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Voice acting is, above all, acting, which means you need to be able to get into your character’s head to bring them to life. Sometimes that is difficult, such as when a character has a particularly limited vocabulary. It turns out, Abby Trott, who has been the English voice of Nezuko in Demon Slayer since the anime started, and Vin Diesel, who played Groot in the MCU, both have a similar trick to giving their characters the right emotion.

We spoke to Abby Trott, the English voice of Nezuko in Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba, about how she manages to get emotion into the various grunts and sighs that her character makes throughout the show. Nezuko, of course, is the big sister-turned-demon who has a bamboo muzzle in her mouth most of the time, which severely limits how much she speaks.

“I think I try to imagine what Nezuko is emoting without saying actual words,” Trott told us. “What words she would be saying if she were to be saying something in that moment because there’s definitely intention and feeling behind the noises, and then we do hear Nezuko speak, it’s very impactful in all of those moments.”

This is similar to how Vin Diesel brought so much emotion to Groot in the Guardians of the Galaxy films, despite having a vocabulary largely restricted to three words. James Gunn explained that there was a special Groot script that gave English translations of what he was saying with each “I am Groot” to help the actor know how to inflect each line.

Of course, at the end of the Swordsmith Village Arc, Nezuko gained the ability to speak (at least a little bit) so Abby Trott won’t have to do quite so much guesswork about what she’s trying to say when Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba The Movie – Infinity Castle hits US theaters on September 12, 2025.

Each week, Popverse's resident anime expert Trent Cannon runs down the latest and, dare we say "greatest," in anime and manga in Popverse Jump. Some recent columns have included... 

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