Kellen Goff does not sound like a man who is supposed to be this busy. When AMFM Magazine’s Paul Salfen reached him, MARVEL Tōkon: Fighting Souls was hours from dropping, Five Nights at Freddy’s was turning twelve, and the actor behind Funtime Freddy, Foxy, Toy Freddy, and Disney+’s symbiotic alien was packing for another weekend of convention lines. He called it spinning plates. Then he described Carnage the only way that role should be described: merciless. In this exclusive conversation, Goff talks about taking Marvel’s killer into Arc System Works’ anime fighter, crossing from the FNAF games into the $238 million film universe without reprising himself, the autism diagnosis that turned storytelling into a language, and the three-hours-of-sleep Funtime Freddy audition that still counts as his Hail Mary. Grateful is the word he keeps using. The characters he plays would never.
A Killer in Anime Armor
Arc System Works’ tag-team fighter dropped August 6 on PlayStation 5 and PC, folding Marvel’s icons into the studio’s signature anime style. Goff is the English voice of Carnage on the Knights of Doom roster — a casting that feels, in hindsight, almost inevitable for an actor who has spent a decade making monsters sound alive.
He had already played the game at Anime Expo. “It’s Arc Systems, so super prolific fighting game developers, and they have done an incredible job taking the Marvel IP into this very cool anime style that people at fighting competitions, I feel like, are gonna really enjoy. I got to play it at Anime Expo, and I was super thrilled with it.”
Then he described the character the way only someone who has to live inside that throat can describe him.
“Carnage is a, well, he’s an awful, awful person. He is a killer. That is the word to describe him. He is merciless, and if you play as him, you will be expected to be merciless.”
The role also marks a rare return of the symbiote to a Marvel fighting roster. Goff does not take that lightly.
“He has not really been on the fighting roster of Marvel games for a good long while, so I’m very grateful that they brought me in for it, and that they chose Carnage to be the symbiote representation here.”
The Marvel work does not stop at the arcade cabinet. Goff voices the symbiotic alien in Disney+’s Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man. Season 1 is streaming now; Season 2 is slated to premiere this fall. Creature work has become his signature — Game Audio Network Guild–nominated as the reworked Fiddlesticks in League of Legends, the Bloater in The Last of Us Part II, gorilla vocals for Sylva in Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes — and Carnage sits at the loud, wet center of that gift.
“He is merciless, and if you play as him, you will be expected to be merciless.”
— Kellen Goff on Carnage
Twelve Years Inside the Pizzeria
If Carnage is the new scar, Five Nights at Freddy’s is the scar tissue. Goff has been inside Scott Cawthon’s haunted franchise for a decade. This month, the original game turns twelve.
“I’ve been working with Five Nights at Freddy’s almost 12 years now. This month will be the… well, actually, you know, I’ve been working with them for 10 years, but this month will be the 12-year anniversary of the game altogether, and it’s wild to think that it’s already been 12 years, and that it’s blown up to be what it is now, to be in the Universal theme parks, and to have their own movie series, so many different video game tie-ins.”
He does not pretend the ride is guaranteed. He just wants a seat as long as there is one.
“If it keeps going up from here, which, you know, seems pretty likely, I can only hope that they’ll allow me along for the ride. I’ll help them as long as they’ll have me.”
The games made him a household growl: Funtime Freddy, Glamrock Freddy, Sun and Moon, and more. The films asked something different. In the 2023 Blumhouse hit he voiced Foxy. In Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 he is Toy Freddy — and, for a blink, himself. The sequel opened to $63 million domestically, the biggest post-Thanksgiving weekend debut on record, and went on to gross more than $238 million worldwide. Goff is careful about the word “reprise.” The movie roles were not the game roles wearing a tuxedo.
“I’m also very grateful — grateful is going to be a key word throughout all of this — to be one of the voice actors in history that gets to travel into the movieverse from the video game verse. I don’t reprise either of the roles that I do in the movies. Those are both the first time I’ve done the roles.”
The cultural footprint still startles him in grocery-store lighting. Spirit Halloween sold out of its six-foot Freddy Fazbear animatronic on day one. Kids in Bonnie and Chica costumes still wander past his parents.
“Whenever I get to hang out with my parents, and we see something like that in public, I love to be like… and they’ll never know.”
The Gift That Started as a Workaround
Salfen asked the question every working actor eventually gets, and almost no one answers cleanly: when did you know you had the gift?
Goff smiled at the word, then took it seriously.
