Do you remember the time when you found out that you were going to be a father? What do you remember about that moment? For me I remember where I was when my wife shared with me the exciting news that we were expecting our first child. There are certain moments or experiences that might have faded away that I wish I wrote down or recorded while I was waiting for the birth of my children.

One father to be is making sure he remembers his journey into fatherhood. Matt Lanter, who you might know from his many cool roles on TV and film is starting his path into fatherhood. He and his wife, Angela have a podcast called Hello Bump. He and his wife are documenting their journey towards parenthood, one week at a time… the good, the bad, and the embarrassing. It’s an open and honest look at their experience being pregnant with their first child.

Lanter has been on The CW’s show Star Crossed, playing Roman. Previously, Matt also starred in The CW’s 90210 as Liam Court, and in films like A Chance of Rain and Liars All. He also is a fantastic voice actor. He played the role of Anakin Skywalker in Star Wars: The Clone Wars as well as the voices of the roles of Harry Osborn and Flash Thompson on The Ultimate Spiderman on Disney XD.

Matt sat down with me to talk about how he is preparing to be a dad, his podcast, his career and more.

Art Eddy: Congrats on the fantastic news that you are going to be a dad! What popped into your mind when you found out that you were going to be a father?

Matt Lanter: In that exact moment it was just shock. It wasn’t exactly planned. It wasn’t exactly surprising.  We weren’t trying real hard, but we were practicing. (Both laugh.) My wife has endometriosis. She talked a lot about this on her blog and on the podcast. We fully expected my wife to have surgery. We were told by doctors that she would have to have surgery before a pregnancy was going to happen.

That is just the side effects of endometriosis. We weren’t really expecting that in that way. The day that we found out my wife told me she could barely catch her breath. She was so excited. I was in shock, but I was so excited at the prospect of being pregnant. I tried to not get too excited until we went to the doctor. We got into the doctors in the next two hours. They confirmed it. When they confirmed it at the doctor’s office and we understood it we hugged each other. It was a great moment.

AE: You and your wife Angela have a podcast on iTunes called Hello Bump where you two are talking about your wife’s pregnancy. What inspired you guys to do this podcast and did you have any concerns about doing the podcast? 

ML: It was sort of a difficult decision. My wife wanted to start a podcast that was for women, driven by women in association with her blog. She has a very successful blog. That is what she does full time. It is AngelaLanter.com. She goes by the name Hello Gorgeous. It is a great fashion, lifestyle website. She does YouTube videos and all of that kind of stuff.

I run most of the technical side of her business. I am a bit of tech nerd. I geek out on stuff like that. We had this podcast equipment ready to go. We were going to do this podcast in association with her blog. Then she got pregnant.

I told her that we should take the podcast equipment and we should do a weekly podcast for ourselves. It will follow everything that is happening with us emotionally and you physically. We will document it. I said how awesome would it be twenty years from now when our kid is an adult? To listen back to mom and dad on the daily excitement of what was going on during that time.

When we kept on throwing around this idea my wife was pushing me to make it public. We would make it a podcast for everyone to listen to. Like you said I had these hesitations because we are kind of this public couple. I didn’t know if I wanted to open up on those kind of things. She convinced me that everything that you hear from these women is about how pregnancy is so incredible and it is this beautiful thing. At the time when we found out she was six weeks pregnant. She was getting into that nausea phase. It was kicking her butt. She was like I wish there were more people out there saying here is what is going to happen. You are going to feel sick. You are going to have gas. She really wanted to release this. She felt like it would be great. I think people will love it. I think women will love it. With your input future dads will love it. We just marinated on it for a couple of weeks and then we decided to do it. If people want to listen, awesome. If people don’t want to listen, awesome. We just decided to do it.

AE: What are some of the core values you are going to look to instill into your child?

ML: That is something that I do worry about. It is funny you mention this because we talked about this on our podcast the other day with our friends who are also expecting. We were talking about the different fears and the different values that we have as parents. It was interesting to see how my wife and our friend, the wife from this couple their concerns were mostly how to raise the kid and how to do things right. How to parent right.

