My first job was to scream. I was sealed in a bright recording booth in front of a large window. The project director and sound engineer stared at me from the other side, fingers poised on the knobs of the mixing console. My voice was frozen.
Scream, the director had said, scream like you’re being stabbed by a thousand needles—an apt description for my character suffering a crocodile bite. I was scared to touch the expensive equipment even though I knew I needed to pull the microphone down to my height. I glanced at the “pee stain,” as the other voice actors jokingly called it—a discoloration on the carpet beside the microphone stand, evidence of artists who had recorded in that booth over the years.
There was a sense of history in that George Mason University music recording studio room. Rows of sound mixers from different decades lined the wall beside the booth. Disarrayed rows of desks and worn carpet indicated where many performers before me poured their hopes, skills, and passions into making music, film, and animation projects come to life.
Are you ready?
Yes! I lied.
This was my first time recording a voice acting line, but I had theater, dance, and public speaking experience and spent three months in my university’s voice acting club. So, I felt like I should have been able to easily perform this one straightforward task. The director’s countdown ended, and I opened my mouth. Nothing came out, but I knew that the worst thing I could do was stay silent—so, finally, I screamed.
It took me two more takes, but when the director said, perfect, and the sound engineer grinned, I felt a rush of pride. My nerves had flown out with my voice, and I was eager to jump into the next lines.
Voice acting is a performing art and skill in which actors use their voice alone to portray a character, breathe life into narration, or create sound effects. Many types of media need voice acting, from audiobooks and video games to workplace training videos, animated TV shows, translated movies, and podcasts. Some voice actors are singers and also act on stage or in films.
Marlena Crowell, a voice-over artist and actor in Los Angeles, California, explains that “with acting on screen, everything’s very face-forward. Even a little bit of ego can stand in the way. But when it comes to voice acting, you really must drop that and give everything to the microphone. The audience can’t see your performance, so they must hear it. You have to be willing to just let everything go to give your best takes.”
When we spoke, Crowell gave an example of a common voice-over job. While filming a crowded coffee shop scene, the actors at the tables in the background stay silent so they don’t interfere with the leading characters’ lines. The background chatter we hear in the finished movie is recorded by voice artists in a studio later. This is one example of a process called looping, when audio is separately recorded then layered over a scene during the editing process.
For Crowell, voice acting lessons have led her to an especially welcoming community, where members are happy to connect one another to opportunities regardless of experience level. She explained that this is different from the film acting community, where egos and the need to know the right people can sometimes get in the way. In the synchronous online voice acting lessons Crowell attends, talents from different time zones gather to learn together—an echo of my first experience with voice acting in the George Mason University (GMU) Voice Acting Club.
In 2022, my friend and GMU classmate Allie Stanich and I were looking for a way to get more involved with our school and meet new people when we found flyers for the voice acting club. Both animation fans and thespians, we knew we had to attend. We met a talented group of students of diverse backgrounds, majors, and interests. Over the next four months, Allie and I participated in fun group acting exercises, such as improv games, as well as challenging lessons on breathing techniques and how to organize a character library—a log of information about the types of voices you’re able to do.
The president of the club at the time, Thomas Wallace—a voice actor, musician, and game designer—explained that students had enough courses to take, so he and the other officers didn’t want voice acting to feel like just another class to attend.
“My main goal was to foster a community of voice acting nerds,” he says. “I wanted to create a safe space where people that had the same interests as me could get together and make friends. In general, I wanted to create the kind of club I felt I was lacking when I was a college freshman.”
For Crowell and Wallace, a voice acting community became their missing piece. I was also inspired by the other voice actors I met, who brought to practice and the booth different approaches to characterization and demonstrated the unique skills needed to communicate emotions with voice alone.
The Art of Characterization
Who is your character? Who are you talking to? Why? When? What’s your relationship to other characters?
