VAM 187 | Interview with Lucien Dodge, Part 2
Welcome to episode 187 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 back to the second and final part of my interview with voice actor and voice director, Lucien Dodge! You may know Lucien’s voice acting work from anime including Sailor Moon, Gundam: The Origin, Mobile Suit Gundam: Hathaway, Sword Art Online, Demon Slayer, and Fate/Zero! He’s also worked on games such as Dust: An Elysian Tail, League of Legends, Mad Max, and Smite. Lucien also voice directed me in the dub of the anime Yashahime: Princess Half-Demon where I played the main antagonist, Kirinmaru. We had such a great time working together that I was eager to get him on the podcast to talk about his own voice acting experiences and his approach to the art form.
In this episode, Lucien describes what inspired him to become a voice actor and how therapeutic the process of acting was for him, especially early in his career. He goes on to talk in detail about the Meisner Acting Technique and how foundational it was in helping him develop his own acting skills to a professionally competitive level. We then discuss how a technique like Meisner applies to playing cartoony characters and how much traditional acting training supports the more wacky or zany character voice acting you might hear in some animated shows. While an audience might initially be struck by the voice qualities of a certain character, such as Daffy Duck’s lisp, or Bug’s Bunny’s Brooklyn accent, what makes those characters compelling beyond those vocal pyrotechnics is the emotional authenticity of the character. That genuine emotional believability can only be achieved through top-notch acting skills.
Lucien is obsessed with finding that emotional authenticity in all of his work, and I could feel his sensitivity to sub-text when we were working on the dub of Yashahime. That’s why I was so glad to get him on the podcast, so he could share with my listeners how important it is to develop that nuanced understanding of human emotions and what it takes to be able to portray them believably in an acting situation. I’m not the only one who noticed this quality in Lucien. The famous voice actor, Corey Burton, also could see Lucien’s passion for acting and they developed a friendship over the years. Lucien learned so much from Corey about having a professional mindset, especially when Corey invited Lucien to watch a recording session for the animated show, the Boondocks. By observing some of the most talented voice actors in the business, Lucien truly understood just how competitive he needed to be in order to succeed as a voice actor in Los Angeles.
As this episode draws to a close, we wrap up our discussion with Lucien’s advice for the aspiring voice actor. He emphasizes how important it is for your own mental health to realize what aspects of your career are in your control, and what aspects of the voice acting world are not. If you can stay focused on developing the abilities you need to further your career, and let go of the aspects of the voice over industry that are beyond your power to influence, it can help you pursue your voice acting goals with less stress and more ease. Lucien also credits my interview with Jack Angel as helping him develop this more positive mindset.
It’s a great conclusion to our talk together, and I’m excited to share it with you.
VAM 186 | Interview with Lucien Dodge, Part 1
Welcome to episode 186 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 very pleased to share with you the first part of my interview with voice actor and voice director, Lucien Dodge! You may be familiar with Lucien’s voice acting work in anime including Zoisite in the Viz Media dub of Sailor Moon, Amuro Ray in Gundam: The Origin and Mobile Suit Gundam: Hathaway, Keita in Sword Art Online, Akaza and Kazumi in Demon Slayer, and Waver Velvet in Fate/Zero! In games he’s played Dust, in Dust: An Elysian Tail, Mega Gnar in League of Legends, Buzzard in Mad Max, and Dr. Vanus in Smite. Lucien also voice directed me in the dub of the anime Yashahime: Princess Half-Demon where I played the main antagonist, Kirinmaru. I had such a great time working with Lucien on that dub that I thought it would be a good idea to have him on the podcast to talk about his own voice acting experiences and his approach to the art form.
Lucien and I share a lot of similarities when it comes to our voice acting journeys. We both have a great appreciation for anime, we both were incredibly shy when we were young, and we both became fascinated with what it took to be able to share the most authentic and believable acting performances with our audiences. Lucien grew up in Ithaca, NY where he went to a private school with very small classes. While his school didn’t have an acting program per se, they did encourage all of their students to participate in a play every year. You might think that since Lucien was so shy, he would not have any interest in participating in the school play. It turns out that the opposite was actually the case. Lucien found that playing a character gave him permission to be more courageous and assertive than he would be if he had to perform in public as himself. I had a similar experience when I was young! Acting as a character gave me an opportunity to build up my own courage and confidence without feeling like I was making myself personally vulnerable to criticism.
