Wolves, Tigers and Wise Words: The Jungle Book with Voice Actor Rachael Naylor

Hello Creators,

In the first Guest Reader episode of 2026, we invited voice actor, director, and producer Rachel Naylor to share how to build a purposeful, patient, and community-driven life in voiceover—and then we will slow the room down together with a tender reading from The Jungle Book. It’s a blend of clear-eyed creative advice and comfort, designed for performers and makers who need both courage and quiet.

Rachel opens up about twenty-five years behind the mic across commercials, promos, games, animation, and documentary, and why mentoring newer voices isn’t a side project but part of the craft. 
She talks demos, directing sessions, and the daily habits that make a career resilient rather than brittle. If you’ve ever wondered how to follow your dream without burning out, her perspective is a calm, practical map: honour process, protect your energy, and keep showing up for the work you love.

This episode is for the sleepless creative who wants sustainable growth, kinder routines, and a bedtime ritual that actually works. Press play for a grounded take on voiceover life, stay for the soothing lullaby of a classic tale, and wake up with fresher focus for the work that matters. If this helped you rest or rethink your path, follow the show, share it with a friend who needs a calm night, and leave a short review to help more creatives find us.

Sweet dreams,
Florence x

Find Rachael:
www.elementsdemos.com
www.instagram.com/rachael.naylor

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

I love coaching and sharing my stories and my learnings with other people because I think that's really important. And I really believe that if more people followed their dreams and did what they love in this world, it would be a much happier place.

Meet Guest Reader Rachel Naylor

SPEAKER_01 0:17

Welcome to Sleepless Creatives, a sleep podcast for performers and creators just like you. I'm your host, Florence, and in today's episode, we have our first guest reader of 2026. And from now onwards, I have decided to expand this series just a little bit by adding one extra reader every year. So we'll be having five readers instead of four. So without further ado, here is voice actor and a good friend of mine, Rachel Naylor.

Rachel’s Career And Mission

Following Dreams Amid Challenges

Love For Animals And The Jungle Book

Where To Find Rachel Online

Settle In For The Reading

SPEAKER_00 0:49

Hello everybody! My name is Rachel Naylor, and I just want to start by saying thank you so much, Florence, for having me on your podcast. So Florence is amazing, by the way, everybody. She is an incredible voice actor, actor, podcast creator, and I've worked with her lots. I helped direct and produce her demos, her voiceover demos, and she's also been part of the Rachel Naylor Voiceover Accelerator program three times. So it really has been an honour to work with her. So, who am I? I am a voice actor. I'm also a director, a producer, a multi-award-winning entrepreneur. I'm CEO of a company called Elements Demos, which is a production company for voiceover demos, voice reels. And I also do a lot of coaching and training for voice actors. I'm also a mum as well. I love being a voice actor. It's something I've been doing for over 25 years now, which is kind of a bit crazy. And in that time I have been so lucky to work on lots of different projects from commercials to promos, video games, animation, documentaries, and um I really do believe it's the best job in the world. And I love to help other people who want to explore voiceovers and see if that's kind of the right path for them. I love coaching and sharing my stories and my learnings with other people because I think that's really important. And I really believe that if more people followed their dreams and did what they love in this world, it would be a much happier place. I'm a big believer in following your dreams and doing what you love. And I know it's not always easy, and life throws us so many challenges, but um stick with it. What am I going to do for you guys today? I love animals. Everybody who knows me knows I've always been I'm a big animal lover, I am a vegan, I've always been crazy about animals since I was really, really little. And my favourite animal is a wolf. One of my favourite stories from my childhood is, of course, have you guessed it yet? It's the jungle book. Um you can find me, I'm on social media, Rachel R-A-C-H-A-E-L, and then Nayla N-A-Y-L-O-R. The website is elementsdemos.com. If you're interested in a voiceover demo, yeah, reach out to me.

SPEAKER_01 3:24

So, take a minute to get cozy and comfortable, and then drift off.

