A couple of years ago we did cast announcements over on  our Instagram. But “a couple of years ago” is infinity years in Internet Standard Time, so we thought it would be good (and fun!) to revisit our cast and crew and throw some interview questions at them.

So, to kick things off, it’s our director, Austin Lee Matthews! Austin has a decade-long career as a voice actor in cartoons, anime and video games. Their earliest credits include stuff like Hunter x Hunter, Kill la Kill, and Smite. More recently, they’ve been heard in Pokémon Evolutions, Demon Souls, and Final Fantasy VII Remake. They’ve also written and directed their own audio drama, Megaton Girl, a delightfully queer superhero adventure.

Austin directs episodes 3, 4 and 5 of our first season, and also directed pick-ups for episode 2. We asked them a few questions about the experience.

What was it about Jump Leads that appealed to you as a director?

Well, first the thing that drew me to it was Dino asked me if I wanted to do it. The second thing is that I said yes. It was pretty complicated, said Austin with a dumb grin on their face.

You mentioned on Twitter that Jump Leads was your first time directing something you hadn’t written. How does that compare with the experience of directing your own projects like Megaton Girl?

Megaton Girl and Jump Leads are pretty similar tonally, at least in the sense that they are both comedies filled with a lot of heart and action. So I didn’t have to venture too far out of my comfort zone in that regard. A difference is that for Jump Leads I got to direct a whole table of actors, instead of one actor at a time. It made it a bit more challenge to keep track of all of my direction notes, but everybody worked so well together as a group. I find that actors work best when they have somebody to play off of, so the BIGGEST difference is I wasn’t the one reading off the actors. The actors worked off each other. Both very fun experiences, just a bit different!

In the show, Meaney is a wide-eyed optimist while Llewellyn is more of a closed-off cynic. Which do you relate to more?

I’m definitely more of a Meaney. I’ve always been the ever-optimist (though sometimes stuff can be difficult even for me!). I do find both of them to be very relatable in different ways. They make for a great comedy pairing, especially shining when they get to be alone together.