Sean Schemmel

Sean Schemmel has been married twice. His first marriage was to Melissa Denise Cox on November 20, 1993. The marriage ended in a divorce on February 19, 1998.

He married Melodee Lenz, the actress who provided the voice for Marron in the Dragon Ball franchise, on April 23, 1998. They split on May 3, 2001.

Sean Schemmel was born on November 21, 1968, in Waterloo, a city in the county seat of Black Hawk County, Iowa, United States. He grew up learning to sing and play various musical instruments.

After finishing school, he started playing the French horns and taught music. Having done voiceovers, he was pressured by his friends to answer a casting call for ‘Dragon Ball Z’. This was his first audition and surprisingly enough, he had never seen himself as a professional voice artist until he attended his first session. According to Schemmel, it felt like he had come home.

Sean Schemmel stated his career as the voice of adult Goku in the Funimation dub of the Dragon Ball anime franchise. The show lasted four years and played an instrumental part in reintroducing ‘Dragon Ball Z’ to international fans. Besides Goku, Schemmel voiced King Kai, Nail, Mr. Musuka, and Vegito.

In 2001, he was hired to voice the cocky confident military elite Rick in Ryōsuke Takahashi’s ‘Blue Gender’. The following year, he joined the cast of ‘Berserk’, ‘Ultimate Muscle’, and ‘Yu YuHakusho’.

He was equally active in 2003, lending his voice to various roles in ‘Hades Project Zeorymer’, ‘Samurai Deeper Kyo’, ‘Space Pirate Mito’, ‘Sadamitsu the Destroyer’, and ‘Shaman King’. He also began his career as a scriptwriter in 2003.

One of the most significant opportunities in his career also came in 2003. He became part of the cast of the 4Kids dub of ‘Pokémon’. Voicing characters such as Robert, Morrison, Cyrus, Lampent, and, Lucario, he was attached to the show until 2015.

From 2003 to 2009, he was part of the cast of ‘Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles’, his first American animated show. He voiced a plethora of characters, including Yukio Mashimi, Constable Biggles, and Sh'Okanabo.

Sean Schemmel has been portraying Goku for the last 19 years. Initially, he auditioned for 13 different voices, including those of Captain Ginyu of the Ginyu Force, Goku, King Kai, and Nail and still considers his audition for Captain Ginyu to be the best of the bunch. However, he was eventually cast as Goku and has been the most consistent English-speaking voice actor for the primary protagonist of the Dragon Ball franchise.

Voicing the adult and older teen variation of the character, he has been in every anime series, almost all films, direct-to-video television films, and video games since 1999. Besides Goku, the other important character he voices is King Kai.