VAM 176 | Interview with Jennifer Hale, Part 1
Welcome to episode 176 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
I’m honored to share with you the first part of my interview with a true giant in the world of voice acting, Jennifer Hale! Jennifer has been recognized by the Guinness Book of World Records as the most prolific video game voice actress! You may be familiar with her work as the Female Commander Shepard a.k.a. FemShep in the Mass Effect game franchise, Naomi Hunter in Metal Gear Solid, Sarah Palmer in Halo, Bastila Shan in Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, Rivet in Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart, and one of my personal favorites, Ashe in Overwatch! In animation, she’s played Avatar Kyoshi in Avatar: The Last Airbender and the Legend of Korra, Jean Grey in Wolverine and the X-men, and she also does the voice for Cinderella in numerous Disney animated shows and games.
One of the reasons I was so excited to get Jennifer on the podcast is not only does she have top notch acting skills, but she also has a passion for understanding the business side of the voice over industry. I’ve mentioned this in earlier episodes of the podcast, but if you want to consistently book work as a voice actor, it is vital to not only have professionally competitive acting skills, but also to have a solid understanding of the economic dynamics and business pressures of the industry. Such practical and financial knowledge will help you position yourself better in the voice over marketplace and also help you understand what you need to do to promote yourself as effectively as possible.
In this episode, we begin our discussion with Jennifer telling me how she broke into acting. It turns out she faced many challenges when growing up. She moved around a lot as a kid and was regularly made fun of at school. It didn’t help that her mother was often a single parent who wasn’t very enthusiastic about raising children. Facing such instability in her personal life, Jennifer’s survival technique was to become extremely independent and self-sufficient. She had to grow up quickly and take personal responsibility for her own journey through life. For example, the night before she had to audition at a performing arts high school, her mother went out to spend time with friends at a bar. Since there was no one to watch Jennifer if she stayed home, her mother took her along and had her sit in the parked car outside the bar until about 1 in the morning. Stuck in the car and having nothing else to do, Jennifer proceeded to memorize a monologue that she then performed eight hours later at 9am when she finally did arrive at the auditions for her high school. That’s an incredible amount of pressure to have to manage as a young person, but somehow Jennifer found her way through the difficult and daunting circumstances she faced. Her story is one of amazing resourcefulness and courage.
Jennifer is the first to admit that these hardships took a toll on her psychologically. She also mentions how important it was for her to get therapy in order to find a way to process these experiences in a healthy manner. However, the challenges she faced when she was young also helped sharpen her desire for freedom and independence. Lacking external guidance from her mother, Jennifer began to rely on her own internal compass when trying to figure out how to proceed in life. She speaks often about being taken over by the muse or some other inspiration that guided her in moments of challenge or crisis. That guidance would motivate her to take advantage of any acting opportunity that presented itself to her no matter how small. She always did her best to capitalize on those opportunities to the fullest. This meant that she gained many kinds of creative experiences as she was growing up. She not only worked as an actress, but she also worked behind the scenes as a production assistant helping film crews to make commercials and other content. This wide range of experience in the entertainment industry helped her greatly as she moved forward in her career. It also honed her internal guidance which eventually led her to the world of voice acting.
As I mention in the episode, Jennifer has two websites that offer more information and assistance.
One is her Patreon page which helps with financial education called the Haven which you can access at the link below:
https://www.patreon.com/jenniferhale
The other is SkillsHub.life, an online community by actors and for actors that allows members to access working creators and entertainment industry professionals who offer short, customized coaching opportunities to help you address a variety of topics, from improving your artistry, to managing your business strategy.
I hope you find those websites useful!
VAM 171 | Interview with Darin De Paul, Part 2
Welcome to episode 171 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
Welcome to second and final part of my interview with the fabulously energetic Darin De Paul! You may be familiar with his voice acting work in World of Warcraft, Star Wars: The Old Republic, Final Fantasy 15, Apex Legends, and Overwatch. Darin’s enthusiasm for his characters comes through in all the work he does and even spills over into conventions where he often will host panels and events for the fans!
In the previous episode, Darin told us about his extensive theater career and how it eventually led him to become a voice actor. He spent many years training and working as a theater actor both in Florida and in New York City, but he had always had an interest in voice over work. When the opportunity to get involved in voice acting came about later in his career, he eagerly pursued every voice over opportunity he could while working as a theater actor on the east coast. Eventually, he and his wife Debra who is also an actress, decided to take a risk and move to Los Angeles to see if they could be successful in a larger voice acting marketplace. Within months, Darin had impressed industry leading voice directors with his vocal range and acting skills. They were eager to work with him and news of his abilities soon spread! It didn’t take long before he was working regularly in AAA video games and animation.