At this moment I think me and my buddy were talking about the male thing to make sure that you can provide. To be honest with you I feel more so than worrying about the core values at this point as a man I have this innate drive to make sure that my family is provided for. Those are the things that I am thinking about a little more now. Financially can she be in a good house? Will she have a nice bed? Little stupid stuff like that. Those are my concerns at this moment.

A lot of these core values hopefully will come naturally. I think it comes from how I was raised and how my wife was raised. We believe that we have great parents who instilled in us morals and values. Hopefully that is what gets passed down to our kids through natural life lessons and how we lead by example. My wife and I are Christian so a lot of our core values come through that. We believe if we stay in line with those that our kid will pick that up and live that sort of life.

AE: I can imagine that you are getting a lot of parenting advice right now. What is the best piece of parenting advice that you have received?

ML: Well just recently because we are in this phase right now. We are throwing around name ideas. That jumps to the forefront of my mind right there. It is the baby naming thing. A valuable lesson that people have said is don’t listen to anyone. Don’t take anyone’s opinion. Don’t take your mom’s opinion. Don’t take your dad’s opinion. Everyone is always going to have their own opinion.

You are so right. When it comes to pregnancy and children because a lot of people have children, they all feel what they are doing is the right way and the best way. They have the best name and the best car. My wife tweeted that we are looking for a new car. She got a massive amount of comments about what cars are the best. People are offended if we don’t buy the car that they suggested. It is ridiculous.

The baby naming thing really fits in the category of figure it out for yourself. If you want to take bits and pieces of advice and make that your own fine. Don’t feel like you have to listen and do something specifically that someone said or advice that they give. Take it. Process it. Make it your own.

AE: What got you into acting?

ML: When I was growing up in Atlanta I was a late teenager. There was a movie that was filming in Atlanta called Bobby Jones: Stroke of Genius. It was a period piece. It was a golf movie on Bobby Jones. I have always loved TV and film. I thought it was so magical. I went through a phase where for a whole month I would watch Jurassic Park every single day after school on VHS. I just loved it. I think the movies are so magical. I never ever thought of how to make that magic. I just always consumed the magic.

I went to be an extra on the film Bobby Jones: Stroke of Genius. I saw the behind the scenes. I thought that maybe I could be part of creating this magic full time and get paid for it and have fun. That was sort of it. I went down to be an extra. They actually picked me out of the crowd to be a featured extra. I still didn’t have any lines, but I was a little bit bigger in the camera. (Both laugh.) I actually got to be the child version of Bobby Jones. I was his caddy for one of the tournaments. That sparked my interest and made me realize that I could actually do this and actually make the magic and not just consume the magic.

I ended up moving to California. Saved up a few grand. Drove out a few years later. That what it was. I moved out and hit the ground running.

AE: I am a big fan of your work especially in Star Wars: The Clone Wars animated series as the role of Anakin Skywalker. How did you approach that very difficult role?

ML: My approach to Anakin was at the basis of it was Dave Filoni, our supervising director for The Clone Wars and George Lucas himself. George had a different vision for Anakin for The Clone Wars from what we have seen in the films. I went to Skywalker Ranch and sat down in George’s office and had a chat with him. Looking back that was the wildest thing. I knew Star Wars, but I wasn’t an uber fan like I am now. That was a good thing because I probably wouldn’t have been able to just sit in his office and look at the guy face to face and talk about Star Wars.

I have met him several time now and I feel like I would be more scared now than I was back then. It was a very surreal moment. We were just sitting there. We were in Skywalker Ranch. We were in the main house. You may have seen pictures. It is a beautiful house. There is an office upstairs. He was giving me some notes on Anakin. I don’t think I have ever shared those notes with anyone so I am not going to here. He gave me some ideas on the character and we discussed it. That was the basis for it.

