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Voice actors maintain a continuous presence in our lives. Providing the words for
announcements, commercials and characters in nearly every form of media
while they don't have the luxury of sharing their appearance, expression, or body
language, they have freedom from being typecast
and are not constrained by age, race,
gender, or even species.
They may work in solitude, or with an ensemble;
using their natural voice or character voices.
Above all these are actors.
Some classically trained, other self trained.
Most of these actors have worked for years, paying their dues before they became voice
acting specialists.
They have been compared to the musicians;
skilled, technical professionals, who get the job done efficiently and note perfect.
Who are these men and women whose voices we hear, and whose faces
are unfamiliar to us?
We could walk past these people on the street and never know they're on a hit television show,
movie, or our favorite video game.
Let's explore the world of voice acting,
and some of its unseen, yet shining stars.
From an early age I always did voices and um...
so when I moved to Los Angeles, I originally came out here sort of looking to
get into sort of sketch comedy and writing
and um..
what happened was, a few years after I'd been living out here I got a very interesting
call from my
writing agent, saying
"Hey, do you want to do a voice for
this Family Guy?"
and I was like-
"What Family Guy?" I first got into acting to be an actor, and I didn't know exactly what that was going to be.
um... My gateway was stage stuff, doing plays.
And then I started making movies with my friends, and
then started auditioning for TV and film stuff. ANd then I got into voice acting after that.
I went to school at the University of Michigan, and I was uh... I got a degree in musical theater
and psychology. Really..
Two very useful degrees.
Um, and I was in a dance class. And it was the end of the class, and
voices... I just... I did them all them all the time they would just come out
I knew that narration fascinated me.
Cartoon voices fascinated me... You know...
Whenever I saw good acting that I enjoyed.
And then I got an opportunity to audition for Juliard. Which I did, and I got in. and I went there for
four years.
So all together,
I trained in class for about ten years.
When I was a kid
I did this movie called Kindergarten Cop
and I made the horrible mistake of telling kids on the playground
"Oh Hey, I'm in this movie with Arnold Schwarzenegger" and I got bullied for it.
I had people pretending my friends. Fighting i was not a movie star with tons of
money and then hating me. So
It was awful. Um... but I did this show called Problem Child, the animated series based on the.. uh
I think they were in the nineties. Uh... the Problem Child movie series. And nobody
knew it was me
and I could tell only my friends and swear them to secrecy.
Nobody would ever find out, and I was like- "Wow, this is great. I get to be an
actor
and uh... I get the privacy, I get to have my own life.
My favorite aspect of voice acting is that you can completely play against type.
When I was
doing on-camera acting, even though I look pretty
Caucasian and I am American. I would audition for these parts that would be looking for like the all-American
dude and
I would always get asked "So what's your ethnic background?" And I would be like, I'm
American. I mean my mom's Hispanic, but you know, whatever
And that would always hamper me like that that wouldn't get considered for certain parts because
you know, I didn't look
American enough.
Or if i was auditioning for a Hispanic part, because I speak Spanish as well... Uh... I didn't look Hispanic enough. So I would always kind of
be on that line where I didn't look enough like this guy to get this part, and not enough like this guy to get this part.
But doesn't matter at all if you're doing voice over. At all.
I can play a big thundering lug whose voice is way down her or I can play a little tiny person, whose voice is way up here
and it sounds like a little girl.
And it's fine. I can do either one of those thing, and anything in between.
So i have to worry about like "uh... you look kind of like a nerd, so you're going to play t
he nerd." uh... Which is. That was my on camera experience.
You know I'm like "soap opera nerd." That's basically what I look like.
Not good-looking enough to be lead.
Not really freaky enough to look.. to be like "sitcom nerd." But voice acting, do anything
you want. Be a monster be a demon. Be a fairy. Whatever.
You can do anything you want. And that's what's awesome about it.
One of the fun things about animation
is people can't see you.
And I get very self-conscious. If you can see me, I don't want to look foolish, you know
"How am I sitting? How am I crossing my legs? How does my collar look?" There's a... There's
an appearance anxiety that doesn't exist if you're doing
voice over.
