Jesse McCartney has done most of his acting from a recording booth, as Theodore the chipmunk and as Robin in Young Justice. The two films of his we have reviewed sped his voice up until we could not find him in it.
Fi1m perspective
Theodore is the round one, the one who climbs into Toby's bed because he misses Dave. In Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel (2009) the fur catches the lamp as he does it, and for a moment the film is tender, and the voice coming out of him is Jesse McCartney's. You would not know it. In that film and in Alvin and the Chipmunks (2007) the three actors are recorded and then sped up until they are indistinguishable from one another and from a smoke alarm. We had a headache by the fourth song and had started counting them. None of that is McCartney's fault. It is also nearly all we have of him.
The career has run on two tracks since he was a child. He was JR Chandler on the soap All My Children from 1998 to 2001, then in the boy band Dream Street, then a solo pop singer from 2004. Acting was fitted around the records: the lead in Summerland (2004–05), the indie Keith (2008), an ensemble part in Chernobyl Diaries (2012), a guest spot on Fear the Walking Dead (2016). The steady work has been voice. JoJo in Horton Hears a Who (2008), Roxas and Ventus in the Kingdom Hearts games, and from 2010 Dick Grayson in Young Justice, growing from Robin into Nightwing as the series went on.
He has described the chipmunk method: speak slowly, pitch up, let the machine do the rest. "It's a really fine line. You either sound like a Chipmunk or an alien." That is a real skill, and you can see the actors' timing surviving the process in The Squeakquel, where the chipmunks sit in hands and on shoulders with weight and shadow. But timing is not a voice. Anna Faris's shy, swallowed Jeanette came through the processing and Christina Applegate's Brittany kept some bite; Theodore did not arrive with anything we could point to and call McCartney's.
The live-action work we have not seen, so we can only say what others have noticed. The notice Keith still gets is for a cynical, complicated lead a long way from the pop image; the complaint about Chernobyl Diaries is a thin part delivered capably. Those are the two things that happen to pop stars who act, and on the evidence we have, both have happened to him. Where he has settled is the booth, in long franchises beside Jeff Bennett and Mae Whitman, usually as the younger one or the sidekick.
The two films of his we have reviewed are the two in which he was, by design, hardest to hear. We would like to review one where we can.
Biography
Jesse McCartney is an American actor and singer. He began performing in theatre as a child, appearing in a national tour of The King and I (1997–98) and a New York production of A Christmas Carol (1998). He gained early recognition for his role as JR Chandler on the soap opera All My Children (1998–2001), earning two Daytime Emmy nominations.
McCartney was a member of the boy band Dream Street from 1999 to 2002. He later pursued a solo music career while continuing to act, with voice roles including Theodore in Alvin and the Chipmunks (2007) and its sequels, and JoJo in Horton Hears a Who! (2008). His television credits include Summerland (2004–05) and Greek.
