VAM 233 | Interview with Ben Diskin, Part 2
Welcome to episode 232 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 eager to share with you the second part of my interview with the multi-talented and Emmy award winning voice actor, Ben Diskin! You may know his work from animated shows like Hey Arnold!, Codename: Kids Next Door, Spectacular Spider-Man, He-Man and the Masters of the Universe, Hulk and the Agents of S.M.A.S.H., and the Muppet Babies! You may also recognize his voice in games like Final Fantasy 7: Rebirth, the Kingdom Hearts series of games, and Date Everything! You may even have heard him in anime shows like Blood+, Naruto Shippuden, Mobile Suit Gundam: The Origin, and Aggretsuko.
In the previous episode, Ben and I explored in detail how he got started as a voice actor. Ben was effectively offered agent representation before he was even born and was acting in commercials at the ripe old age of 3! Since his parents were both actors, they were able to help guide him through the industry, both artistically and professionally. They knew what it took to be believable on-camera, and they had a realistic understanding of the demands of pursuing an acting career.
Ben was exposed to both the joys of acting, and the possible negative ramifications of being a performer at a very early age. He was often typecast, which he found artistically limiting, and he also had to deal with negative feedback from his classmates at school, who assumed he was far more rich and famous than he actually was. All of this contributed to Ben’s desire to pursue voice acting, instead of on-camera acting, as a way to not only escape the typecasting trap, but also to be able to keep his private life and his professional life more separate. As a voice actor, he could act, and still keep his anonymity in everyday life.
While all of that might help explain why Ben left the on-camera world to pursue voice acting instead, I was still curious as to why he wanted to be a performer in the first place? Did he just start at such an early age that it seemed natural? Did he feel like he didn’t have any other choice? Ben answers me quite bluntly: he thinks that he’s an incredibly boring person, and so any opportunity he had to role play as someone else was appealing to him!
As my regular listeners might realize, this surprising answer does seem to contradict many of the ideas I’ve shared on the podcast about an actor valuing themselves and their inner universe of possibilities. So Ben and I dive deep into this subject to see if we can discover if there’s any way to reconcile his approach to acting, and my ideas about the acting process. We get very specific about how he thinks about characters, and what exactly he does to embody them, especially when he’s given very little information on which to base his acting choices.
Since Ben started acting when he was so young, it can be challenging for him to articulate his process. Nevertheless, I encourage you to listen closely to our conversation as I help tease out exactly why Ben got so good at voice acting. You’ll notice in his answers some familiar themes from earlier episodes: he watches a ton of media to understand the different styles of shows, he closely analyzes performances he admires in order to be able to reproduce them himself, he studies his fellow professional colleagues to see what he can learn from them, and he makes sure to physicalize his characters as much as possible. Ben has internalized the fundamentals of voice acting through immersion, intense focus, and repeated practice. Hopefully his story will inspire my listeners to do the same!
VAM 232 | Interview with Ben Diskin, Part 1
Welcome to episode 232 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 first part of my interview with the multi-talented and Emmy award winning voice actor, Ben Diskin! You may be familiar with his voice acting work in animation including Eugene in Hey Arnold!, Numbuh 1 and Numbuh 2 in Codename: Kids Next Door, Eddie Brock and Venom in Spectacular Spider-Man, Keldor/Skeletor in He-Man and the Masters of the Universe, Skaar, Bulldozer, Fandral and Miek in Hulk and the Agents of S.M.A.S.H., and both Gonzo and Rizzo the Rat in Muppet Babies for which he won a Daytime Emmy award! In games you may have heard him as Glenn Lodbrok in Final Fantasy 7: Rebirth, Young Xehanort in the Kingdom Hearts series of games, and Franklin Lieste in Date Everything! Some of his anime roles include Kai in Blood+, Sai Yamanaka in Naruto Shippuden, Char Aznable in Mobile Suit Gundam: The Origin, and Haida in Aggretsuko.
In the first part of our discussion, Ben shares with me how he got started as an actor. As crazy at it might sound, for all intents and purposes, Ben was signed to his first acting agent in utero! His parents were both actors in Los Angeles, and when his mother was pregnant with him, her agent offered to represent Ben once he was born. As a baby, Ben started getting cast in commercials and other acting roles on-camera. It certainly helped that both his parents could not only coach him on his performances, but that they also had a realistic understanding of the challenges of pursuing an acting career. Unlike some stage parents, they didn’t need Ben to become a big star, they were just happy if he was enjoying himself. Any money he might make they planned to save for his college fund.
