brendan Coyle in Downton Abbey and Saul Rubinek in Warehouse 13. Registers that have nothing in common, from the English gentleman to the American troublemaker, which says a lot about his ability to slip into very different skins.

Animation is another of his specialties, and he's clearly having a lot of fun there. He has voiced Babar in Babar and the Adventures of Badou, Miguel the gorilla in The Jungle Bunch, Captain Gutt in Ice Age: Continental Drift, and the fearsome Raoh in Fist of the North Star. Roles tailor-made for a voice that can reassure or make you tremble, depending on the character.

And then there's Stargate. From 2005 to 2009, on Stargate Atlantis, he was the French voice of Ronon Dex, the taciturn warrior played by Jason Momoa. A role where low tones and restraint matter as much as the words, exactly the kind of presence an actor with a theater background knows how to build. For many French-speaking fans, Ronon's voice is his, and it's a fine piece of Atlantis legend.