Taliesin Jaffe
Jaffe at WonderCon in April 2017
Born	Los Angeles, California, U.S.
Other names	Talis Axelrod T. Axelrod Taliesin Axelrod
Occupations	Voice actor voice director screenwriter
Years active	1983–present
Relatives	Nina Axelrod (mother) Robert Jaffe (father) Steven-Charles Jaffe (uncle) George Axelrod (maternal grandfather) Herb Jaffe (paternal grandfather)
Website	taliesinjaffe.com

Taliesin Jaffe (/ˈtælɪsən ˈdʒæfi/) is an American voice actor, voice director and screenwriter. He has worked on English-dubbing roles for anime and video games. He is a cast member on Critical Role, a web series in which he plays Dungeons & Dragons with other voice actors. Jaffe has also frequently voiced the Flash in various video games.

Personal life

Jaffe was born in Los Angeles^{[citation needed]} He is the son of actress Nina Axelrod and film producer Robert Jaffe.^[1] His maternal grandfather was screenwriter George Axelrod, while his paternal grandfather was film producer Herb Jaffe. He has two brothers and a sister.^[2] Jaffe came out as bisexual in 2017.^[3]

Career

Life and voice acting

Jaffe began his career as a child actor, appearing in films such as Mr. Mom and 2010: The Year We Make Contact. On television, he had guest appearances on such series as The Facts of Life and Amazing Stories. In 1985, Jaffe was a regular on the short-lived ABC sitcom Hail to the Chief as Willy Mansfield, son of the fictional first female President of the United States, who was played by Patty Duke. From 1987 to 1989, Jaffe played Kenny Granger on She's the Sheriff, co-starring with Suzanne Somers. In a 2018 interview, Jaffe discussed how he was offered the role of Brian Tanner on ALF but indicated that his parents turned it down.^{[4]: 00:24:25}

After several years, Jaffe did not enjoy being a child actor. After a bad audition, his father told him he could either put in more effort for more roles or quit acting, and Jaffe—having not previously realized that quitting was an option—immediately chose to quit.^[5] He returned to a career in entertainment a few years later, being a voice actor for dubbing anime in 2000.^[4] Since then, he has taken just two small onscreen roles for House MD and House of Demons.

Critical Role Productions

In the actual play web series Critical Role,^[4] he played Percival "Percy" Fredrickstein von Musel Klossowski de Rolo III in Campaign One, Mollymauk Tealeaf, Caduceus Clay and Kingsley Tealeaf in Campaign Two, and Ashton Greymoore in Campaign Three.^[6][7] Critical Role was both the Webby Winner and the People's Voice Winner in the "Games (Video Series & Channels)" category at the 2019 Webby Awards;^[8] the show was also both a Finalist and the Audience Honor Winner in the "Games" category at the 2019 Shorty Awards.^[9] The show was originally broadcast on the Geek & Sundry network until early 2019, when the cast and crew left to set up their own production company, Critical Role Productions.^{[10][11][12][13]} Soon after, they aimed to raise $750,000 on Kickstarter to create an animated series of their first campaign, but ended up raising over $11 million.^[14][15] In November 2019, Amazon Prime Video acquired the streaming rights to the animated series The Legend of Vox Machina; Jaffe reprised his role as Percy.^[16][17]

In May 2023, Darrington Press imprint announced the upcoming Candela Obscura campaign setting co-created by Jaffe and Chris Lockey for the Illuminated Worlds tabletop role-playing game system. The Candela Obscura Quickstart Guide was released on May 25 with the Candela Obscura Core Rulebook scheduled for release later in 2023. The release of the Quickstart Guide corresponds with the release of the new monthly horror–themed actual play web series titled Candela Obscura created by Critical Role Productions; Jaffe serves as the show's Lightkeeper who provides the characters their mission each episode.^[18][19][20]

Acting credits

The lists in this section are purposely incomplete and mention only his most notable roles or projects.

Anime

Animation

Live-action

Video games

Production credits

Voice director

Anime

Video games

Screenwriter