Actor's a major voice in his field

STUDIO CITY, Calif. — There's nothing wrong with actor Clancy Brown. He's 6-foot-3 and handsome enough, but we rarely see his face. When we do, he's usually menacing some innocent right off the screen.

He played the evil Brother Justin in HBO's "Carnivale," Sean Penn's nemesis in "Bad Boys" and the sadistic prison guard in "Shawshank Redemption."

But most of the time we only hear his voice. Brown is a major voice-over artist with a string of credits longer than a federal tax form. He's been Lex Luthor in "Superman: the Animated Series," Long Feng on "Avatar: the Last Airbender" and the redoubtable Mr. Krabs on "SpongeBob SquarePants."

Last week, the Kids' WB premiered "The Spectacular Spider-Man," in which Brown plays not one but two parts: both the good guy and the bad guy.

Brown says that despite his "webnastics" Spider-Man needs to be more than a superhero these days. "You were Superman and you beat up the bad guys. 'You couldn't shoot me, I can fly to wherever I want and you're a bad guy and I'm putting you in jail.' But that's not enough anymore. It's far more complicated now, and it's not enough to just be invulnerable, you have to actually use your head."

Brown became interested in voice-over when his first child was born. "I wanted to stay in town, and I've always been a big fan of cartoons and animation," he says over coffee at a deli here.

"At the time I was trying to get into it, I was sort of known as an actor around and the community was in this mode of, 'Let's find new people.' And a lot of us were doing it. I didn't come in with any attitude about it because I knew a few guys who did it, and thought they were far more talented actors than I was or anybody I'd ever worked with. And they are, they are outstanding.

"It was a lot of fun to be with them. They liked me enough to keep inviting me back to learn how to do it better and better. So now I'd say I've just crossed the line to competence a year ago."

Acting was really unexpected for Brown, the son and grandson of U.S. congressmen. But he says he never was interested in politics.

"My dad was really a public servant. The politics of it was not like it is today. Back then it was really advise and consent government. It's not a game that ever interested me. The public service part, you get those pangs of making the world better for everybody, but the politics of it is ugly and not fun and dominated by machines, the ol' boy networks. And I'm just not one of those dudes," he says, in his deep, resonant voice.

Acting was a way to tell stories, he says, after he ponders a minute why he likes it. "And it's fun to not be yourself every now and then," he adds. Obviously from his credits, Brown is almost never himself. He started in the theater in Chicago and was lucky enough to snatch a role in "Bad Boys," which was shooting there. When he decided to try his luck in Los Angeles, he wasn't penniless like most beginning actors.

"I came out to L.A. loaded with dough — about 7 grand in my pocket and already had my SAG (Screen Actors Guild) card and just met a bunch of people. At that time, Chicago was the 'it' place to get actors, full of vibrant theater. So if you happened to be from Chicago you were going to get people to pay attention, no matter what."

Did he have to sweat to earn his first job? "I have to sweat it to this day. I always sweat to get a job," he says.

But at 49, he doesn't think he's had it tough. "I've just been lucky," says Brown, who's dressed in a heather gray long-sleeved sweater, cargo pants and a well-worn Levi's jacket.

" 'Shawshank' was a turning point," he adds. "It was no different from any other movie except it was a beautiful script — one of the most beautiful scripts I ever read, and all the cast to a man thought the same thing. There are lots of good scripts that don't get made into very good movies."

Brown has been married to former newscaster Jeanne Johnson for nearly 15 years. They have a daughter, 12, and a son, 5.

Parenthood settled him down, says Brown. "There were a lot of movie projects and scripts that I would not be even thinking about because, all of a sudden, you have children that are going to be informed by it. 'Do I want my kids to watch this?' Like a 'Saw' movie, I would not even think about doing a 'Saw' movie."