Fortunately, Lucien’s mother noticed how much acting seemed to be helping him overcome his shyness. She encouraged him to pursue more acting opportunities, and helped him to attend acting classes based on Sanford Meisner’s techniques. She also helped him attend a convention for radio dramas known as the National Audio Theater Festival. But it wasn’t until a family friend gave Lucien the video box set of the anime series, The Slayers, as a birthday present, that Lucien discovered his love for anime. Coincidentally, that was the first anime show that I ever worked on! After Lucien saw it, he was hooked. For his next birthday, his father gave him a microphone and a small 4 track cassette recorder so Lucien could start practicing his voice over skills. Lucien became obsessed with trying out different kinds of voice acting with his new tools. Fun fact: I also had a 4 track recorder when I was young and actually recorded some of my earliest attempts at voice acting on it!
After high school, Lucien decided to pursue voice acting as a career. He spent a year in college, but quickly realized that it didn’t serve his purposes very well, and decided to dive into the voice over industry in New York City. I too began my voice acting career in New York. Lucien and I even got our first New York anime dubbing jobs from the same studio, TAJ Productions where I got my start on The Slayers and he first worked on an episode of Pokemon. Lucien faced many challenges pursuing voice acting in the Big Apple, and during his eventual move out to Los Angeles, but I’ll let him tell you all about his adventures himself!
VAM 185 | Interview with JP Karliak, Part 2
Welcome to episode 185 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 fabulous JP Karliak! You may be familiar with his extensive work in animation including Boss Baby: Back in Action, Spidey and His Amazing Friends, TrollsTopia, Dogs in Space, and the New Looney Toons! In games, he’s worked on Skylanders, Crash Bandicoot 4, and Marvel Avengers Academy. You can also hear him in anime shows like Fate/Grand Order the Movie and Neon Genesis Evangelion. He’s also the founder of Queer Vox, a not-for-profit training academy and community for LGBTQIA+ voice over talent, and co-founder of the non-partisan voter action group, NerdsVote.
In the previous episode, JP shared with us how he broke into voice acting. After seeing Disney’s animated film Aladdin as a child, he was convinced that only celebrities were cast to play animated characters. He pursued a more traditional acting career on stage and screen, but was pleasantly surprised to discover in college that his classmates appreciated his voice acting in their student film projects. One of his professors at the University of Southern California suggested he start taking voice over classes with professionals in the Los Angeles area, and JP quickly realized that he had found his niche!
In this episode, JP tells us what inspired him to become an actor in the first place. It turns out that JP had some very personal reasons why he found acting appealing. As a queer kid growing up in a small town culture that didn’t always approve of him, he had to spend a lot of time pretending that he was actually a straight person in order to fit in. Acting as characters in stories gave him the opportunity to play pretend without being self-conscious or worrying about satisfying other people’s cultural expectations. It was especially exciting for him if the character he was portraying was a powerful villain like his childhood favorite, Skeletor from He-Man and the Masters of the Universe! Inspired by his story, I then share with JP my personal reasons for pursuing acting, including the fact that I didn’t always fit in with the macho male stereotype that I felt pressured to adopt as a young boy. I’m sure JP and I aren’t the only ones who felt drawn to acting because it helped us explore and develop our emotional lives in a healthy way.
We then talk about QueerVox, the academy and community for queer actors that JP helped found with his colleague, and earlier guest on the podcast, Sarah Elmaleh. JP explains the inspiration for starting QueerVox, and how it has less to do with whether or not someone has the acting skills to be able to play someone other than their sexuality or gender identity, and more about making sure that queer actors benefit financially from the rise of queer characters and queer stories in entertainment. We also discuss how the industry keeps moving from a broadcasting paradigm where producers are trying to appeal to the broadest audience possible, to a narrowcasting paradigm where a show’s authenticity is important for securing a smaller, but more loyal fanbase. JP then talks about the different services that QueerVox offers both to aspiring talent, and to producers and casting directors who are looking to hire them! You can find out more about all of it at QueerVox.org.