Little did they know that Ben would not only enjoy acting, he would became passionate about it. Acting was so important to him that even as a young child, he was willing to put up with the tedium one regularly experiences on a live-action set. Shooting actors on film can be a slow and laborious process. Often you have to arrive very early to be put through hair and makeup even though you may just end up sitting around for hours after that, waiting to be called to perform your one scene. You can imagine how frustrating this might be to a young person, but Ben was so eager to act that he was willing to endure it as long as he got his chance to play pretend.
In fact, Ben was so committed to the process of acting, that he soon felt frustrated as producers began to typecast him. He was hungry to play all sorts of different characters, not just the slightly nerdy kids he was often hired to portray on screen. He discovered that voice acting could offer him the opportunity to play a wide range of roles, and he need only be limited by his ability to act, and the sound of his voice, rather than by his physical appearance. He quickly set about expanding his vocal range so he could play as many characters as possible.
One of the things I find most interesting about Ben’s journey is that he experienced both the highs and the lows of acting at such an early age. For example, his young psyche had to come to grips with how being famous might affect his relationships with his peers. Early in our time together, Ben shares with me his story about letting his friends on the playground know that he had been cast in the Arnold Schwarzenegger movie, Kindergarten Cop, and how through a series of misunderstandings, this actually damaged some of his friendships. He also shares with me an experience he had with a casting director who told him to his face to stop trying to play characters outside of where he was normally typecast. This experience made him so frustrated, that he resolved to find a way to prove that close-minded casting director wrong, by booking as many different types of characters as his vocal instrument would allow.
The pivotal mindset that supported Ben in the midst of these challenges was that he was fascinated with being an actor who could express things that were original and meaningful, and he cared very little about getting attention or approval from others. He was truly living the advice that I often repeat on this podcast, “Love the art in yourself more than yourself in the art”. I hope Ben’s story and his deep commitment to acting inspire all of you in the audience to do the same!
VAM 229 | How Voice Acting Culture Lost Its Way, And How Reclaiming Its Heritage Can Benefit You
Welcome to episode 229 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 want to take this episode to talk about a cultural shift that I’ve noticed in the voice acting world, especially amongst younger, more aspiring voice actors. It’s a shift away from the more traditional approach to acting as a form of artistry that deserves attention and devotion for its own sake, and a shift towards acting simply as a means to an end. Whether that end is getting yourself into projects because you’re a fan of animation and video games, or if that end values getting more personal attention as an influencer online, this disconnect from acting for its own sake is not really serving anyone in a sustainable way.
In the past, I’ve talked about the difference between how a fan approaches the professional voice acting world, and how a creator approaches that same environment. I’m sure my regular listeners are familiar with a piece of advice that I often give which is, “Love the art in yourself more than yourself in the art.”. It’s a slight rewording of the advice that the famous acting teacher Stanislavski gave to his students. I’ve actually explored this topic at length way back in episode 44 of the podcast entitled, “Do You Think Like an Artist?” where I expound on that Stanislavski quote in detail. I also touched on the subject in episode 218 entitled, “It’s Not About You: An Actor’s True Purpose Is To Serve The Art, Not To Become A Celebrity.”. In those episodes and others I’ve consistently emphasized that voice acting mastery comes from devotion to the art of acting first and foremost, and many of the voice actors I’ve interviewed on this podcast can confirm this. They’ve spent an enormous amount of time collaborating with other artists in focused acting environments in order for them to develop believable and authentic acting skills.
However, things have changed quite a bit since I first started voice acting. One of the biggest changes I’ve noticed is in my students. When I first began teaching voice acting classes in 2009, many of my students came from more traditional acting backgrounds, like theater or improv. These students might have participated in theater in school, or studied acting on camera. They usually had some experience collaborating with directors, writers, and other actors, and they brought that experience with them into my voice acting classes. What drew them to voice acting was often an appreciation for animation and video games, but they were an actor first, and a fan second.
That’s no longer the case today. At the time of the recording of this episode, the majority of voice acting students I encounter have almost no acting experience whatsoever. Not only have they never been in a traditional acting environment, more and more they seem to lack exposure to certain influential movies or TV shows where they can study some of the best performances out there. What makes things even more challenging is that many of them have been heavily marketed to by online salespeople who insist that voice acting is easy, and that all you need is a microphone and a spare closet and you too can get paid to speak words without knowing anything about acting. What inevitably follows is that a significant number of these students end up frustrated that they are not booking jobs as easily as they expected. This is because many of them are approaching this very challenging profession completely backwards, coming at it from influencer culture or fan culture rather than acting culture. This leaves many aspiring voice actors misinformed and lacking the context they need to succeed both artistically and professionally. A voice acting culture disconnected from a traditional acting culture is not a healthy one.
