VAM 219 | Interview with Jamieson Price, Part 1
Welcome to episode 219 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 a man who was seemingly born with a voice acting sound, Jamieson Price! As of the release of this episode, he has over 500 credits on IMDb! You may be familiar with his work in anime where he’s played Lordgenome in Gurren Lagan, Rider in Fate/Zero, Zaizen in Witch Hunter Robin, and The Count Edmund Dantes in Gankutsuou: The Count of Montecristo. He’s also played parts in such classic anime as Akira, Appleseed, Lupin III: Castle of Caligostro, and Perfect Blue. In games he’s played Blaine Bloodhoof in World of Warcraft, Sojiro in Persona 5, and Ovan in the .hack//G.U. series of games. Jamieson worked extensively in the theater before he began his voice acting journey, and even played a part in Mel Gibson’s film, the Patriot which was released in the year 2000. Jamieson’s voice was one of the first that I heard when I came to Los Angeles to start working as a voice actor back in 2001 and it’s a pleasure to speak with him about his lengthy career.
Jamieson fell in love with acting as a young student. In 4th grade he participated in a school play. When a piece of the set fell over, he showed the amazing presence of mind to fix the set and keep on going with his performance. That’s when his parents knew he might just be an actor. When his 8th grade teacher introduced him to Shakespeare, Jamieson was immediately hooked. He participated in plays in both high school and college, but he planned to pursue a degree in psychology because he thought it was a more stable and reliable career path at the time.
Halfway through his college experience, he became disillusioned with psychology and decided that he would pursue an acting career instead. He was fortunate that his college required their theater majors not only to act in mainstage productions at the school, but also to work backstage in technical jobs. This technical theater training served Jamieson very well since it meant he was qualified to work as a technician at theaters, even when he wasn’t being hired as an actor!
After working in theater for many years including on some famous outdoor theater productions in Ohio, Jamieson felt like he had plateaued as an actor and decided he needed to go to graduate acting school to improve his skills. He was accepted at the California State University at Long Beach and earned his Master of Fine Arts degree there. Right after he graduated, he got cast in a play at the Long Beach playhouse, and happened to meet Dorothy Fahn, an actress who was working in anime at the time. Dorothy thought Jamieson might be a good fit for some of the characters on Digimon which both she and her husband Tom were working on. Jamieson started booking parts in anime dubs, which eventually lead to roles in video games and other voice over work as well.
While Jamieson had been pursuing on-camera work in addition to voice work after grad school, he quickly realized that voice over afforded him the opportunity to spend more time at home with his family, while still working as an actor. He decided to do his best to maximize his voice over opportunities and worked technical theater jobs for additional income.
Jamieson is one of those people who was born with a distinctive voice, which you’re about to experience in this interview! However, even gifted with such a resonant instrument, Jamieson still had to put in the time and effort to make sure his acting skills were professionally competitive in the Los Angeles marketplace. He started off playing smaller roles, and didn’t expect to land larger characters without proving himself first. By patiently applying himself, developing a reputation for being reliable and easy to work with, and constantly improving his acting skills, Jamieson has been able to carve out an impressive voice over career for himself, working on hundreds of projects. But I’ll let him fill you in on the details!
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