As we continue our discussion, Darin tells me what inspired him to become a performer in the first place. He gives me a two word answer: Peter Sellers. At a very young age, Darin was smitten with the transformative acting abilities of Peter Sellers who is probably most famous for his portrayal of the character Inspector Clouseau in the Pink Panther series of comedy films. Sellers also worked on many other seminal movies including Dr. Strangelove, Stanley Kubrick’s Lolita and Being There. Sellers was notorious for his ability to play many different types of characters, sometimes in the same film! His mercurial skills fascinated Darin who wanted to approach acting with a similar sensibility. Ironically, Darin’s father, who ran an upscale clothing store for men that catered to some on-camera celebrities, once proclaimed that no son of his would become an actor! However, once his young son showed a genuine interest and commitment to acting, he changed his tune and was very supportive of Darin’s desire to become a performer.
After this, Darin and I talk extensively about the different kinds of theater and acting that he was exposed to. It’s fascinating to hear about all the talented performers and inspiring theatrical productions that he saw. Darin and I share a love of the theater and of the special magic that can happen on stage between actors and a live audience. Performing in the theater requires a level of imagination and spontaneity that is incredibly valuable in the world of voice acting! But Darin took this one step further! He actually trained in European Clown technique with David Shiner! This is the kind of clowning you might see in the world famous Cirque du Soleil, where actors adopt a persona, get themselves into some sort of predicament on stage, and then have to improvise their way out of the problem. I found my own European clown training to be some of the most challenging and rewarding acting instruction I ever received and Darin feels the same!
After we discuss our experiences studying European clowning, I then expound on my theory that one of the reasons the performances of the voice actors in the game Overwatch are so compelling is because each of them are in some way embodying their essential internal clowns. This brings an emotional authenticity to their acting that is deeply satisfying to the audience. Afterwards, Darin and I wrap up our discussion with Darin’s advice to the aspiring voice actor. We go very deep into the nuance and joy of performing in front of a live audience and I’m eager for you to absorb all you can from Darin’s amazing journey as an actor!
As I mentioned in the previous episode, I also want to thank Debra Cardona, Darin’s wife, for acting as recording engineer for Darin as we did this interview. I’m so grateful for her assistance!
Also, it turns out that the 10th anniversary of the Voice Acting Mastery podcast is rapidly approaching! It’s hard to believe, but it’s true! I released my first episode way back on July 1st, 2011, and I sincerely hope this podcast has been helpful to you. It has always been my goal to provide the most concise and useful content when it comes to this topic that we all love.
In honor of the podcast’s 10th anniversary, I would so appreciate it if any of my listeners would be willing to call in and leave a message about how Voice Acting Mastery has influenced your own acting journey or any other part of your life. I’d like to feature some of these messages and respond to them in the 10th anniversary episode in July.
You can leave a voicemail by calling 323-696-2655. Please remember to state your first name and what city in the world you’re calling from before leaving your message. Thanks again for listening and as always, I wish you all the best in your voice acting endeavors. Take care!
VAM 170 | Interview with Darin De Paul, Part 1
Welcome to episode 170 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
For today’s episode, I want to share with you the first part of my interview with the incredibly enthusiastic and completely inimitable Darin De Paul! Darin took the voice acting world by storm the moment he arrived in Los Angeles in 2013. You may know him as the voice of Blackhand in World of Warcraft, Warlords of Draenor, Emperor Valkorion in Star Wars: The Old Republic, Arden Izunia in Final Fantasy 15, Revenant in Apex Legends, and one of my personal favorites, Reinhardt in Overwatch. Darin’s passion for voice acting is infectious and he has become a fixture at many different fan conventions, including BlizzCon where he often hosts panels and events.
As we begin our discussion, Darin recounts to me the unique and serendipitous journey he took into the world of voice acting. Darin began his acting career in the theater. He spent many decades acting both in Florida where he was born and raised, as well as in New York City. While his focus was on stage performance, he had always had a fascination with character voice acting work. Unfortunately, most of the people he spoke to in New York told him that the majority of voice over work in the area was for commercials, not characters. This didn’t deter him however. While working on a show at the Shakespeare Theater of New Jersey, he met a man who ran a loop group. For those of you who don’t know, a loop group is a group of actors who are hired to provide the background voices in films and television shows. This particular loop group was about to work on the animated film, Ice Age, and Darin was eager to participate! He auditioned and was accepted. Because of his extensive theater background, Darin was able to improvise many different voices for the film and came away from that experience excited to do more. However, it took him quite a while to find an agent who would be willing to represent him as a voice over talent. Eventually, an agency did take a chance on him and sent him out to audition for a monster character in a commercial for an airline. He booked the job and has been hooked on voice acting ever since!