I want to address this disconnect in the current voice acting world by sharing my observations about how things have gotten this way over the years, and to remind my listeners that not only was it not always this way, but that we as actors have the power to reconnect with what we’ve lost. If any of my listeners out there have grown up in the current toxic soup of online anxiety, ever-shortening trend cycles, and the constant pressure to chase relevance and clout, I want to offer you some hope that you don’t need to feel this way forever. There is a different path. I believe that if I can provide some historical context and share what it was like before these current unhealthy trends took hold, I can help my listeners improve their artistry along with their resilience. A simple mindset shift can recalibrate your priorities and your expectations, which can help with any frustrations you might be experiencing, especially if voice acting is proving to be a bit more challenging than the online salespeople might have promised. In fact, I believe that the more of us who adopt a more traditional artistic mindset, the more we all stand to benefit, both as creative collaborators who get to work on better and better projects, but also as audience members who get to enjoy more nuanced and authentic performances in our entertainment.
So if you’ve been feeling stuck or confused in your voice acting journey, or if things aren’t going as smoothly or as quickly as you’d like, then allow me to help explain why embracing a traditional acting culture can be so beneficial for you.
VAM 227 | Interview with Alejandra Reynoso, Part 2
Welcome to episode 227 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 talented Alejandra Reynoso! You may be familiar with her work in animated shows like Winx Club and Castlevania. In games she’s worked on Metaphor: ReFantazio, Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin, and DOTA 2. In anime she’s worked on Secrets of the Silent Witch, The Medalist, the Mononoke films, and Pokemon Horizons! Alejandra and I have been fortunate enough to cross paths on a number of different projects and I’m always impressed with the authenticity and vulnerability of her performances!
In the previous episode Alejandra shared with me how she got started as a voice actress. She began as a child actress working in commercials and on-camera for many years before her agent recommended her to the voice over department when she was around 16 years old. She booked a guest character in one of the first projects she auditioned for, GI Joe Renegades, and other than taking a short sabbatical during college where she focused on her studies, she’s been voice acting professionally ever since!
In this segment, I ask Alejandra what inspired her to become an actor in the first place. From her perspective, she feels like she just sort of fell into acting and that it was never something she aspired to do on purpose from a young age. However, as we explore the topic more, she admits that she has always loved experiencing imaginary worlds. Playing make believe was one of her favorite pastimes. Also, her father had a great love for films and she took joy in participating in something that he appreciated.
When I ask why Alejandra decided to pursue acting rather than some other artistic endeavor like writing or drawing, she shares that she loved the idea of other people facilitating the process of creating stories and inviting her to collaborate with them while they were playing make believe. That creative endeavor was so important to her that she was willing to find ways to overcome the stage fright and nerves that often made her feel anxious and scared to perform. The characters and stories required her courage, so she jumped in and played pretend despite her fears!
After that, Alejandra and I wrap up our discussion with her advice to the aspiring voice actor. She emphasizes that any actor has to love the work of acting; not the attention, or the acclaim, but the day-to-day effort it takes to get good at acting. Without that work ethic, that stick-to-it-ivness, an actor may become disappointed or even despondent when their career goals don’t manifest quickly. Alejandra even has a great manifesto: The process of acting has to be so satisfying to you that even if you never book that one role you’ve been dreaming of playing, that the rest of your professional accomplishments will feel satisfying and worthwhile. It’s a fabulous way of looking at one’s career and I’m eager to share that and more of Alejandra’s wisdom with you!
VAM 226 | Interview with Alejandra Reynoso, Part 1
Welcome to episode 226 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 present to you my interview with the very talented Alejandra Reynoso! In the world of animation she’s probably most famous for playing Flora in Winx Club for Nickelodeon and Sypha in the popular Netflix animated series, Castlevania. In games she’s played Gallica in Metaphor: ReFantazio, Neon in Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin, and Dawnbreaker in DOTA 2. In anime she’s Monica Everett in Secrets of the Silent Witch, Hitomi Takamine in The Medalist, Asa in the series of Mononoke films, and the lead character Liko in the new Pokemon Horizons series!
I first came across Alejandra and her work when we were both cast in Pokemon Horizons where I play the adventurous Pokemon professor, Friede. I heard Alejandra’s performance as Liko and found it hopeful, idealistic, and endearing. Then, I was pleasantly surprised when right after Pokemon Horizons, we were both cast in the anime movie Mononoke: Phantom in the Rain where she voiced one of the main female leads, Asa, and I voiced the Medicine Seller. In that film, Alejandra played a grounded, confident young woman who was negotiating the complicated politics of the Japanese Imperial court. After hearing her in both roles, I was really impressed by her acting range and I knew I had to get her on the podcast!
