Detective Vincent Riley, played by actor Reid Scott, is a complicated yet much-loved character on the long-running TV crime drama “Law & Order,” but this isn’t the only iconic role he’s known for. In fact, the actor is the voice behind two very important father figures in the DC Universe.
Not long before Scott joined the investigative team on “Law & Order,” he took on an important role in the popular animated DC series, “My Adventures with Superman,” to play Jonathan Kent. He appears in only four episodes, but it’s an important role: Johnathan is one of Superman’s main role models. Jonathan raises Clark, his adopted son, alongside his wife, Martha Kent, teaching the super-powered boy to be earnest and kind despite his out-of-this-world abilities. Around the same time, Scott nabbed another very influential father character in the world of DC Comics when he voiced Commissioner Gordon in “Merry Little Batman.” A couple of years later, he got to explore the character more in “Bat-Fam.”
While a lot of people know Gordon through his relationship with Batman as his main ally in the police force, the character is also the father of another well-known superhero, Batgirl. His daughter, Barbara Gordon, transforms into the superheroine to fight crime and aid other heroes like Batman and Dick Grayson. She also adopts the alter ego Oracle as an information broker and hacker at one point in her storyline. Like Superman’s father, Gordon is very loving and protective of his child, and the two share a strong sense of justice.
Reid Scott enjoys exploring the more intense world of voice work
While Reid Scott started exploring voice work in the last decade or so, he’s certainly taken to it well. Along with his DC animated roles, Scott’s other voice work includes the 2010s show “Turbo FAST,” with Scott playing the title character, as well as “Nerdland,” “Archibald’s Next Big Thing Is Here,” “Universal Basic Guys,” and “Curses!” He has also voiced a few other DC characters in one-off appearances. He plays Green Arrow and Victor Zsasz in the 2021 animated film “Injustice” and the supervillain Onomatopoeia in “Batman: Caped Crusader.”
In an interview with the Family Choice Awards about “Turbo FAST,” one of his first voice roles, Scott talked about how different it is doing live-action acting compared to voice work. He noted that he tends to restrain his expressions, comedy, and other things with in-person acting, but “in an animated series, you’re encouraged to go big. I mean, bigger is better and broader is better. Louder is better; faster is better.” Scott went on, explaining how the process can feel quite cathartic, saying, “I guess from an actor’s standpoint you’re sort of encouraged to do all of the bad things that you didn’t get to do elsewhere. You get to exercise those demons … It’s really fun because you can be a kid again.”
Meanwhile, Scott is making big moves in his live-action acting career these days, bidding farewell to “Law & Order” in Season 26, with actor James Badge Dale joining the show in his wake. As for why he made this big decision, Scott didn’t want to spend as much time away from his family in California, and the crime series is filmed in New York City. We will have to wait and see what’s next for Scott.