Will Friedle

William Alan Friedle (born August 11, 1976) is an American actor. He is best known for his role as Eric Matthews on the ABC sitcom Boy Meets World (1993–2000).

In animation, Friedle's first voice acting role was the lead role in Batman Beyond (1999–2001) where he provided the voice of Terry McGinnis / Batman. He also voiced Kim Possible 's sidekick, Ron Stoppable (2002–07), Doyle Blackwell on The Secret Saturdays (2008), Jaime Reyes / Blue Beetle on Batman: The Brave and the Bold (2008–11), Lion-O on the 2011 reboot of ThunderCats (2011–12), Bumblebee in the Transformers franchise (2013–16), Star-Lord on Guardians of the Galaxy (2015–19), and Kashaw Vesh in The Legend of Vox Machina (2022).

Early life
Friedle was born in Hartford, Connecticut, the youngest of three boys of Patricia Joan (née Leary) and Gary Allen Friedle, both lawyers. His older brothers are Gary and Greg Friedle. After committing himself to becoming an actor, Friedle continually commuted from Avon, Connecticut, to New York City for auditions. He graduated from Avon High School in 1994.

Friedle is allegedly credited on school brochures as having attended Occidental College. However, when interviewed on the February 11, 2019, episode of Critical Role: Between The Sheets, he admitted having never attended the school. He stated that he learned he was being inaccurately credited by Occidental College as being an alumnus when his nephew visited the school and showed him the information package. Occidental College is not able to confirm that Friedle was ever used on marketing brochures; however, co-star Rider Strong attended Occidental College briefly during the filming of Boy Meets World. Additionally, he stated that he studied Latin for six years because he intended to become an archaeologist eventually. In the July 4, 2006, issue of People, Friedle mentioned he had thought about attending culinary school.

Career
After co-hosting Nickelodeon's Don't Just Sit There for three seasons (1988–1991), Friedle's breakthrough came when he was cast as Cory Matthews's likeable but underachieving elder brother Eric on the long-running TV sitcom Boy Meets World from 1993 to 2000. In 1998, he starred with Elizabeth Harnois, Dabney Coleman, and Jay Thomas in My Date with the President's Daughter as part of The Wonderful World of Disney.

In 2004, he co-starred with Chris Owen in the independent film National Lampoon's Gold Diggers (originally titled Lady Killers). He also appeared in a supporting role in the 2005 ABC Family movie Everything You Want. Friedle was cast as Mike in the WB sitcom Off Centre, but could not accept the role because of a previous commitment to the UPN series The Random Years. The role ended up going to Eddie Kaye Thomas.

In December 2013, in spite of initial reluctance, it was announced that Friedle would reprise his Boy Meets World role of Eric Matthews on the sequel series Girl Meets World.

Voice acting


Friedle's first voice acting role was the lead role in Batman Beyond (1999–2001) where he provided the voice of Terry McGinnis / Batman. He has reprised this role in multiple DC animated projects such as The Zeta Project (2001), Static Shock (2004), Justice League Unlimited (2004), and Justice League: Crisis on Infinite Earths (2024). In April 2014, it was confirmed that Friedle reprised his Batman Beyond role of Terry McGinnis on the Batman Beyond short made by Darwyn Cooke to commemorate the 75th Anniversary of Batman.

Friedle voiced Seifer Almasy in the English-language version of the video game Kingdom Hearts II (2005), Gideon Wyeth in the English-language version of the video game Advent Rising (2005), and Jaster Rogue in the English-language version of the video game Rogue Galaxy (2005). From 2008 to 2011, he voiced Jaime Reyes / Blue Beetle on Batman: The Brave and the Bold.

In 2013, Entertainment Weekly commented that "Friedle has largely ditched on-camera acting for voiceover work" although the "prolific voice actor" is "nevertheless best known as Eric Matthews, Cory's cute but dim brother on Boy Meets World". In 2015, Bustle highlighted that "after Boy Meets World was over, Friedle mostly went on to do mainly animated voice roles" and that he has "provided the voice of characters like Ron Stoppable (Kim Possible), Fang (Teen Titans), Ken Tennyson (Ben 10: Alien Force), and Kid Flash (Teen Titans Go!) — which is literally just a small handful of the numerous cartoons his voice can be heard in, either as a series regular or just for a single episode".

From 2015 to 2019, he starred as Star-Lord on Guardians of the Galaxy.

In 2022, he reprised his role of Kashaw Vesh in The Legend of Vox Machina, an adaptation of the web series Critical Role; he originally appeared as Kashaw in the first campaign (2015–2017) of the actual play as a guest player. On June 15, 2022, Friedle voiced the character Radiant Black in a promotional short for the comic's fifteenth issue. The short can be viewed on the official Black Market Narrative YouTube channel.

Podcasts and web series
From July 2017 to November 2018, Friedle hosted three seasons of the web series Geek & Sundry Painters Guild. The show originated from Friedle "painting" a miniature with "magic marker" and, after discovering this, Marisha Ray pitched Friedle on a show where he would be taught to paint miniatures correctly by various experts. After the conclusion of that series, Ray reached out to pitch Mini Primetime (2019) where Friedle would host a similar painting show for Critical Role's new YouTube channel. On June 27, 2019, the premiere episode of Christy's Kitchen Throwback featuring Friedle was uploaded to Christy Carlson Romano's YouTube channel.

Friedle and Romano co-hosted the podcast called I Hear Voices from 2022 to 2023 which was available on Romano's YouTube channel and other podcast providers. In June 2022, the podcast did a Kim Possible 20th anniversary special episode with creators Mark McCorkle and Bob Schooley and voice actors John DiMaggio (Drakken) and Nicole Sullivan (Shego), as well as a brand new Kim Possible scene with the four actors written by McCorkle and Schooley and directed by original voice director Lisa Schaffer. He has hosted the Boy Meets World rewatch podcast Pod Meets World with Danielle Fishel and Rider Strong.

In 2024, he began to co-host the rewatch podcast Magical Rewind with Sabrina Bryan which focuses on Disney Channel Original Movies.

Personal life
In 1997, Friedle dated actress Jennifer Love Hewitt, and co-starred with her in the romantic teen comedy Trojan War. Hewitt made a guest appearance as Jennifer Love "Feffy" Fefferman in the Boy Meets World episode "And Then There Was Shawn".

Friedle is best friends with actor Jason Marsden and was the best man at Marsden's wedding in October 2004. The two have also worked together in numerous productions: Boy Meets World (until Marsden's departure from the series in season 3 and his character Jason Marsden was eventually replaced by Matthew Lawrence's character Jack Hunter starting in season 5), Trojan War, Static Shock, Kim Possible, Batman Beyond, Justice League Unlimited, Batman: The Brave and the Bold, ThunderCats, Transformers: Rescue Bots and Mad.

He married his girlfriend, Susan Martens, on September 25, 2016, in Connecticut. His affectionate name for her is Mrs. Squirrels, referencing Eric's nickname "Plays With Squirrels" from the final season of Boy Meets World.