Even with his newfound success, it still took many years before Darin and his wife, Deborah who is also an actress, finally decided to take the plunge, leave New York and fly to Los Angeles to see what voice over and acting opportunities they could find in Southern California. It was a fortuitous decision. Within 6 months of landing in LA, Darin took a voice over class with Andrea Toyias at Blizzard Entertainment, impressed her with his abilities, and began working on projects with her. His voice over career has done nothing but expand since then.
What I love about talking with Darin is that you can feel how much appreciation he has for the craft of acting. He didn’t get into acting because he wanted to become famous. After all, pursuing an acting career in the theater is definitely not a path to great celebrity or vast riches. Instead, Darin’s love for characters and story inspired him to become an actor for the sheer artistic satisfaction of it. He just loved it so much. That passion for acting coupled with a deep commitment to continually challenging himself to grow as an artist, took his theatrical acting career in so many interesting directions, which you’ll hear about in this episode! Nowadays, Darin draws on the wealth of his diverse theater experiences when voice acting characters. I hope that listening to his journey will inspire you to broaden your own acting skills so you can apply the rich experience you gain to the characters that you voice, just like Darin does!
One last thing. Debra, Darin’s wife, was kind enough to be the sound engineer for Darin’s interview so you may hear her voice in the background from time to time. They often help each other out when one of them has to record something for an audition or an acting job. I’m so grateful to Debra for helping make this interview happen! So without further ado, here’s Darin.
VAM 169 | Interview with Zehra Fazal, Part 2
Welcome to episode 169 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
Welcome to the second and final part of my interview with the multi-talented, Zehra Fazal! Zehra has worked on well known animated shows including Young Justice, Voltron: Legendary Defender, and She-Ra and the Princesses of Power. She’s also worked extensively in games including Destiny 2: Beyond Light, Borderlands 3, and Apex Legends. Zehra works as an on-camera actor as well and has been featured in shows like How to Get Away with Murder and Lucifer. As if that weren’t enough, Zehra is also fluent in Japanese and her studies in Japanese language and culture eventually led to her interning at the Takarazuka Revue, a famous all female theater troupe in Japan. Zehra brings a wide range of acting experience to all of her performances and I’m so grateful to have her as as guest on the podcast!
In the previous episode, Zehra shared with us how she got started as a performer. Ever since she was little, she had always been fascinated with language. This helped inspire her not only to audition for and perform in plays at her school’s theater, but she also participated in speech and debate contests as well. Eventually, her appreciation for comics and animation led her to a convention for the Disney animated series, Gargoyles, where she gave an impressive performance in a staged radio play that took place at the event. The producer of Gargoyles, Greg Weisman, suggested that she might have a future as a voice actor. While she appreciated his compliment at the time, it wasn’t until many years later, once she had graduated college and worked extensively in theater in the Washington D.C. area, that she eventually decided to move to Los Angeles in order to pursue both voice acting and on-camera acting.
In part 2 of our discussion, I ask Zehra what inspired her to become an actor in the first place. She acknowledges that it wasn’t so much a conscious decision on her part, but more of an irresistible compulsion! Being the youngest of 4 daughters, Zehra had to master verbal communication skills at a very young age, just to get a word in edgewise! She also had to learn to empathize with the adults around her which helped her relate to others on a deeper emotional level. This allowed her to bring more authenticity to her acting since she had become good at seeing the world through other people’s eyes. We also discuss the challenges she faces being a woman of color trying to pursue acting in a primarily white cultural environment. Then we do a deep dive into her passion for the Takarazuka Revue, a theater troupe that has not only been deeply inspiring to Zehra but was also hugely influential on the god of anime and manga himself, Osamu Tezuka. After that, we wrap up our talk with Zehra’s advice to the aspiring voice actor. I truly appreciate Zehra’s honesty and vulnerability and I’m excited to share more of her story with you!
VAM 168 | Interview with Zehra Fazal, Part 1
Welcome to episode 168 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
I’m so excited to share with you the first part of my interview with the multi-talented, Zehra Fazal! You may know Zehra from her voice acting work as Nadia Rizavi in Voltron: Legendary Defender, Halo in Season 3 of Young Justice, and Mara in She-Ra and the Princesses of Power. In games Zehra has played the voice of the Guardian in Destiny 2: Beyond Light, Amara the Siren in Borderlands 3, and the AI Announcer in Apex Legends. Zehra also performs on-camera and has appeared in shows like How to Get Away with Murder and Lucifer. In addition, Zehra is fluent in Japanese and spent part of her college years studying in Japan. Her passion for the Japanese language and for Japanese theater eventually allowed her to intern at the Takarazuka Revue, a very famous all female theatre troupe that had a big influence on Osamu Tezuka, the godfather of anime and manga! As if that weren’t enough, Zehra has also written and performed numerous one woman shows including a musical comedy about her experiences growing up as a Muslim-American of South Asian descent.