“Some people would call it a gift, some people would call it a weirdo thing, but I am… I see it as a gift as well.”
The origin story is not a montage. It is a diagnosis, a delay, and a kid looking for a language.
“The gift evolved a bit from childhood. I was diagnosed with autism at age 3, and I was not told about it until 16, but throughout my childhood, I looked for different ways to relate and communicate with other kids, because it’s not easy for kids on the spectrum to communicate in the common way. And one of the best tools I found, and many others have found, to relate to other humans is through storytelling.”
He tried writing. He tried the stage. He tried video editing. YouTube is where it locked.
“It was when YouTube came around, and I found a bit of a tribe there where we would make videos and then voice act for each other’s animations that it started to click that this might be the path to take.”
Obsession did the rest. “People on the spectrum, when they like something, they tend to obsess about it and do it as hard and as long as they can. And I was no exception. I practiced with every free moment I had.”
At 16 he walked into a voiceover workshop with Bob Bergen — Porky Pig himself — who put industry etiquette, business practice, and throat care on the table before the creature noises could run wild. By 19 or 20, Funtime Freddy was his.
He still will not pretend there was a single lightning strike. “I used to annoy my mom with these creature noises that I do. Maybe somewhere around there.”
“People on the spectrum, when they like something, they tend to obsess about it and do it as hard and as long as they can. And I was no exception.”
— Kellen Goff
The Hail Mary Was Three Hours of Sleep
Salfen’s longtime co-host, Dallas Cowboys Hall of Famer Drew Pearson — the man who caught the original Hail Mary — has a running question for guests: what was yours? The moment you had to go for it.
Goff did not have to search long.
“It was probably that first audition when I did Funtime Freddy. At the time when my friend sent it to me, I had 3 hours of sleep, so it was either do this and expend all the energy I had left and utilize some of the waking hours to nap and regain the sleep, or have a nice, good, full day’s rest. So I chose the former, and it doesn’t always work out that way, but it worked out for me that day.”
The rest, he says, has been a habit of sending the email.
“Just sending emails at the right time, too — you know, not being afraid to advocate for yourself and send the right email to the right person, it could absolutely open a door.”
That is also the advice he gives the kids who now look at his convention table and decide this is the job. The industry is different than when he entered it, he says, except in the place that matters.
“It’s actually a bit more like my beginnings is one of the best ways to get into it now, which is doing your own indie stuff, doing stuff online with other creatives, and finding your tribe, practicing with them, finding audition opportunities online. It’s pretty much utilize the internet to the best, and just don’t stop creating until, who knows, somebody might notice and introduce a new door for you.”
How to Stay Human When the Line Doesn’t End
Salfen asked what he tells himself when it is go time in a business that will happily eat the unguarded. Goff first thanked him for the premise.
“People don’t often give me affirmation in that. I’m doing the right thing. I think that’s very important, what you’re doing, telling people that they’re doing the right thing, because in this creative space, we’re just sort of firing in the dark and hoping it hits a target.”
The operating system is simple and unsentimental: do not quit, feel the feelings, stay professional because the characters are not yours.
“Not giving up is a big part of it, not trying your best to get back up if ever you’re discouraged about the way that something turned out. Steadfastness and relentless optimism. You can absolutely feel your feelings, have your support system — your friends outside of the industry, even, who can bring you back to the ground and help you normalize yourself.”
Then the guest-in-someone-else’s-house rule, which he treats like a contract.
“Remembering to be as professional as I can about things, because in my business, I carry a lot of other people’s creations. As they’re not mine, I am a guest in their home, so I have to do my best to be polite and courteous, and front-facing as I can with the gift that they’ve given me. And that has worked out for me. It turns out when you respect people, they respect you back.”
Millions of eyeballs are another problem entirely. Goff is introverted and on the spectrum. A perfect day, he said, is indoors, playing video games with friends. He just got an AYN Thor handheld working. The window to the internet has an off switch for a reason.
When the window has to open, he uses a skill he has been practicing since childhood.
“Frankly, having autism, I’ve been masking all my life, so I sort of know when to say certain things and when not to say certain things. And that’s helped me a lot when it comes to navigating people who look up to me in that way.”
What he refuses to do is treat a line of fans like a metric. If the social battery is there at a convention, he tries to learn the person on the other side of the print.
“Making sure everybody knows that they matter, that they’re not just a number, that they’re seen, that their experiences matter too.”
He has a word for it.
