Robin Atkin Downes (born 6 September 1976; age 48) is an English actor and prolific voice actor who played Commander Togg and an Old Klingon Officer in the Star Trek: Lower Decks second season episode "wej Duj".
He also provided Vulcan and Romulan chants and dialogue through Automated Dialogue Replacement (ADR) in Star Trek.
He is perhaps best known for playing the recurring role of Byron Gordon on Babylon 5.
Early life[]
Downes was born and raised in the United Kingdom and acted in his first play while attending boarding school at the age of six. He continued to study acting in the United States, earning a Master of Fine Arts degree from Temple University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Film and television work[]
Downes' first role on Babylon 5 was that of Grey Council member Morann in the 1997 episode "Atonement," which was directed by Tony Dow. He reprised this role for Babylon 5: In the Beginning, directed by Michael Vejar. He was subsequently cast as Byron, a role he played in eight episodes of the television series. In addition to Dow and Vejar, Downes worked with a number of Star Trek performers on the Babylon 5 series and movie, including Theodore Bikel, Caitlin Brown, Anthony Crivello, Andreas Katsulas, Leigh J. McCloskey, J. Patrick McCormack, Bill Mumy, Tricia O'Neil, Robin Sachs, Reiner Schöne, Tracy Scoggins, Patricia Tallman, and Star Trek: The Original Series regular Walter Koenig.
In addition to his work on Babylon 5, Downes has appeared on such television shows as Buffy the Vampire Slayer (with Todd Babcock), Beverly Hills, 90210 (with Michelle Phillips), Nash Bridges (with Susan Gibney), Titans (with Ricardo Montalban), and Angel (directed by James Contner). Downes has guest-starred on CSI: Miami (in an episode with Willie Garson), Entourage, and In Plain Sight. He also played Jeff in three episodes of the USA Network series The Starter Wife, the first of which guest-starred Ronny Cox and Bonita Friedericy.
Downes has also appeared in several films. He played Peter Kranek (the werewolf) in the 1998 independent horror film The Werewolf Reborn! and its 2000 sequel Frankenstein & the Werewolf Reborn! He also had a lead role in the 2002 movie High Voltage. In 2005, he worked with Star Trek: Voyager guest star Brad Dourif and Marjorie Monaghan in the short film The Great War of Magellan. More recently, he starred in and directed the romantic comedy For Pete's Wake!, which also co-starred his Babylon 5 castmate, Patricia Tallman.
Voice-over work[]
As a voice actor, Downes has worked on numerous films, television shows, video games, and radio and TV commercials. For film, he was the voice of one of the Ancient Primes in the 2009 blockbuster Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, which was co-written by Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci. This film also featured the voices of Robert Foxworth, Tony Todd, and Frank Welker. In addition, Downes voiced the cat in the animated adventure The Tale of Despereaux (with the voices of Frank Langella and Christopher Lloyd) and was heard as a news reporter in films such as The Kingdom (2007) and Body of Lies (2008). Downes has provided Additional Dialogue Recording work for many other films, including The Bourne Ultimatum and Paramount/Spyglass' G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra.
Downes provided the English voice for David in the Japanese animated film Steamboy, which also featured the voice of Star Trek: The Next Generation star Patrick Stewart. Downes and Stewart had previously done voice work in several video games together. Downes was the voice of Cyclops and Pyro in X-Men: Next Dimension and X-Men: Legends and the voice of Sabretooth in X-Men: The Official Game, all of which featured Stewart as the voice of Professor X. (Next Dimension also featured the voices of Jenette Goldstein and Alan Dale; Legends had the voices of Earl Boen, Greg Ellis, Tony Jay, Scott MacDonald, Armin Shimerman, and Rick Worthy; The Official Game had Dwight Schultz, Debra Wilson, and Keone Young). Downes and Stewart also voiced characters in the 2004 game Forgotten Realms: Demon Stone, along with Daniel Riordan.
Downes' many video game roles include the Prince in Prince of Persia: Warrior Within, Minh Young Kim and many other characters in the Gears of War games, Captain Slag in the Ratchet & Clank games, and Travis Touchdown, the main protagonist of the No More Heroes series. He also had supporting roles in two of the acclaimed Uncharted games, Uncharted: Drake's Fortune and Uncharted 2: Among Thieves. Both of these featured the voice of Richard McGonagle, while Star Trek: Deep Space Nine's René Auberjonois can be heard in the latter. Downes can be heard in various entries of the Call of Duty video game series, as well.
Downes' voice can also be heard in such hit games as Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic (with Brian George, James Horan, Jason Marsden, Ethan Phillips, Robin Sachs, Raphael Sbarge, Carolyn Seymour, and Frank Welker), Halo 2 (with Hamilton Camp, Miguel Ferrer, John Kassir, and Ron Perlman), Doom³ (with Michael Bell and Keone Young), Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater (with Paul Eiding, Michael Bell, and Richard McGonagle), Kingdom Hearts II (with Jimmy Bennett, Robert Costanzo, Brian George, James Horan, Kenneth Mars, Chris Sarandon, David Ogden Stiers, and Frank Welker), Team Fortress 2 and Mass Effect (with Marina Sirtis, Raphael Sbarge, Brian George, Dwight Schultz, Carolyn Seymour, Keith Szarabajka, and Armin Shimerman). He was part of the ensemble voice cast of 2005's Gun, as well; others who worked on this game include Brad Dourif, the aforementioned Ron Perlman and Dwight Schultz, and Wade Andrew Williams. He voiced George Washington in the game Assassin's Creed III. This game also featured Nolan North, Roger Aaron Brown, and John de Lancie, though Downes did not share any scenes with any of them.
On television, Downes has lent his voice to such animated cartoons as Grim & Evil, Stroker and Hoop, Ben 10, Justice League, and Avatar: The Last Airbender. He played various characters on Star Wars: The Clone Wars and also voiced the Gentleman Ghost on Batman: The Brave and the Bold (on which Diedrich Bader voices Batman). He also had a role in the animated series for Marvel Comics' The Avengers (2011).
Most recently, he has provided the voice of "The Master," the lead antagonist of FX's horror/science fiction series The Strain, co-starring Roger Cross.
External links[]
- RobinAtkinDownes.com – official site
- Robin Atkin Downes at Wikipedia
- Robin Atkin Downes at the Internet Movie Database