Crowell explained that almost every voice acting class starts with the W’s. A stellar performance hinges on getting into character. Even in looping, character relationships and awareness of the scene’s environment are key. Your relationship to the main characters and even the weather in the scene should impact your tone of voice and any improvised lines or sounds. If you’re talking to a child, do you change to a calmer and gentler voice? If your character is supposed to be out of breath, do you run in place before delivering your line?
Sometimes you have to develop your take on a character without much information. “Especially for animation or video games, they might only have a little stock photo of the character or one that an artist has created,” Crowell says. “You’re given a photo, a little description of who the character is, age range, maybe a voice type, and then just their script. For auditions, the script is usually about one page or less but sometimes it’s only one line.”
For Crowell, the photos are the most helpful. She’ll ask herself questions like, is the character short or tall? Are they colorful or moody? “And the director will say, ‘Do the lines for the character three different ways based on what you see in this character description.’ You look at what you’re given, and you come up with the best performance based on the tools you have and your training.”
Yuri Cantrell—a voice actor, artist, and writer—also asks themselves questions to help them shape the character. What are the character’s quirks? Why are they important to the story? What are their motivations? The additional information helps them breathe more life into the character.
Cantrell explains that sometimes directors or writers provide comparisons for the character, such as famous people or other media voices that they imagine their character to sound like. If you know the reference, you can try to emulate the intended voice and personality.
Wallace, on the other hand, starts with research: “A character’s voice can give the audience information about a character without the need for exposition. I research any information I have about a character (backstory, concept art, etc.), and then imagine what voice might best convey the story that the character has to tell. When recording for a role, I do my best to remember the context of the scene, and most importantly, how my character is supposed to feel in the scene. One of the main difficulties of voice acting is the lack of visual feedback, so, if my character is sad, I have to try and portray that as best as I can with sound.”
Like me, Allie voice acted for the first time through the GMU club. They shared that they start with studying the script, sometimes writing down all the lines repeatedly. “Sometimes I’ll listen to other types of music that give me the vibe of the character,” Allie explains. “And then I’ll often practice the lines and try out different voices and ways of reading the line. Sometimes I record those so I can listen back, but other times I get into a flow state where the character just comes together.”
Allie emphasized that their background in musical theater helps them portray characters. “Voice acting is conveying emotion through voice and being able to feel like I’m in the shoes of a character. I use those same techniques in musical theater. People have always made this joke, like where did you go when you were doing that scene or song? You look like you went to Mars. You didn’t look like you were here. And there’s just something about getting lost in a character like that.”
On the other hand, Crowell, also a singer, found that in front of the camera, she has to tone herself down to avoid the “theatrical acting” frowned upon in film. She found voice-over acting to have more freedom; you can be loud and make exaggerated movements to help the emotion show through your voice.
When I record voice lines, I find it easier to perform compared to on stage or camera because I only have to concentrate on my voice, rather than my body language and facial expression. When I approach a character, I first think about what may have happened in their lives so far that would have built up layers of emotions, leading to their own unique reactions to other characters or situations in the scene. Like Crowell and Cantrell, I ask myself questions. Would the character react bitterly or with embarrassment to this compliment? How far along in their frustration is this character: early stages or at their breaking point? It helps to imagine the scene playing out around me to remember that everything the character says doesn’t exist in a vacuum.
Voice Acting Gets Personal
Crowell first tried voice acting as a way to explore new outlets and acting opportunities as a person of color. “Once I learned about voice-over, I felt like it was another option for being an artist without having to worry about my looks, the color of my skin—things like that which really do still come into play in the industry where it’s like, do I have to wear my hair curly? Does it have to be straight today? Is somebody going to put a wig on me? With voice acting, I just get to be the character and that’s it. It makes me feel like I’ve been able to define success for myself.”
