Aku Laitinen (born on 1971 Matti Laitinen) is a Finnish actor. He is best known for appearing in various Finnish television dramas and comedies, but he is most famously known as the voice over of Robby Ray Stewart from "Hannah Montana", Mr. Burns from "The Simpsons Movie", The Joker from "Lego Batman: The Movie – DC Super Heroes Unite" and "Batman Unlimited: Monster Mayhem".
He has been the narrator of Thomas & Friends in Finland from the first series to Tale of the Brave (excluding Series 16-18) during 2003-2014. He was succeeded by Juha Varis from Series 22 onwards.
Other Finnish dubbing credits include: Obi-Wan Kenobi in "Lego Star Wars", Santa Claus in "Make Way for Noddy", Johnson and Diesel in the third series of "Johnson and Friends". Bananas B in "American Dragon: Jake Long", Roger Doofenshmirtz in "Phineas and Ferb", Fu-Fu in "Sagwa, the Chinese Siamese Cat", Uncle Grandpa in "Uncle Grandpa", Larry the Lobster in "SpongeBob SquarePants" in seasons 1-7, Scar in the 2019 remake of "The Lion King". and many more.
Voices
- Sir Topham Hatt
- Sir Lowham Hatt
- Some Passenger (Cyclone Thomas)
- Troublesome Trucks (Big World! Big Adventures!)
Songs
- Where in the World is Thomas? (performed)
Trivia
- He is the third longest serving storyteller behind Sky du Mont, Leo Morimoto and Michael Angelis.
- He, alongside Óscar Gómez, Ron Druyan, Michael Brandon, Dan Schatzberg. and Blanche Ravalec. have been the only narrators in the CGI series to both narrate.
- In the third series, he was credited as "Matti Laitinen".
- He can speak fluently in English, Swedish and German.
- So far, Thomas & Friends: All Engines Go is the only Thomas product that he has not been part of.