And it reminded me of telling kids, my kids when they were little, I'd tell them bedtime stories. We'd turn out
the lights. And they's really use their imagination. You could tell them all these fantastic stories because
you know they think of it... it's theater of the mind. People often think that
uh...
you know, to get into voice acting that they'll need to do all these crazy voices. You know people
come up to me all the time and they say "I do all these crazy voices, and all these impersonations and
um... you know I should totally be
a voice actor."
and I'm like "Okay, great that's, you know great. That stuff is good to have.
in your back pocket."
And some people are.. Some actors I know are really, really good at that
uh... but simple fact of the matter is
ninety percent of the time
I get hired to do this voice that I'm doing right now.
uh... Maybe make it a little younger. Maybe make it a little older. "It's hero time!"
In order to be believable different mediums, you need to emphasize different
thing. For instance,
when you'rr acting on film
uh... and certainly when I'm here talking to you and I... I'm on camera,
I want to make sure that I don't move too much,
because if I move around too much, I start to become sort of squirrelly, and
it becomes hard to listen to me. It literally becomes hard to hear the words that I'm
saying
if I move while I'm talking on camera,
So you'll notice that film actors,
they may do a lot of business
and then they stop and they talk to you. And when they talk to you they don't move.
That's exactly the opposite if you watch animated character.
For any character to look believable, and any Disney animator will show you this
they must move while they're talking.
While they're talking, they must move.
And if they stop moving the character falls dead.
They literally fall dead. That's why in video games you;ll see characters that have that
sort of constant motion,
because the video game animators don't want the character to fall dead.
So what's believable? Well, I think the main difference between voice work and on-camera work would be
that you have to portray all of your emotion through your voice in cartoons and voice acting. I mean
if I was doing on-camera acting, I could use my
facial expressions and body language to portray that, but in voice acting
I can also you know, you can see the cartoon, so they can draw and animate
body language, but
making the emotion come through in your voice the most important part. You know in on-camera acting
you can convey a feeling with and arch of an eyebrow or a
you know lip-curl or something
with your mouth or doing something with your face, that you don't have the ability to do
in voice acting.
You have to make that
intent
heard it through
the words you use and the way you use your voice, and
certain hesitations in your voice and certain tonalities in your voice and
pitches
that on-camera people just don't think about.
I've seen video of myself while voice acting, while trying to produce different
vocal characters.
I look insane.
I would never
act that way if I were on camera.
And actually it was quite shocking to see it because, you know i have seen myself on
camera,
and I certainly also know
what it means to act onstage and how... how you need to comport yourself
differently in order for people at a distance
to believe you're acting.
Original animation
used to be and some extent still is an ensemble affair
where you have about six actors in a room while with their own mics and
music stands where they have their scripts. It just depends on everyone's scheduling, an if they can
get people together
and obviously
if like I have a lot of lines with them, because it is cool to do it
together, cause you can get back and forth and feed off of each other, and feed off of each other's
energy. If I'm doing it by myself, sometimes they have uh... if someone else has recorded
before me for the same project,
then sometimes they can play acting my headphones and iI can hear the other
people's lines, and they'll play it in for me before my line, so I'll get the same
effect of being able to respond back like it was an actual conversation.
There are a lot of differences between
anime and
American animation and video games. Obviously the first thing in anime that the
animation already exists and the voice actors are dubbing. They are recording to
animation that already exists, and trying to match the lip-flap of the characters.
Now, that's true for the Japanese as well as for the Americans. That's just how the
Japanese like to do their animation. They like to do the animation first.
When we do the anime here in the U.S.
uh... they find that it's more cost effective
for studio time to record all the actors individually,
so we're going in one of the time into the studio to record or parts. But, we're still
having to match lip-flaps on the screen. It's just we don't necessarily have anyone
else to play off of. Video games are non-linear. They can have a lot of different
outcomes.
So,
you have to be there
um...
for... I mean you have to be giving a hundred and twenty percent for all of your deaths.
Every possible outcome for this character. You have to die on fire, you have
to die of a gunshot, you have to have your head cut off.
Most of the time I don't have a script ahead of time. um
Although, it depends. Sometimes if I'm... if it's a show they will send me the script.
I'll go into my booth and I'll, you know, I'll look at my auditions that I have
and um... I'll take a moment to in read
through it a couple of times,
familiarize myself with the text,
and then I'll hit record, and I will
record several takes,
and then I will stop and I will go and edit those
together, and sort of listen,
figure out if I like what I've done. If i don't, then I'll maybe do another one.
And by the way, then I will send that audition via MP3
uh... email to my agency.
