Anyone who watched Dragon Ball Z growing up tried to go Super Saiyan at least once. Don’t lie, we all held our arms out at our sides and screamed to the high heavens hoping our hair would turn spiky and blonde. For some fans, however, that dream of going Super Saiyan turned into a reality later in life. Paul Castro Jr. is one of the lucky few.
“I always wanted to go Super Saiyan, and the fact that I got to not only go Super Saiyan, I got to go Super Saiyan 3, was surreal,” the voice actor tells Polygon over video call.
Castro Jr. voices the kid version of Vegeta in Dragon Ball Daima, the latest Dragon Ball series, and has portrayed the character elsewhere since. In the fan-service-filled Daima, Vegeta goes Super Saiyan 3 for the first time, a surprise for fans who had never seen their favorite character achieve that transformation in canon.
“I’ve been training for that my whole life as a kid. I was doing it in my bedroom,” Castro Jr. says. “I was a huge fan of Dragon Ball growing up — one of my first loves in terms of anime.”
When Castro Jr. auditioned for Daima, he had no idea a role as kid Vegeta was a possibility. Explaining Crunchyroll’s audition process, Castro Jr. says he’d only received a broad, generic description of the character he was trying out for. “I was auditioning for just ‘protagonist’ and then ‘rival character.’”
Director Jonathan Rigg heard the audition. “He was like, ‘Oh, this guy sounds like he could be like a really fiery, rival, arrogant, snooty, little princely boy,’” Castro Jr. recalls. By the time he actually got the offer, however, Castro Jr. had pushed the audition so far out of his mind that he was tremendously surprised.
“I was so terrified; I had impostor syndrome,” he says. “You just don’t think you’re going to be that person who gets such an iconic role.”
Step one after getting the role of a lifetime? Reaching out to the man who had voiced Vegeta for decades, Christopher Sabat.
“[We] share the same agent and I was like, ‘I want to make sure that this is all cool. This is all going by the book,’” Castro Jr. says. “[Sabat] was very kind in that he said to me, ‘Listen, if you have any questions, please let me know.’”
Receiving Sabat’s “blessing” allowed Castro Jr. to feel more comfortable becoming the fan-favorite character. “I just did my best to embrace all of the qualities that [Sabat] has done in the performance, but also make it my own a little bit,” he says.
But even after winning over Sabat, Castro Jr. was still nervous about how his performance would be received, especially considering Vegeta’s massive importance to the franchise. Once the first three episodes of Dragon Ball Daima premiered in theaters, the positive response to the characters’ new kid voices alleviated some of Castro Jr.’s anxiety. “I took my first big sigh of relief and went, ‘OK, they’re not coming at me with pitchforks.’ As a fan, I was just happy to be accepted into the community and the fandom.”
Dragon Ball Daima’s tight story wrapped up in one 20-episode season, and left the cast of characters back in their adult forms, meaning there’s no guarantee the kid versions of Goku, Vegeta, Piccolo, and Supreme Kai that Daima debuted will return. That said, Castro Jr. is game to head back to the recording studio if and when that call comes. “I mean, listen, if [Toei Animation] ever decide[s] to do a spinoff series with Vegeta as a little baby, I’m totally down. Please sign me up.”
Outside of the anime, Castro Jr. has voiced kid Vegeta in video games like Dragon Ball Sparking Zero and Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot, and there’s always the possibility he’ll be needed for future video games. But if not? Castro Jr. is at peace.
“If it never goes further than this, I can die happy,” he says, “but I would love to do it for as long as humanly possible. As long as my voice allows me to.”
