The arrival of a new film by Hayao Miyazaki, the legendary Studio Ghibli animator’s first in a decade, is a very big deal and should be treated as such. And we’re seeing it get exactly that treatment with the star-studded English voice cast revealed by GKids.
Christian Bale, Robert Pattinson, Florence Pugh, Gemma Chan, Dave Bautista, Willem Dafoe, Karen Fukuhara, Mark Hamill, Mamoudou Athie, Tony Revolori, and Dan Stevens are all voicing The Boy and the Heron. The voice cast will be led by Luca Padovan as Mahito Maki, with Pattinson as the Grey Heron, Fukuhara as Lady Himi, Chan as Natsuko, and Bale as Shiochi Maki. Pugh voices Kiriko, with Bautista as The Parakeet King, and Dafoe as Noble Pelican.
Here’s the synopsis:
A young boy named Mahito
yearning for his mother
ventures into a world shared by the living and the dead.
There, death comes to an end,
and life finds a new beginning.
A semi-autobiographical fantasy
about life, death, and creation,
in tribute to friendship,
from the mind of Hayao Miyazaki.
The Boy and the Heron opens stateside on December 8th. [Deadline]