However, Crowell found that a lot of people believe that voice acting isn’t “real” acting because you aren’t visible to the audience, despite the level of training and skill involved. “Anybody can read, anybody can talk,” people say. But if you listen to a seasoned voice actor versus a novice, it’s night and day. “For a lot of people who are camera shy, who have always wanted to be an actor and don’t really know where to start or have that opportunity, I think voice-over is actually a great avenue for those who still want to express themselves,” she says.
The first voice actors Cantrell met lent their voices to the dubbed English versions of Japanese video games and anime. The anime and gaming conventions where Cantrell sells their artwork often host voice actors to sign autographs and lead Q&As or panels on the art of voice acting.
“I never really thought I would get into voice acting because I never liked the sound of my own voice,” Cantrell says. “But I realize you’re there to help someone shape their character, rather than yourself.”
Cantrell started voice acting for fan dub projects—in which fans gather to translate and voice-over media in another language. “Eventually I auditioned for the role of a young boy character, and that led me to join a larger community. It felt really good because I was able to see how a certain character developed over the time of the project. I used to really like young boy character voices because they’re fun and lively.”
However, Cantrell said that they’re in an unusual situation as a voice actor because their natural voice has changed since then. “When I first started voice acting, it was before I took HRT, hormone replacement therapy, and I had a higher pitch voice. Now that my voice has become a bit lower, I get roles like those for goddesses with more of a commanding voice, which I never really anticipated.”
Redefining Voice Acting Success
After a few GMU Voice Acting Club meetings, Allie and I auditioned for and received parts in the A Christmas Carol radio show produced by the club. Wallace edited the show, and it aired on the university’s WGMU radio station throughout December 2022. I played the part of Clara, Scrooge’s nephew’s wife. Allie sang in the ensemble of “God Bless Ye Merry, Gentlemen” and played both Belle, Scrooge’s past lover, and Mrs. Cratchit, the wife of Scrooge’s employee.
Hearing my voice on the broadcast felt strange—who hasn’t cringed at hearing their own voice in a recording? And yet it wasn’t my voice. It was Clara’s frustration and joy in the show. In theater, I didn’t hear a recording of the performance afterward. I didn’t get to ruminate over the emotions I was putting out into the world because it felt as if the lines disappeared as soon as they passed through my lips, absorbed into the live audience. The result of my time in the recording booth felt more permanent. I had the freedom to perform the lines multiple ways, experiment with the pitch of my voice, and play around with different sides of Clara.
That fall semester, the GMU club went on to partner with the university’s video game and audio production programs, where club members could voice characters for class projects. In dubbing the Disney Pixar short animation Partly Cloudy for one such project, Allie and I learned how to communicate without words, as the story is told through visuals, body language, and, perhaps most importantly, vocal sound effects including murmurs of disappointment, grunts of frustration, and shouts of surprise.
After three hours of recording screams and gasps, my voice was hoarse. I had made sounds I never thought I could. However, I felt like I had overcome my self-consciousness and put on a voice performance that satisfied the director.
Crowell explained that a successful voice-acting performance provides the director, producer, and sound designer with what they want along with options to pick from based on how the finished project turns out.
Wallace says, “Whenever I am performing, I always have my own ideas about the characters and what their story could be, and that is not always the same as what the director or writer envisions for the story. So, when both the director and I are satisfied with my performance, I see that as true success.”
Crowell added, “I think a lot of us need to realize that success is being an artist. If you’re getting paid for any version of your art, great! Because it is a tough world and a tough industry for everyone.”
As an artist who writes, paints, constructs costumes, and acts, I sometimes pressure myself to meet other people’s standards of “success.” Voice acting changed my perspective on what it means to be an actor and bring a character to life. It also helped me look inside myself to focus on my personal happiness with my art and enjoy the thrill of working collaboratively with other talents to take pride in a project.
Amanda Ellard is a former intern at the Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage and a fiction writer, editor, and artist. With a master’s in folklore studies and an MFA in creative writing, she is now working toward a PhD in English concentrated in creative writing.