Luckily for the reasons that I just said I didn’t feel too much pressure. I knew the pressure, but I didn’t know the Star Wars fan base. I didn’t really know how massive Star Wars was at that time. I think that was a good thing because I would have been much more nervous about it. When I first read for this role I didn’t know that it was Anakin. I didn’t know what it was for. I knew it was for some Star Wars animation. They were very vague about it.

They said do you know the character Han Solo? I said yeah. They said do you know the character Luke Skywalker? I said yeah. They go great. Just give us your best combination of the two. The character’s name was Deak Starkiller. I said okay. I remember the scene was with R2 and I did it. They said okay great. I might have done it a couple of times. They said thanks so much for coming in. I get a call a couple days later that I got the job and it is actually for Anakin Skywalker. It was for one of the lead in the new animated series. I was like oh my gosh. This is insane. The Clone Wars blew up to be what it is today. Now that we are few years removed it almost has become a nostalgic thing for people who grew up watching it. It really paved the way for Star Wars Animation. It is a lot for the Star Wars saga. It is all canon. Those stories came from George.  It is kind of one of the last things with Star Wars that George is directly responsible for which is pretty cool.

AE: You have been on many animated series, in movies and on TV shows. Do you prefer voice acting or acting or is it on a case by case basis?

ML: I love both for a lot of different reasons. With the voice acting it is so fun and creative. I really love the people in the voice acting world. I know that you had Dee Bradley Baker on your series. He plays Captain Rex. I work with him all the time. He was for many, many years right beside me on the microphone. I love the people in voice over. Voice actors are just great. It has this family feel with this community of voice actors. It doesn’t feel that way with on camera actors. They are just a bunch of jerks. (Both laugh.) I am kidding. I know some amazing people that are in the on camera world.

Voice acting is just so fun. It is freeing. It is really creatively freeing. It feels like you are a kid in a sandbox just making voices. You probably did it. I know I did it when I was a kid. Most of us have probably done it. We hop in the sandbox. We dig in the dirt. We give voices to action figures. If you think about it that way it is really just like being a kid except I am getting paid for it.

The on camera side I get to travel to cool places. I get to meet hundreds of new people on a crew. You get to go to these fun premieres and people know your face. They love your character. You get invited into people’s living rooms every week and they watch Wyatt Logan from Timeless or Liam Court from 90210­. They feel like they know them and that they are friends with that character. I get to be the face of that character.

It is just different. I love both for different reasons. I get excited when I get to go to on set and get excited when I get to go to the booth.

Life of Dad Quick Five

AE: Is there a movie that you can’t wait to share with your child?

ML: Saying one movie is way too hard. I can’t wait to show my kids Star Wars. I can’t just stop there. I have to say the Disney movies. I watched them as a kid. I think that they are great. They are so classic. I am going to go with those two answers, Star Wars and Disney movies.

AE: Do you have a song that you will sing to your child?

ML: My wife’s grandma, who was really important in her life used to sing that song and I can’t sing all of the lyrics, but it goes I love you a bushel and a peck. A bushel and a peck and a hug around the neck. I think there is more to that. Her grandma used to sing that to her all the time. We have a sign that has some of those lyrics on it hung in our house. I know that one is very dear to my wife. She says it all the time. I feel that is one that we are going to instill into our child.

AE: Describe the perfect family vacation.

ML: We were talking about this the other day. My wife love the 30A area of Florida. It is on the panhandle. Really beautiful beaches. Really nice communities. It is very family driven. We have been there the last four or five years in a row. I was also saying that I grew up near a lake in Georgia. Some of my favorite memories are that lake life. I was telling her that I would love a vacation spot on some nice, clean lake. Somewhere in Montana or Idaho. Something outside of LA. The water is clean. You can swim. You can jump of the dock for July 4th. That Americana classic family vacation that people had 40 years ago. It would be nice to recapture that.

AE: Who is your favorite Star Wars character other than Anakin?

ML: Han Solo.

AE: Name an actor you would love to work with on your next project.

ML: Paul Newman.

Follow Matt on Twitter at @MattLanter and check out Matt and his wife Angela’s podcast Hello Bump on iTunes.