Aku Laitinen (born on 1971 Matti Laitinen) is a Finnish actor. He is best known for appearing in various Finnish television dramas and comedies, but he is most famously known as the voice over of Robby Ray Stewart from "Hannah Montana", Mr. Burns from "The Simpsons Movie", and The Joker from the Batman franchise in the years of 2013 to 2019.
He has been the narrator of Thomas & Friends in Finland from the first series to Tale of the Brave (excluding Series 16-18) during 2003-2014. He was succeeded by Juha Varis from Series 22 onwards.
Other Finnish dubbing credits include: Obi-Wan Kenobi in "Lego Star Wars", Santa Claus in "Make Way for Noddy", Diesel in the third series of "Johnson and Friends". Bananas B in "American Dragon: Jake Long", Roger Doofenshmirtz in "Phineas and Ferb", Fu-Fu in "Sagwa, the Chinese Siamese Cat", Uncle Grandpa in "Uncle Grandpa", Larry the Lobster in "SpongeBob SquarePants" in seasons 1-7, Scar in the 2019 remake of "The Lion King". and many more.
Voices
- Sir Topham Hatt (Hero of the Rails to the twenty-second series)
- Sir Lowham Hatt
- Some Passenger (Cyclone Thomas)
- Troublesome Trucks (Big World! Big Adventures!)
Songs
- Where in the World is Thomas? (performed)
Trivia
- He is the third longest serving storyteller behind Sky du Mont, Leo Morimoto and Michael Angelis.
- He, alongside Óscar Gómez, Ron Druyan, Michael Brandon, Dan Schatzberg. and Blanche Ravalec. have been the only narrators in the CGI series to voice characters as well as narrating.
- In the third series, he was credited as "Matti Laitinen".
- He can speak fluently in English, Swedish and German.
- So far, Thomas & Friends: All Engines Go is the only Thomas product that he has not been part of.
Gallery
