The thread about Speiberg's Lincoln and Daniel Day Lewis' voice for that character reminded me of actors (not voice only artists otherwise I would count in Seth McFarlane immediately!) with cool/great voices.

Here is my list to get the thread started (most are kinda obvious):

James Earl Jones, Sam Elliott, Sean Connery, Ted Levine (love his mumblig bass-baritone voice), Morgan Freeman, Vincent Price, Christopher Lee, Antony Hopkins, Jeff Bridges, Thomas Haden Church, Eric Roberts, John Hurt, Patrick Stewart (perhaps his usual acting voice is what many people would like to hear as Abe Lincoln?), Jeremy Irons.

Yep, I am kind of biased towards deep, sonorous, voices - soft spoken Anthony Hopkins perhaps being the exception.

Why didn't I include actresses? Easy: I am unable to concentrate exclusively on the voice, for obvious reasons.

Please feel free to disagree and/or add anyone.

Keith David's gotta be on any such list

Clint Eastwood deserves a spot as well. And although he doesn't act much, Tom Waits also has a great, instantly-recognizable growl.



The one actress who immediately popped to mind is Kathleen Turner. In her prime, an incredibly sexy woman, with one of the sexiest voices in the movies.

Hooray, first post!

*shakes head*

Here's hoping we get something like the mighty Phoenix and not the final nail in the forum's coffin. Waiting and seeing, I am.

Some would say Morgan Freeman but that's too easy and, really, his voiceover has become a cliche. So I'm going with Willem Dafoe, a great actor that has a wonderful radio-ready and expressive voice.

Tara Fitzgerald's voice makes me melt.

Samuel L. Jackson would be one of my choices. Also, Christopher Walken.

I had over 4000 posts....at least Holloway was affected too.

But this forum will survive dammit!

Oh, Keith David, James Earl Jones, Morgan Freeman, Denzel Washington, Arnold Schwarnegger.

Bingo!

I love the voices of both, but according to that approach, I think you should include Robet De Niro and Al Pacino as well: they all have great voices when it comes to their typical acting approach, but really nothing which really blows you away. IMHO that is.

Love Keith David, also like Michael Clarke Duncan, Michael Madsen, Sam Jackson, Jason Statham, Liam Neeson, Ahnuld and Stallone, Delroy Lindo, Denzel Washington, Morgan Freeman, Robert DeNiro, Al Pacino and Eddie Murphy.

Peter Weller has a great voice. I didn't really appreciate it until he played Batman in the Dark Knight Returns. He's perfect as the middle-aged, hell-on-earth version of Batman in the story. It's not that he's emotive, so much as he could believably crush your nuts as an information gathering tactic.

Excellent find (according to yours truly's humble taste, which bis by no means any kind of standard - just a personal taste, that is):

There we go:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5JMli3MopNs

You are correct. Somehow I forgot about him. Wonderful expressive and sonorous bass-baritone. He definitely is now part of my list of actors with the coolest/greates voices.

"I know it looks pretty but I didn't put it out for air." Chilling moment and largely because of his delivery.

Tom Wilkinson! Love it! And he's so good I can, and will, watch him in anything!

A couple more black character actors not yet mentioned: the late Brock Peters and, the poor man's James Earl Jones, Geoffrey Holder. Speaking again of Jones, oddly enough, Peters did the voice of Darth Vader in the NPR adaptation of the Star Wars trilogy.

I actually think he's really good when he contains himself, but really bad when he hams it up (e.g. Ghost and the Darkness, The Patriot, Batman Begins)

I'm surprised no one's mentioned Alan Rickman.

And the all time greatest voice was obviously Mel Blanc.

Threeperf's suggestion of Sam Elliot was a good one, and the first one that came to mind for me. The second one that came to mind was Werner Herzog, who I'm able to do a decent impression of. He's also the only reason why I have any interest in seeing Jack Reacher.