After that, JP and I end our discussion with his advice to the aspiring voice actor and how he encourages all of his students to simply relax around their fellow industry professionals. It helps if you have interests and hobbies outside of voice over that you can share with your colleagues. That’s something that Dee Bradley Baker also mentioned in my interview with him back in episodes 146 and 147. Not only can sharing outside interests help you build a natural rapport with other voice over people, but it can also help replenish your own artistic well of creativity. Exploring this topic is a wonderful way to end our discussion and I’m happy I get to share JP’s insights with you!
VAM 184 | Interview with JP Karliak, Part 1
Welcome to episode 184 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 excited to share with you the first part of my interview with the incredibly talented, JP Karliak! He’s played characters in numerous animated shows including Boss Baby in The Boss Baby: Back in Action, the Green Goblin in Spidey and His Amazing Friends, Dante Crescendo in TrollsTopia, Happy, Bucky, and Luke in Dogs in Space and Wiley-E Coyote in the New Looney Toons. In games he’s played N. Tropy in Crash Bandicoot 4: It’s About Time, Wolfgang in Skylanders: Imaginators, and Vision in Marvel Avengers Academy. In anime he’s played Miruchi in Kuroko’s Basketball, Gawain in Fate/Grand Order the Movie, and Fuyutski in Neon Genesis Evangelion. He’s also the founder of Queer Vox a not-for-profit training academy and community for LGBTQIA+ voiceover actors and co-founder of the non-partisan voter action group, NerdsVote, which encourages all pop culture fans to get involved in American democracy. With all this going on, I’m not sure when JP finds time to sleep!
In the first part of our talk together, he tells me how he broke into the world of voice acting. While JP enjoyed watching Loony Toons when he was a kid, and had a special love for the character of Skeletor in the original He-Man animated series, he never thought that he would be able to voice those kinds of characters himself. He was familiar with the Disney animated film, Aladdin, where Robin Williams played the Genie character, and after seeing that film, JP assumed that one had to be a famous movie star in order to work on animated shows so he never thought it was a viable career path for himself. Instead, he decided to pursue more traditional forms of acting on stage and in front of the camera. He started college in the D.C. area where he focused on studying acting, but eventually transferred to the University of Southern California to finish his degree and pursue acting in the Los Angeles area.
At USC, a few of his classmates asked him to provide voices for some of their film and animation projects. He was happy to do so and was pleasantly surprised when he got positive feedback on his performances. He was encouraged to seek out Kelly Ward, a professor at USC who worked extensively as a director on many animated shows. Kelly suggested that JP take classes with working professionals in the LA voice over industry including voice actor Bob Bergen and voice director Ginny McSwain. While he did pursue some on-camera work in LA at the beginning of his career, JP quickly began to focus on voice over as the area where he felt most comfortable.
After discussing the origins of JP’s career, we then take the time to go over each stage of his voice acting journey in very close detail. I think it’s valuable to hear all the different small steps that someone took to reach their current level of success. When talking about someone’s experiences after the fact, it can often seem like the end result was inevitable. However, when you go back in time and look through that person’s perspective from moment to moment, you begin to realize that they were just trying to do the best they could,with the resources they had at the time, as well as the options in front of them! No outcome is guaranteed, and often the path forward can seem confusing or unclear when you’re trying to navigate it in the present moment. Hopefully hearing the challenges that JP faced and overcame as he was negotiating his career path will help inspire you to persevere in your own voice acting journey!
VAM 181 | Interview with Amanda C. Miller, Part 2
Welcome to episode 181 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 Amanda C. Miller! Amanda has worked extensively in animation, video games, and anime including Boruto: Naruto Next Generations, Sailor Moon and Sailor Moon Crystal, and the Dangan Ronpa video games. In American animation, she’s worked on Netlix’s She-Ra and the Princesses of Power, Kid Cosmic, and DC Super Hero Girls. Amanda also works on-camera as an actor and behind the scenes as a writer and producer of her own web series! Having recently moved to Atlanta, Georgia to pursue acting opportunities there, she brings a unique perspective on how to manage an acting career where she works both in Atlanta and on remote voice acting projects in LA.
