Robert Pattinson, Christian Bale and Mark Hamill in the casting of The Boy and the Heron (video)

The English-language trailer for the new Miyazaki can also count on Florence Pugh, Gemma Chan, Willem Dafoe and Dave Bautista.

No “star talent” in France for the vocal casting of Boy and the heron, which has been a hit in theaters since Wednesday, distributed by Wild Bunch. On the other hand, for its English version, GKIDS is banking on the stars: Christian Bale, Dave Bautista, Gemma Chan, Willem Dafoe, Mark Hamill, Robert Pattinson and Florence Pugh are all present in the first English trailer for the latest film from animation by Hayao Miyazaki. Young Mahito is voiced by Luca Padovan, known for the series You.

Over there, The Boy and the Heron will be shown to the public in select theaters in Los Angeles and New York starting November 22, just before the Thanksgiving holiday. Then its release will be extended throughout the country and Canada from December 8. Perfect timing to attract families to cinemas during the end-of-year holidays.

The Boy and the Heron: Miyazaki’s Winning Return (review)

Note that for some announced actors, dubbing is far from being a first: Mark Hamill is famous for having lent his voice to the Joker several times, and he was also Colonel Muska in Castle in the Sky or the mayor of Nausicaa, two previous Ghibli animated films. Christian Bale has already dubbed one of the main characters of the Howl’s Moving Castleor Thomas in Pocahontas from Disney. On the other hand, it is a first for Robert Pattinson. The current interpreter of Batman had never done any dubbing before, and he begins with quite a challenge: he is the one who was chosen to play the heron.

Gemma Chan (The Creator) double Natsuko, the aunt of the young hero, Florence Pugh (Oppenheimer) plays Kiriko, Karen Fukuhara (The Boys) is Lady Himi, while Mamoudou Athie (Archive 81), Tony Revolori (The Grand Budapest Hotel), Dan Stevens (The beauty and the Beast) and Dave Bautista (Guardians of the Galaxy) lend their voices to parakeets. As for Willem Dafoe (experienced in the profession of voice actor thanks to Tales from Earthsea Or Fantastic Mr. Fox), he also plays a bird: the Noble Pelican.

They therefore join the big family of “voice of Ghibli”already composed of Gillian Anderson, Kirsten Dunst, Michael Keaton…

The voices of Ghibli: Jean Reno, Mélanie Laurent, the Fanning sisters, Kirsten Dunst, Michael Keaton, Jean-Luc Reichmann, Lauren Bacall…

Finally, let us point out that in original version, the vocal casting of Boy and the heron is made up of Japanese stars, sometimes used to dubbing work, but not systematically: Masaki Suda (Death Note) is the Heron, Yoshino Kimura (voice of Tigress in the Japanese version of Kung Fu Panda or Claire Folley in the video games of Professor Layton) plays Natsuko and Ko Shibasaki (Battle Royale) double Kiriko.

In VF, the cast is made up of dubbing actors who are sometimes famous in this industry, but not stars strictly speaking. Shoichi is for example played by Dimitri Rataud, alias “the French voice of Ewan McGregor” and the great uncle has the voice of François Marthouret, who has dubbed John Hurt or John Malkovich several times (among others). A version which is already acclaimed by the public: Wednesday, The Boy and the Heron has recorded the best start of Hayao Miyazaki’s entire career in France!