Danica Davidson
October 17, 2023 
The English main dub cast for Hayao Miyazaki’s The Boy and the Heron movie has been announced, and as with past English dubs of Miyazaki’s work, it has some famous Hollywood actors lending their voices.
Christian Bale plays Shoichi Maki, Luca Padovan plays Mahito Maki, Dave Bautista plays The Parakeet King, Gemma Chan plays Natsuko, Willem Dafoe plays Noble Pelican, Karen Fukuhara plays Lady Himi, Mark Hamill plays Granduncle, Robert Pattinson plays The Gray Heron, and Florence Pugh plays Kiriko. Mamoudou Athie, Tony Revolori, and Dan Stevens play the Parakeets.
GKIDS is working as the North American distributor for the movie, and it said in a press release:
GKIDS handled casting and produced the English version in close consultation with Studio Ghibli, with ADR direction by Michael Sinterniklaas at NYAV Post, and English script adaptation by Stephanie Sheh. The English language dub was produced in accordance with the SAG-AFTRA Foreign Dubbing Agreement.
The Boy and the Heron has already been in Japanese movie theaters, and has been screened at a few different film festivals. There will be “special preview engagements” for the film on November 22. On December 8, the movie will officially hit North American theaters and be available for a much wider audience than film festival attendees. GKIDS will offer you the choice of watching it in Japanese or in the English dub they’ve created with Studio Ghibli. This is the first movie in a decade from the celebrated moviemaker Hayao Miyazaki.
Studio Ghibli gave this brief description for the movie:
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.
Source: Press release
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Danica Davidson is the author of the bestselling Manga Art for Beginners with artist Melanie Westin, plus its sequel, Manga Art for Everyone, and the first-of-its-kind manga chalk book Chalk Art Manga, both illustrated by professional Japanese mangaka Rena Saiya. Check out her other comics and books at www.danicadavidson.com.
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