In the previous episode, Amanda explained how she broke into voice acting. While she initially intended to pursue a career as a theater actor in New York city after graduating from college, she changed her career trajectory after taking a voice acting class with veteran voice actor and director, Tony Oliver. His feedback encouraged her to pursue voice acting in Los Angeles instead. Amanda moved to LA, interned at Bang Zoom studios, and quickly learned what it took to work professionally as a voice actor. There was no magic “break through” moment where she was suddenly discovered. In fact, she didn’t win the 2009 AX Idol voice acting competition held at Anime Expo, but was only a runner up. That didn’t stop her. She continued to develop her abilities as a voice actress. Her success is due to the fact that she can deliver consistent, believable, and professionally competitive performances over and over again.
In this episode, we dive into what inspired Amanda to become an actor in the first place. Amanda was a very shy and sensitive child who moved around a lot due to her father being in the military. While she couldn’t control her circumstances or her surroundings, she did develop a rich imagination. She would create characters and stories where she could explore different emotions, relationships, and situations. Her fantasy life definitely helped inspire her acting pursuits! We also talk about what it’s been like for her to play a beloved character from her childhood, Sailor Jupiter in the Sailor Moon and Sailor Moon Crystal anime series. We then get into a discussion about how you can find satisfaction in the face of the uncertainty and volatility of an acting career. At the end of our talk, Amanda shares with us her advice to the aspiring voice actor including how important it is to find value as a human being regardless of how successful you are in your career! So without further ado, here’s Amanda!
VAM 180 | Interview with Amanda C. Miller, Part 1
Welcome to episode 180 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 very happy to present the first part of my interview with the multi-talented Amanda C. Miller! Amanda has played many famous characters in animation, video games, and anime including Boruto in Boruto: Naruto Next Generations, Sailor Jupiter in Sailor Moon and Sailor Moon Crystal, and the characters Junko and Toko in the Dangan Ronpa video games. In American animation, she’s played Flutterina in Netlix’s She-Ra and the Princesses of Power, and Jo in Kid Cosmic, the new animated series from Powerpuff Girls creator, Craig McCracken! Amanda also works on-camera in films and web series, including the comedic web series, Ghosts ’n Stuff, Inc. where she co-produced and wrote many of the episodes! I’m excited to get her perspective on the voice acting industry as well as what it’s been like for her starting her career in Los Angeles and having now moved to continue her career in Atlanta, Georgia.
Amanda had an international upbringing. A self-proclaimed Air Force brat, Amanda was born in Germany and spent much of her childhood traveling back and forth between Germany, Florida, and Maryland, eventually settling down in Maryland after she was in the 7th grade. She started participating in her school’s theater program during middle school and high school and had every intention of graduating college and moving to New York to do Broadway theater. However, while in college at the University of Maryland, she had the opportunity to take a voice over class with Tony Oliver from Bang Zoom recording studios. After the class, Tony told her that she had real potential as a voice actress. She decided that instead of pursuing acting in New York after graduating college, she would move to Los Angeles to pursue voice acting opportunities there. She applied for an internship at Bang Zoom, was accepted, and began to learn about the voice over industry during her time there. This eventually gave her the opportunity to start auditioning for voice over work. As she repeatedly demonstrated her ability to perform characters at a professionally competitive level, she gained access to more voice over opportunities which allowed her to pursue union voice over work and to eventually land an agent.
I enjoy talking with Amanda about her journey because like me, she was a very shy child. She was not gregarious and outgoing as most people expect actors to be. Instead, what drove her to perform was the desire to bring characters and stories to life, not to get attention from others. She understood that in order to achieve continuing success as a professional actor, she had to apply herself diligently to doing the “boring work” as she puts it of being able to give consistently believable performances as well as being reliable and easy to work with. She also did her best to network with fellow actors and reach out to studios to market her skills to them. She even emailed yours truly back in 2009 when she took an acting class with a classmate of mine from Graduate Acting School. My classmate had suggested that Amanda reach out to me directly to ask about the voice over industry in LA! Amanda’s ability to be courageous in connecting with industry professionals coupled with her sustained commitment to honing her acting skills has truly served her well and I’m eager to share her story with you!