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Dee Bradley Baker’s previous performances as Appa and Momo in Avatar: The Last Airbender perfectly prepared him for his turn as Eagly in Peacemaker.
There are plenty of weird yet charming elements in HBO’s Peacemaker, but perhaps the weirdest and most charming is Eagly. As the bald eagle sidekick to the main character, Eagly is a lovable animal companion made all the more lovable by his voice actor, Dee Bradley Baker.
That is a credit that should sound familiar to fans of animation, and Eagly is far from Baker’s first role as an animal sidekick. By giving a unique and tailored performance with no less craftsmanship given just because the character has no dialogue, Baker brings the same verve to Eagly that he once brought to Avatar: The Last Airbender‘s Appa the sky bison.
Bald eagles do not typically make for fitting pets or sidekicks, but that is part of what adds to Eagly’s quirky charm in his introduction in Peacemaker. When the title character — the ultra-patriotic hero prepared to kill men, women and children in the name of peace — arrives home from a stint in prison, one of his top priorities is checking in on Eagly. The fully grown bald eagle, achieved onscreen with a mix of special effects, embraces his long lost friend in a touching and hilarious hug. But there is far more than just physicality to Eagly’s character; his screeches and vocalizations are created by Baker, and as weird as the character is, it is part and parcel with Baker’s long career.
Some of his most notable performances are as many of the animals in Avatar: The Last Airbender, where he played both Appa the flying bison and Momo the winged lemur. Those two performances alone marked the actor’s range, with the massive and deep-throated Appa given a monstrous yet friendly groan while Momo’s chittering and confused squeaking befit his small size. Baker brought that same range to other animals of the Avatar world, as well as Appa and Momo’s counterparts Naga and Pabu in The Legend of Korra.
Even just trying to replicate the sundry sounds Baker makes as these myriad mammals is a feat in futility for most people, but the voice actor has a long resume of equally demanding voice work that seems on the surface to be more conventional. His credits include video games like Halo and Gears of War, and other animated projects like the Ben 10 and Star Wars franchises. In the latter, Baker voiced both Captain Rex and his numerous clone companions, oftentimes performing multiple voices in scenes where the dialogue consisted solely of Baker playing various parts.
But it is perhaps his work as animals with a language all their own that stands out as the most distinctive and characteristic of Baker’s career. Eagly brings Baker’s talents into the world of live-action where he already proved clearly comfortable in animation. But regardless of the medium, his performances always manage to craft an individual sonic presence that conveys emotion even without descriptive text to support his intonations.
It’s easy to overlook the effectiveness of a voice performance, especially in live-action where presences like Eagly’s are balanced out with other actors and the special effects that convey the character. But those are the exact areas where performers like Baker deserve the most credit.
Written and directed by James Gunn, Peacemaker is streaming now on HBO Max, with new episodes of Peacemaker being released on Thursdays.
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