How Celebrities Took Over Cartoon Voice Acting - Scott Meslow - Entertainment - The Atlantic: But for better or worse, Puss in Boots is yet another example of a film's famous lead voice actor defining its character. Banderas's Puss is essentially an animated, feline version of Banderas's Zorro, right down to the gravelly baritone and the penchant for slicing his initials into things. Needless to say, the Spanish, Zorro-esque Puss in Shrek bears absolutely no resemblance to the original French feline of Charles Perrault's quaint 1697 fairy tale.
With the marketing machine growing larger by the day, is there any room for a "man of a thousand voices" like the legendary Mel Blanc in contemporary Hollywood? The proud legacy of the voice actor carries on primarily on television and in video games, where underappreciated luminaries like Maurice LaMarche and Dan Castellanetta provide the voices for dozens of iconic characters, but unfortunately, conventional voice actors rarely get the chance to helm a contemporary animated film. Banderas's voice is perfect for Puss—the character was tailored to it, after all—but in the end, Banderas has one voice, and when the best voice actors have "a thousand voices," it's hard not to feel like they're being wasted.