In the first part of this interview, Zehra shares with us how she got started as a voice actor. She grew up in Indiana, the youngest of 4 sisters. All of her older siblings were very intelligent, articulate, and self-possessed which meant that Zehra had to be very precocious and sophisticated in order to be able to get a word in edgewise! Her parents emphasized the importance of academic achievement, but they had an appreciation for the arts as well. One branch of her family tree had actually been heavily involved in the Indian movie industry known as Bollywood. Since communication was such an important skill to have in her family, Zehra became fascinated with talking. She got involved in speech and debate contests and also performed in many of her high school plays.
Since she was a fan of animation and comics, Zehra initially thought she would go to college to study drawing with the goal of eventually becoming a graphic artist or animator. However, a visit to an animation convention as a high school graduation present, helped change the direction of her career path. In 2001 she attended the Gathering of the Gargoyles, a convention to celebrate the Disney animated series, Gargoyles which had drawn so many fans to its mature storytelling and sophisticated themes. One of the events at the convention was a staged radio play where fans of the show would audition to play parts in an original script that the show’s producer, Greg Weismann, had written especially for the event. Zehra auditioned and was cast as the NY Detective and lead female character from the Gargoyles series, Elisa Maza. After the radio play, Greg complimented her on her performance and suggested that she seriously consider pursuing voice acting in the future. While she didn’t think much of it at the time, Greg had planted a seed in her mind that would flower many years later!
Zehra’s journey towards a professional acting career is full of interesting twists and turns. At many points along the way, it was not always clear which direction she should go next. However, she always did her best to follow her fascination and inspiration even if it took her down paths that may have seemed tangential or not obviously related to pursuing a career as an actor. But I’ll let Zehra tell you all about her serendipitous and synchronistic adventures!
VAM 167 | Interview with Jon Bailey, Part 2
Welcome to episode 167 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 second and final part of my interview with the epic voice guy himself, Jon Bailey! While Jon has worked in a number of different fields in voice over, including commercials, trailers, games, and animation, he’s probably most famous for doing the voiceover for the hit YouTube series, Honest Trailers. Jon is also a huge Transformers fan and has had the opportunity to play Optimus Prime in Transformers: Combiner Wars, as well as both Shockwave and Soundwave in the Transformers movie, Bumblebee. In addition, Jon voice matches celebrities for trailers and movies including Ryan Reynolds, Chris Hemsworth, and many other performers!
In the first part of our talk together, Jon shared with me his unique path for breaking into the world of voice over. Even though he grew up in Memphis, Tennessee where there were few opportunities for voice over work, his fascination with the expressive capabilities of the human voice, his willingness to attack challenges head on, and some encouragement from his wife, helped him get the attention of a studio in his area that was holding open auditions. His passion for voice acting and his prodigious abilities helped him book voice over roles much quicker than other performers at the same studio. With an entrepreneurial mindset and a willingness to think outside the box, Jon was then able to expand into other voice over marketplaces including Los Angeles where he eventually relocated with his family.
In this episode, we talk about what inspired Jon to become a voice actor in the first place. What’s interesting is that Jon doesn’t think about his desire to act in terms of formal inspiration, for him playing pretend as imaginary characters was just fun. When he was young, he often had a lot of time to himself. Being alone so much, he had to find creative ways to entertain himself. He read books, played games, and listened to music, all of which helped inspire his creativity. Often while he was reading books or listening to music, he would visualize the stories or make up images in his mind to go with the melodies he heard. This creative visualization would end up serving him very well when it came time to play pretend in imaginary worlds as a voice actor.
Jon also fell in love with the voice over introduction to the classic 1980’s cartoon, Voltron: Defender of the Universe. Later he discovered that the voice actor who performed the show’s opening narration, Peter Cullen, also played the main hero character Optimus Prime in the Transformers animated series. From then on, Jon was hooked on following voice actors and studying their performances. His ability to combine his appreciation of voice actors with his fertile imagination and creativity became a great foundation on which to build his voice acting career. In our discussion, you can hear his enthusiasm for the vast expressive capabilities of the human voice. I hope his passion inspires you to focus on the aspects of voice acting that you find most fascinating.