Jonathan Freeman

It is always nostalgic and mesmerizing to witness a memory that made your childhood awesome. A person from those days is an even cooler breeze to encounter. Aladdin was a big part of your innocent life and we all secretly liked or hated ‘Jafar’, the pointed cap villain for his mischievous acts because (let’s admit it!) we all had that side inside us back then and the rest would love to hate him.

Voice of Jafar or Jonathan Freeman is an interesting person born on 5th Feb, 1950 in Ohio, U.S. and he is (almost!) earning his bread by living everyone’s childhood dream. He has worked as an American actor in ‘Forever, Lulu’ and the likes and sang quite a few songs in which ‘Why ME?’ was one. He is best known for contributing his voice to the character of Jafar in Aladdin and also its sequel ‘Return of Jafar’. He has been a puppeteer in Jukebox Band’s Tito Swing on PBS Series. A comedian is often attributed to his name, a pinch of which is added to his every role. He has expanded his scope in 2014 to theatre roles through an exciting and emotional roller coaster ride of Broadway musical comedy of Aladdin starting at New Amsterdam Theatre and 5TH Avenue Theatre. He is the only character from the original series to take it so far. Such a person highly spoken of was a bit nervous to start with fresh talent in the first place. He has also acted as Cogsworth in ‘Beauty and the Beast’ and as Grimsby in ‘Little Mermaid’. He has portrayed Bank Chairman in Thomas Schumacher’s production of ‘Mary Poppins’ on 12th December, 2009. From Broadway he has gone to Finian’s ‘Rainbow Sail Away of Thee Sing and Li’l Abner’ and guest starred on ‘Gossip Girl’ and ‘Law and Order’.

He returns to Jafar every three months but is also voicing ‘American Dragon: Jake Long’s Eli Excelisor Pandarus and Jack Frost’ which is also an animated series from Disney. After all these years, he is the veteran of Broadway series working with Robin Williams Robin Williams is a legendary actor and comedian. >> Read More... , Time Rice and Howard Ashman (singers). His favorite villain while growing up is Captain Hook and Evil Queen and as of present talks highly of Gilbert Gottfried The full name of Gilbert Gottfried is Gilbert Fagn >> Read More... who was on his shoulder in most of his part as Jafar. His performance was improved because of him because he (Gilbert) was a normal-turned-psychotic and he (Jonathan) could smooth things out.

Working in animated series and getting either the love/hate list of children is flattering and unusual for him. He has spent so much time with Jafar that he refers to him and Jafar as ‘We’ and his favorite from his own set of lines is ‘My most abject and humble apologies, Your Majesty.’ Just like Jafar has a tendency to hypnotize people with his eyes, he has left the audience with awe with yet another show named ‘She Loves Me’ and he received a Tony Award nomination for Best Performance for the same. From psychotic to a less –psychotic character’s voice, Freeman loves trying to find realistic moments.