“It’s a bit of sonder. Sonder is the sudden realization that a random stranger has a life just like yours. Keeping up the sonder has made me humble in this space, and has reminded me that we are all human here.”
“Keeping up the sonder has made me humble in this space, and has reminded me that we are all human here.”
— Kellen Goff
The voice requests still come. Sometimes he can do them. Sometimes protecting the instrument for Sunday and for Monday’s session is the more professional answer. He has learned that naming a limit is not a failure.
“Most people completely understand that. I think nowadays, knowing your limits is a very admirable trait from everybody. So when you make your limits heard, people tend to respect that.”
He does not police the line alone. Depending on the coast, his friends Yo-Yo or Olivia travel with him as handlers. They read his face before he has to explain his throat.
“They know me intimately, and they know what my tells are, they can read my face, and I’m so grateful for them that they’ll travel with me to all of these. And when they hear something in my throat, or when they see tired in my eyes, they tend to be like, hey — he can’t really do it right now, but he could do this other thing.”
A Figure of Himself, and the Check Goes Elsewhere
Among the stranger monuments to a voice career is a vinyl of the voice actor. Youtooz issued a Kellen Goff figure commemorating ten years in Five Nights at Freddy’s — Goff in a green hoodie, Funtime Freddy’s pink microphone in hand, chibi Freddy and Glamrock Freddy at his feet. Scott Cawthon and the company made it possible. Goff sent five to his parents.
“That’s the wildest part of all of it for me… I am still on cloud nine that that happened.”
The money is the part that tracks with the rest of the conversation. Goff is donating his share of the profits to The Jonathan Foundation, a nonprofit that helps families navigate special education and supports children facing educational, social, emotional, cognitive, and behavioral challenges. Youtooz is contributing as well, bringing the donation to $10 per figure sold.
Advocacy is not a side quest he tacked on after the follower count arrived. It is the same story he told about being three, and sixteen, and a kid who could not find the common door, so he built a voice instead.
The Spreadsheet, the Cons, and the Next Door
Salfen asked what else he could talk about. Goff did what working actors with too many plates actually do. He opened the spreadsheet.
“Keep spreadsheets. Yes. Keep organized. It absolutely helps when somebody’s like, hey, you remember that thing that you did in 2018, that one video game? It’s like, no, but let me look at the sheets. Yes, yes, I did.”
There were titles he could not announce yet. There was a calendar he could. Oklahoma Comic-Con. Fan Expo Chicago. San Japan in Texas after a week’s breath. “Lots of cons in the future. Check out my socials if you’d like to know all of them.”
The rest of the résumé is already loud enough: Karashi in Netflix’s Akane-Banashi; Overhaul in My Hero Academia; Diavolo in JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure; work across Attack on Titan, Demon Slayer, One Piece, Beastars, VALORANT, Diablo IV, Monster Hunter Rise, and more. Off-mic he is an editor and co-producer at The Ink Tank, the Ben 10 lore channel with more than half a million subscribers, and casting director and audio editor on the motion comic 5 Years Later.
He has no retirement speech prepared.
“I’ve been part of plenty of anime across Disney Plus and Netflix and Crunchyroll and all that, and video games for many different developers now, and I have to thank Freddy’s for getting me into the zeitgeist there to start out, but it’s been a super, super fun career so far, and I have no intention of stopping yet.”
Salfen closed the way he closes when the conversation has already done the work: proud of the work, watching what comes next. Goff, true to form, tried to hand the mic back.
“Thank you so much, Paul. That means the world to me, truly, when someone takes an interest in what I do, and everybody loves to talk about themselves. Maybe we could talk some about you sometime.”
The plates keep spinning. Carnage is out in the world now, doing what Carnage does. Freddy is still in the theme parks and the theaters and the six-foot Spirit Halloween boxes that vanish in a day. Somewhere a kid with a strange voice and a YouTube account is looking for a tribe. Goff’s advice to that kid is the same move that cost him a day’s sleep and bought him a career.
Do the work. Send the email. Stay a guest in other people’s houses. Keep the sonder.
Find Kellen Goff
MARVEL Tōkon: Fighting Souls is out now on PS5 and PC. Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man Season 1 is streaming on Disney+; Season 2 premieres this fall. Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 followed a $63 million domestic opening and a $238 million-plus global run. The Kellen Goff Youtooz figure benefits The Jonathan Foundation. Official site: kellengoff.com. Socials: @kellengoff on X, Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube.
Interview conducted by Paul Salfen for AMFM Magazine, August 2026.
