Welcome to episode 234 of the Voice Acting Mastery podcast with yours truly, Crispin Freeman!

As always, you can listen to the podcast using the player above, or download the mp3 using the link at the bottom of this blog post. The podcast is also available via the iTunes Store online. Just follow this link to view the podcast in iTunes:

http://www.voiceactingmastery.com/podcast

This is the first part of my interview with the master of impressions, the uncanny and super talented, Jim Meskimen! Jim is probably best known for his ability to impersonate all sorts of famous people, including Robin Williams, Patrick Stewart, Tommy Lee Jones, Robert DeNiro, and George W. Bush. He’s been featured in YouTube videos as well as having been a contestant on America’s Got Talent! While Jim’s impressions are legendary, that’s only one of the well-honed tools he has in his acting toolbox. He’s also an accomplished actor in his own right appearing in films like Apollo 13, How the Grinch Stole Christmas, and Frost/Nixon. He’s played characters in TV shows like The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, Hunters, and Landman. As a voice actor, you may have heard him as Ron Howard in Family Guy, Ultron in Avengers Assemble, as well as Bataar, Daw, and Avatar Kuruk in Avatar the Last Airbender. Some of his game credits include Mr. Helpful in Five Nights at Freddy’s, Edwin Odesseiron in the first and second versions of Baldur’s Gate, and Thranduil in Lord of the Rings: Battle for Middle Earth II. He’s also been hired by Disney to voice match a number of their characters for different projects including the Genie from Aladdin and Merlin from The Sword and the Stone!

In this episode, I begin by asking Jim how he got started as a performer. Jim’s parents were both professional actors, working hard, doing their best to book roles and make ends meet. His father left the industry, and his parents separated, but his mother continued to pursue her acting career and eventually was cast in the hit show Happy Days as Mrs. Cunningham, the mother of the main character, Richie Cunningham. This was a transformative event for Jim’s family! Not only was his mother suddenly famous, but they were also much better off financially. Jim was able to observe the progression of his mother’s acting career, from early struggles to later success, and it helped him gain perspective on what it truly meant to be a working actor.

Ironically, Jim wasn’t that interested in acting when he was younger. He initially wanted to be a visual artist and studied drawing and painting all through school. He spent some of his college time in Madrid, Spain, studying painting with a famous artist there. It was during his time abroad that Jim had two revelations. The first was that the life of a painter was too solitary for his tastes. He wanted to pursue a career that allowed him to be more social. The second was that he ran into the famous actor Harvey Keitel on the streets of Madrid. Harvey was shooting a film there and Jim decided to go up to him and ask him some questions about acting. Harvey was kind enough to chat with Jim, and when they parted, Jim realized he was more excited discussing acting with Harvey than he had ever felt talking to visual artists about painting.

In that moment, Jim made the decision to pursue acting, and within 2 months, he arrived in New York to begin his acting journey. He got a job working as a character designer for secondary characters on the famous Rankin-Bass animated show, Thundercats, and used that income to help support himself financially as he did theater and improv. It didn’t take long before he was able to support himself with his acting work, especially when he started booking commercials. After 10 years as a professional performer in the Big Apple, he moved to LA to pursue on-camera work, as well as continue his work in voice over. Jim’s ability to do impressions was a special skill that helped him get the attention of casting directors all over town. However, he also made sure to develop his improv and acting abilities to a professionally competitive level so that he was marketable as an actor, regardless of whether or not he was impersonating someone else!

I’m eager to share Jim’s story with you, but before I do, I need to make one quick disclaimer. During this interview, Jim references a book that he found helpful early on in his career, Dianetics by L. Ron Hubbard. While I know that Jim appreciates this book, I also need to mention that it’s a foundational text for a religious organization. It’s our policy here at Voice Acting Mastery that we do not officially endorse any religious organization and that any mention of the book in this podcast should not be interpreted as an endorsement. Thanks for your understanding.

And with that out of the way, we can now dive into Jim’s interview and appreciate his many insights.

Download Voice Acting Mastery Episode #234 Here (MP3)