Scooby-Doo’s Matthew Lillard has been a voice actor for a long time, and he’s taking issue with how Hollywood is casting performers for high-profile animated projects.
After playing Shaggy in the first two live-action Scooby-Doo movies, Lillard continues to voice the titular dog’s best friend in a variety of animated TV shows, direct-to-video movies, and video games. These span both within the franchise and outside of it, in projects like Batman: The Brave and the Bold, Teen Titans Go!, and Supernatural. Between that and other projects, voice acting serves as a key aspect of his resume. However, he doesn’t think that means every actor should automatically qualify as a voice actor without proving themselves.
In an interview with ScreenRant‘s Liam Crowley, Lillard was asked why he thinks it’s easier for actors to become voice actors, rather than the other way around. He answered by sharing his dissatisfaction with instances when studios cast A-list actors for major animated movies to boost their chances of success. This is despite the fact that, in his opinion, said actors aren’t able to carry these kinds of roles most of the time. In his precise words:
I want to say that I think Hollywood has made a huge mistake by hiring actors that are not able to carry a part with [their] voice. As an actor, you have full function, your face, your body, you have all these things that you can play on when you’re on the screen, but a voice actor has only their voice to work. The ability to carry a film, as the lead of a film with only a voice, is a power very few people have. And the idea that they keep hiring crappy celebrities to carry huge films is killing us.
Whether one agrees with Lillard’s assessment or not, there’s no denying that casting Hollywood stars in animated movies has become a common practice in the last few decades. Looking at the movies that have come out in 2026 so far without commenting on their quality, Goat, Hoppers, The Super Mario Galaxy World, and Animal Farm, among others, are all packed with name actors. That trend continues later this year with Toy Story 5, Minions & Monsters, The Cat in the Hat, and The Angry Birds Movies 3.
From Lillard’s perspective, actors cast in voice roles should be properly trained in bringing characters to life in this specific medium, rather than only because they’re well known to the public. Some are known for primarily, if not entirely, working as voice actors, like Tom Kenny, Tara Strong, and Billy West. Then there are those who are like Lillard and effectively straddle that line between on-camera acting and voice acting, like Clancy Brown, Ron Perlman, and J.K. Simmons.
Along with his numerous Scooby-Doo credits, Lillard has been heard in TV shows like American Dad!, Beware the Batman, and All Hail King Julien. He also vocally cameoed in 2022’s Scream as a partygoer, four years before he reprised Stu Macher (albeit a deepfake version of the deceased character) in Scream 7. Lillard last voiced Shaggy in a 2024 episode of Jellystone!.
In the live-action realm, the actor has recently been seen as William Afton in the Five Nights at Freddy’s movies, Lance in Cross season 2, and Mr. Charles in Daredevil: Born Again season 2. Looking to the future, Matthew Lillard has been cast in the upcoming DC movie Man of Tomorrow, the Prime Video miniseries adaptation of Stephen King’s Carrie, and the Tony Gilroy-directed drama Behemoth!. He is slated to play Principal Grayle in Carrie, but his roles in the two aforementioned movies haven’t been announced yet.