"What changed is, we just came in and saved Wakanda from an alien invasion.
You're welcome by the way."
Usually I have prefer to stand because I feel like you have more energy standing.
I mean sitting can be kind of passive. And can just sort of get comfortable and kind of lazy
So if I'm standing, I can also do like
gestures in the booth,
like if I'm saying
"Pixie dust away!"
I'll usually be swing my arms, or chanting so
i do try to do a lot of body language because I feel like
people can tell through your voice. If you're up in front of a mic,
it doesn't matter that you're not in the actual,
physical place.
You still need to physicalize, you still need to do all of that, because that... that movement all of that
comes across in your voice. And you have to warm up your voice,
otherwise you'll lose it.
uh...
It must look weird, you know if I'm driving to the studio because I'm laughing. "Hehehehehe."
On the way to the studio. Of ocourse in Los Angeles, you know, people probably don't look twice.
"Look at that guy over there laughing maniacally in his car. It's just another... another kook
on the freeway.
*laughing*
*laughing*
*laughing*
I played George Bush
for the movie, Recount,
which was a... kind of a serious movie
uh... so they... It was kind of a parody, but they also needed a decent
George Bush voice,
cause they shot the actors who look like him
but they didn't uh...
they couldn't impersonate him, so they sort of shot him from behind. Had me come in afterwards, and I would
uh... I would give life to his... to his...
to his official performance. oI enjoyed that.
I also do Bill Clinton, obviously I'm never going to... um
I'm never going to live down certain things that happened during my term. That's true.
But I'm very proud of my wife, Hillary.
I'm extremely proud of her.
uh... You know, and of course, you know if I'm going to be doing presidents
uh... you know, I'm going to do Barack,
uh.. who I've done for, you know, American Dad and some other programs
which I... you know I can't share with you because
it's uh... confidential, uh... top secret information. The whole storyline behind Gargoyles was
not being
you know, it was very... it was very uh...
Martin Luther King in a way. You know it's like
being judged by the content of your character
We can't hide from the world,
we must live in it
We must search for allies,
kindred spirits.
And sometimes, we must take chances like we tonight.
To do otherwise
is to remain forever alone.
So, what I like to have is an age range, um...
a picture is great um... or a brief
description of the character, um... whether they're
you know maybe they're ditzy, maybe they're shy, maybe they're
you know anything that
characteristics that are going to
affect the way that you sound.
Um... like say you're uh... maybe if you're shy, maybe you don't talk very loud and you're a little bit introverted and
and shy and scared
or maybe if you're like... like if you're a tomboy, maybe you talk really fast and you're tough, and you're... you're gruff or
you know maybe if you're really smart, maybe you talk really fast, but maybe you talk very precisely.
There, yeah... you know it's funny because people will sometimes say
"um... I know you're a voice actor, but do you do any real acting?" It always... it always strikes me a little
bit like in my heart when they say that, because..
because it all is real acting to me. You know and it all
comes from.. you know the same place and...
and takes a lot of the same skills. I have a walk-in closet and I go into my closet with my computer,
and my little recording thing,
And I have my script up on my iPad, and I just
record it, send it. Every
once in a while I do have to go into my agent's office of a casting office, but for the most part
I do it from home.
Voice actors are very philanthropic people. They don't always talk
about it a lot
publicly, because that's not what they do it.
Uh... but there's all kinds of
things that they... they... everybody basically wants to give back
because they feel so
blessed in being in this industry.
I know myself,
um... I
I'm a part of this program that calls up
ill kids in hospitals, and...
in character. So I've... I've called as Spider-Man,
I've called as Green Lantern,
I've called as Jack from
Transformers. Um... I love doing that.
I tend to maybe sometimes be overly thankful of...
of my fanbase, or to my fanbase because
I'd... you know I'd be working in an office
if... if not for them. There are many aspects of voice acting; documentary work, commercial work... What do you want to do? Anything you can do, I think to... to explore acting,
whether it's
um... plays at school or local theater or
making movies with your friends.
I mean those are all things that I did, and I think
helped to prepare me for,
you know finding... you know finding what... what characters I do well with. I'd say the only
time I really get recognized in person for voice over would be people that...
that know me from a convention or something. I...
It's one of the little perks of VO, that uh...
you're pretty anonymous. You know for the
most part you can just go anywhere, and nobody has a clue who you are.