Devil May Cry Nero actor didn't realize he was auditioning to play Dante in the new Netflix series until the show's producer said he wrote the lead role just for him: "A different weight on my shoulders"

Johnny Yong Bosch may have been a part of the Devil May Cry franchise for nearly 20 years, but that doesn't mean he was prepared to play the half-demon hero Dante in Netflix's new anime adaptation – mostly because no one told him it existed.

"I auditioned for something that was an unnamed, or untitled, project, and the character name was David," Bosch, who also plays the bad boy Nero in the Devil May Cry games, tells me during a recent Zoom interview. "So, when I found out that I got the role and that it was Devil May Cry and Dante, I was like, 'Wait a second.' I had to pause a minute and be like, 'You guys know that I have been a part of this series before?'"

"Eventually, I was told by Adi that he’d written the role for me," Bosch continues. "So that definitely carried a different weight on my shoulders, but also intense respect and honor."

Bosch's love for Capcom's gothic, demon-hunting series is clear from the moment his unruly version of Dante opens his smirky mouth in the new Netflix anime – as we commend Bosch for in our Devil May Cry review, the younger version of the familiar character oozes the kind of confidence you'd expect from a 20-something who can't die.

But Dante's effortless appeal had to be earned, Bosch reveals. In our conversation, he tells me that he mentally prepared to switch from silver-haired Nero to daddy issues Dante by dubbing "over all of DMC 3 – the cinematics – with like, four or five different takes, first starting off doing something identical to what was done, and then just trying to find a way that I could bring a different note to [Dante], or mean something more than what he’s saying."

"You know, from the games, we have this very specific Dante, this through line," Bosch tells me. "We have hints of the things that he’s gone through, and we see glimpses of it – so we know he’s had a very dark past." However, the games don't spend as much time on Dante's hurt as they do on the glamour of his cutthroat way of life, with brilliant hack 'n' slash combat executed, essentially, by shirtless models.

Netflix's new Devil May Cry anime, which is out now, and comes from Castlevania anime creator Adi Shankar, is more willing to plunge the dark.

"What’s really neat about this series is we get to experience [Dante] going through those things and discovering who he is," Bosch continues, "and then becoming that person that we’re more familiar with."

You can learn how to watch Netflix's new anime with our Devil May Cry release schedule, or peruse our list of the best anime on Netflix.