Yuri Lowenthal

Yuri Lowenthal (born March 5, 1971) is an American voice actor, producer, and screenwriter known for his work in cartoons, anime, and video games. Some of his prominent roles in animations and anime include Sasuke Uchiha in Naruto, teenage Ben Tennyson in Ben 10, Neil in Camp Camp, Jinnosuke in Afro Samurai, Simon in Gurren Lagann and Suzaku Kururugi in Code Geass. In video games, he voices Lorath Nahr in Blizzard Entertainment's Diablo III, The Prince in Ubisoft's Prince of Persia, Hayate/Ein in Dead or Alive, Matt Miller in Saints Row: The Third and Saints Row IV, and Peter Parker / Spider-Man in various video games associated with the character, notably the incarnation featured in the Marvel's Spider-Man series by Insomniac Games. He has a production company, Monkey Kingdom Productions, with his wife, Tara Platt, where they have produced several feature films and a live-action web series called Shelf Life. He co-authored the book Voice-Over Voice Actor. Early life and education Yuri Lowenthal was born in Alliance, Ohio but raised in Nashville, Tennessee, later moving to Northern Virginia. His father worked for the United States Agency for International Development and he spent two years in Niger in Africa. He did not do much acting until the end of high school when he tried out for drama class in his senior year, but it was enough to get him interested in acting. His early exposure to anime was from shows such as Speed Racer, Star Blazers, and Battle of the Planets. At The College of William & Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia, he took classes in theatre but majored in East Asian studies where in his third year, he studied abroad in Osaka, Japan. He also participated in the school's gymnastics program and ROTC. After graduating in 1993, he joined the Japan Exchange and Teaching Programme (JET) where he served as a Coordinator of International Relations, helping out foreign English teachers in Shiga Prefecture. While at JET, he continued to participate in theatre and acting. After two years there, he still wanted to try acting full-time, and moved to New York City and participated in theatre in shows that were off-off-Broadway. He spent six years in New York doing theatre and indie films.