Richard Armitage’s voice could make you faint

There are many great voices. Those that captivate you with their distinctive sound, be it Garrison Keller, the A companion for the Prairie HomeMorgan Freeman tells The ConvictsSam Elliott’s drawn-out dialect in truck commercials, Alan Rickman reading sonnets by William Shakespeare, Maya Angelou reading her own works aloud, or actors Sir Ian McKellen and Michael Gambon showing their emotions on stage.

And then there is Richard Armitage, whose distinctive baritone has given him a decade-long career as a voice actor in addition to his acclaimed film and stage roles. He is currently starring as Kenneth in Roundabout Theatre’s limited off-Broadway production of Love Love Love and Daniel Miller about the EPIX spy thriller, Berlin train station(Both the play and the first season of the series end on Sunday, December 18.)

“There is nothing better than having a story read to you by a great reader,” Armitage tells ET over the phone. Having read texts by Bernard Cornwell, Georgette Heyer, Edgar Allan Poe and Charles Dickens, Armitage now lends his voice to Romeo and Juliet: A Novela new interpretation of the Shakespeare classic by David Hewson, available exclusively from Audible from December 6th.

This time, his baritone is brimming with temptation and whimsy as he reads the story of two ill-fated lovers. (Listen to ET’s exclusive clip of Armitage narrating a passage about Romeo and Juliet’s first kiss.) Press materials describe Armitage’s voice as “ravishing,” to which he responds with an amused laugh.

“I don’t know if it would be appropriate for something like the sinking of the Titanic. You don’t want to be gorgeous for that,” says the 45-year-old actor. “But it’s appropriate for this book. It’s one of the greatest stories ever written, so you have to put yourself in that situation and make people listen.”

But his key to a successful recording is simple. “You have to dive in and be really brave and dare,” says Armitage. Recorded in five days, Romeo and Juliet: A Novel was a fairly easy task for Armitage, unlike when he David Copperfield“It took 12 days,” he reveals. “Charles Dickens is quite a complicated author and some of the sentence structures are really long-winded, so it was frustrating but also entertaining at the same time.”

But Armitage enjoys reading, no matter how difficult the book. “I don’t rule anything out, as long as the subject is interesting and told in an accessible way,” he says.

That is why he enjoys Love Love Lovea finely-tuned comedy full of wit from the pen of Mike Bartlett. “There’s a rhythm to the text that is gripping and undeniable and is really crucial to the success of the play,” says Armitage. The lessons he learned in the recording booth may be subtle, but they translate to his work on stage, where he has to portray his character at three different ages, from 19 to 65. “There’s definitely a vocal quality that changes with age.”

When asked about his favourite voices, he names both Gambon, famous for his role as Dumbledore in Harry Potter film series, and McKellen by name. “He’s another one who has the most extraordinary voice,” Armitage says of the latter. “He can reach you on a personal level in a huge theater. In some ways, working on an audiobook has the same dynamic: you’re reading as if you’re talking to a person and you’re telling the story just for them.”

And in this case, Armitage reads Romeo and Juliet (or David Copperfield or The marriage of convenience or Classic love poems) just for you. But a warning for the uninitiated: Armitage can make you faint.

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