Rick and Morty has been looking for new voice actors ever since Warner Bros. Discovery dropped Justin Roiland. The show’s massive fan base has been on the edge of their seats, wondering who will be cast to voice the titular characters. Who could voice Rick and Morty if not the show’s creator? Everyone was worried for a while, and many people thought co-creator Dan Harmon might just change how the characters sounded and blame it on the multiverse. But there has been a small grassroots movement for a popular TikTok star to replace Roiland.
Sean Dorrough, going by his TikTok moniker SeanKellySays, has created a channel full of celebrity impressions, but recently he’s been focusing more on the characters from Rick and Morty. The talented voice artist came to some renown seven months ago when Justin Roiland himself complimented Sean Dorrough on his Rick and Morty impressions. Since Roiland was fired, fans have flooded Dorrough’s social media, asking him if he’s been contacted for the role and tagging Adult Swim. And now that the spotlight is firmly on him, the popular TikToker has been practicing. He can firmly impersonate many of Roiland’s characters, even those outside of Rick and Morty.
What Happened to Justin Roiland?
Justin Roiland was firmly dismissed by Warner Bros. Discovery, the parent company of Adult Swim and Cartoon Network, when he was brought up on domestic violence charges. An incident Roiland was involved in nearly a year earlier was made public a few months ago, and his employers responded by cutting all ties with the artist. Though details of the situation have not been released, the charges are significant. Roiland has been charged with one count of domestic battery with corporal injury and one count of false imprisonment by menace, violence, fraud, and/or deceit. Though Roiland will go to court to dispute the charges, both felonies implied a seriously violent episode and were not levied against the star lightly.
Roiland is known for his lengthy voice-acting career. He’s appeared on programs like Adventure Time and Gravity Falls. By far, though, he’s best known as the co-creator and star of Rick and Morty. So when news came that Adult Swim would sever ties with Roiland, fans wondered how his popular show would continue after losing its titular characters. Likewise, fans were surprised that the main characters on Adult Swim’s most popular show could disappear so quickly.
Sean Dorrough as Rick and Morty
Enter Sean Dorrough – a popular TikTok creator and talented voice artist; Dorrough has been doing impressions since he was a little kid. When he was six years old and still in foster care, another kid taught him how to do a Donald Duck voice, and he never looked back. After being featured in a Vanity Fair interview with Justin Roiland, Dorrough quit his decade-long career as an insurance salesman to be a TikTok creator and do impressions full-time. In that interview, Roiland was so impressed with his Rick and Morty impressions. He said:
"That's scary, scary, scary close. If you were to play that next to me doing it, people would have a hard time knowing which was which."
Roiland went on to elaborate how his Morty voice was at a near-perfect level, noting how Dorrough even managed to get the little quirks in the timing of his voice. When Dorrough was featured in the interview, Vanity Fair played some of his more popular TikTok videos, e.g., delivering the iconic Voldemort line as if he were Lemongrab and a clean impression of Morty. Roiland said that he had been so impressed by Dorrough’s voice when he first heard him that he actually reached out and contacted Sean personally. We don’t know where that connection has gone, but the praise from that interview has echoed into the future.
Fans have remembered Dorrough's incredible performance and tried to give the struggling artist all the support they can. In a few short months, Dorrough has gotten 2 million followers on his TikTok channel SeanKellySays, nearly 3.5k subscribers on his YouTube channel mortysays, and 70,000 subscribers on his Instagram seankellysays.
Although he has become incredibly popular, Roiland’s only criticism of Dorrough during the interview is that his Rick wasn’t quite there yet. But now that the fans have rallied around him, Sean Dorrough has begun practicing. He told Insider that he has been very careful in his career not to use his impressions to step on anyone’s toes as a voice actor. But now that the positions of Rick and Morty are up for grabs, he seems ready to take that next step. He said he was “familiar” with the characters’ personalities and was confident he could do the role. So, with fan support, and an amazing story that led him to this position, Sean Dorrough may be the next voice of Rick and Morty.