The beginning of Alejandra’s acting journey almost sounds like it was lifted from a Hollywood fairytale! Her father worked as a film projectionist in Los Angeles and she would often accompany him to work in order to spend time with him and watch movies. When she was only 9 years old, an agent saw her playing in the lobby of the movie theater and thought she might do well as a child actress in commercials. Initially, Alejandra’s parents were nervous about her becoming an actress. They were all too familiar with the pressures put on child actors and they worried it would affect their daughter negatively. However, they didn’t want to restrict Alejandra from doing something that might bring her satisfaction, so they decided to ask her if she’d like to take acting classes to see if it would be something she’d enjoy.
Alejandra was open to the idea, and started studying at a school for child actors. It wasn’t long before she had caught the eye of another agent who wanted to represent her for commercial and on-camera work. After working with that agency for around 6 years, her agent then recommended her to their voice over department which was looking for young talent. Alejandra happened to book the very first audition the voice over department sent her which was for the animated show GI Joe: Renegades, where Troy Baker played her father. Alejandra instantly fell in love with voice acting and realized she wanted to make it her primary focus!
After graduating college, she had to make another choice about what career path to follow. She had been offered a job at a technology company who wanted her to work in their marketing department. While it seemed like a reliable choice, she lacked enthusiasm for the opportunity. She couldn’t stop thinking about pursuing an acting career instead. Fortunately, her parents supported her decision, so she notified her agents and told them that she’d be back in LA soon and was available for auditions. Her agents then sent her an audition for a character named Sypha for a new Castlevania animated series which she booked. It was an auspicious sign! It was as if the universe was endorsing her decision to pursue acting!
Much of Alejandra’s journey to becoming a voice actor can seem so serendipitous as to be almost magical, but if you listen closely, you’ll begin to detect the methods and principles that were supporting her on her path. The actions each aspiring voice actor must take in order to be professionally successful will obviously be unique to every actor, but the fundamental skills and mindset underneath those action journeys is very consistent. Pay attention to the things Alejandra did and the mindsets she adopted in order to be in the right place at the right time to take advantage of the opportunities that presented themselves. I think you’ll find it very helpful as you pursue your own voice acting goals!
VAM 225 | Interview with Michael Csurics, Part 2
Welcome to episode 225 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 head of the Los Angeles based recording studio Bright Skull Entertainment, Michael Csurics! As mentioned in the previous episode, Michael has worked as a voice director, casting director and audio engineer on numerous video games including Infinity Nikki, Lord of the Rings: Rise to War, and the current popular hit, Marvel Rivals. Since he’s such an accomplished director, I was very eager to get Michael on the podcast so he could share with my listeners what he’s looking for when it comes to finding actors for the projects he’s hired to record. His insights are especially relevant since this two part interview follows directly after episode 223 of the podcast entitled, “Want To Book More Work? Learn To Think Like A Producer.” If you haven’t already, I strongly recommend you listen to the two previous episodes, numbers 223 and 224, before continuing with this one. They will give you important context.
In the last interview segment, Michael shared with me how he got started as a voice director, specifically in the world of video games. While he did participate in theater at a young age, he wasn’t inspired to pursue acting. Instead, he got involved in the music industry as both a performer and a recording engineer. He eventually moved to New York City where he was hired to work at a record label. On his off-hours, Michael would also take jobs working on film post-production projects. Unfortunately, neither field really satisfied him, and it wasn’t until his girlfriend at the time, now his wife, gave him a book on recording audio for video games that he realized he had finally found his true calling. This was in the early 2000s when games were just getting sophisticated enough to be able to include voice actors, so Michael was trailblazing a career for himself in very new territory.
Normally, I begin the second part of any interview with my guests by asking them what inspired them to pursue their artistry in the first place. However, since Michael did such a good job of explaining that in the first part of the interview, I thought it might be better to kick off this part of our discussion by asking him what actors need to know in order to best collaborate with him. His answers should help you understand how better to think like a producer so you can improve both your chances of getting hired, as well as your ability to collaborate fruitfully on a project.
However, before I share Michael’s insights, I want to remind my listeners that at the end of the previous episode, I challenged you to try to anticipate what Michael’s advice might be. I hoped that by listening closely to what inspired Michael and to what he cared about most as an artist, that my audience would be able to predict what Michael is looking for in the actors he collaborates with. So, were you able to come up with any ideas? Do you feel that you were able to anticipate what Michael’s answers might be? Did you happen to write your answers down? If you haven’t, I would encourage you to pause this episode and take some time to put down your best guesses in writing before continuing on. Articulating your ideas in written language will not only keep you honest about what your mindset was before, but will also give you greater awareness and control of your own creative process later when you compare your answers to Michael’s.
Got your answers written down? Ready to know if your ideas match Michael’s? Well, it’s time to find out!