The Jungle Book Reading Begins

Shere Khan’s Threat And Pack Law

The Man-Cub Enters The Cave

Raksha Defies Shere Khan

Naming Mowgli And Pack Council Law

SPEAKER_00 3:55

It was seven o'clock of a very warm evening in the Simone Hills when Father Wolf woke up from his day's rest, stretched himself, yawned, and spread out his paws one after the other to get rid of the sleepy feeling in their tips. Mother Wolf lay with her big grey nose dropped across her four tumbling, squealing cubs, and the moon shone into the mouth of the cave where they all lived. It is time to hunt again. He was going to spring downhill when a little shadow with a bushy tail crossed the threshold and whined, Good luck go with you, O chief of the wolves, and good luck and strong white teeth go with noble children that they may never forget the hungry in this world. It was the jackal, Tabakay, the dish licker, and the wolves of India despise Tabake, because he runs about making mischief and telling tales and eating rags and pieces of leather from the village rubbish heaps. But they are afraid of him too. Because Tabake, more than anyone else in the jungle, is apt to go mad. And then he forgets that he was ever afraid of anyone and runs through the forest, biting everything in his way. Even the tiger runs and hides when little Tabake goes mad, for madness is the most disgraceful thing that can overtake a wild creature. We call it hydrophobia, but they call it Diwani, the madness, and run. Enter then and look, said Father Wolf softly, but there is no food here. For a wolf, no, said Tabuke, but for so mean a person as myself, dry bone is a good feast. Who are we? The Gerda Log, the jackal people, to pick and choose. He scuttled to the back of the cave, where he found the bone of a buck with some meat on it, and sat crackling the end merrily. Oh thanks for this good meal, he said, licking his lips. How beautiful are the noble children, and how large are their eyes. And so young too, indeed, indeed, I might have remembered that the children of kings are men from the beginning. Now Tabakay knew as well as anyone else that there is nothing so unlucky as to compliment children to their faces. It pleased him to see Mother and Father Wolf look uncomfortable. Tabake sat still, rejoicing in the mischief that he had made, and then he said spitefully, Shir Khan, the big one, has shifted his hunting grounds. He will hunt among these hills for the next moon, so he told me. Shir Khan was the tiger who lived near the Wain Gunga River, twenty miles away. He has no right, Father Wolf began angrily. By the law of the jungle, he has no right to change his quarters without due warning. He will frighten every herd of game within ten miles, and I I have to kill for two these days. His mother did not call him Lungri, the lame one for nothing, said Mother Wolf quietly. He has been lame in one foot from his birth. That is why he has only killed cattle. Now the villagers of the Waingungo are angry with him, and he has come here to make our villagers angry. They will scour the jungle for him when he is far away, and we and our children must run when the grass is set alight. Indeed, we are very grateful to Shir Khan. Shall I tell him your gratitude? said Tabake. Out, snapped Father Wolf. Out and hunt with thy master. Thou hast done harm enough for one night. I go, said Tabake quietly. Yeah, can hear Shir Khan below in the thickets? I might have saved myself the message. Father Wolf listened, and below in the valley that run down to a little river he heard the dry, angry, snarly sing song whine of a tiger who has caught nothing, and does not care if all the jungle knows it. The fool, said Father Wolf, to begin a night's work with that noise. Does he think that our barker like his fat when gungo bullocks? Sh is neither bullock nor book he hunts tonight, said Mother Wolf. It is man. The wine had changed to a sort of humming purr that seemed to come from every quarter of the compass. It was the noise that bewildered woodcutters and gypsies sleeping in the open, and makes them run sometimes into the very mouth of the tiger. Man, said Father Wolf, showing all his white teeth. For are there not enough beetles and frogs in the tanks that he must eat man? And on our ground too. The law of the jungle, which never orders anything without a reason, forbids every beast to eat man except when he is killing to show his children how to kill, and then he must hunt outside the hunting grounds of his pack or tribe. The real reason for this is that man killing means, sooner or later, the arrival of white men on elephants, with guns and hundreds of brown men with gongs and rockets and torches. Then everybody in the jungle suffers. The reason the beasts give among themselves is that man is the weakest and most defenseless of all living things, and it is unsportsmanlike to touch him. They say too, and it is true, that man-eaters become mangy and lose their teeth. The purr grew louder and ended in the full-throated ah of the tiger's charge. And there was a howl, an untigerish howl from Shir Khan. He has missed, said Mother Wolf. What is it? Father Wolf ran out a few paces and heard Shir Khan muttering and mumbling savagely as he tumbled about in the scrub. The fool has had no more sense than to jump at a woodcutter's campfire and has burned his feet, said Father Wolf with a grunt. Tabuquet is with him. Something is coming uphill, said Mother Wolf, twitching one ear. Get ready. The bushes rustled a little in the thicket, and Father Wolf dropped with his hunches under him, ready for a leap. Then, if you had been watching, you would have seen the most wonderful thing in the world. The wolf checked in mid-spring. He made his bound before he saw what it was he was jumping at, and then he tried to stop himself. The result was that he shot up straight into the air for four or five feet, landing almost where he'd left ground. Man, he snapped. A man's cup, look. Directly in front of him, holding on by a low branch, stood a naked brown baby who could just walk. As soft and as dimpled, a little atom as ever came to a wolf's cave at night. He looked up into Father Wolf's face and laughed. Is that a man's cub? said Mother Wolf. I have never seen one. Bring it here. The wolf, accustomed to moving his own cubs, can, if necessary, mouth an egg without breaking it. And though Father Wolf's jaws closed right on the child's back, not a tooth even scratched the skin as he laid it down among the cubs. How little, how naked and how bold, said Mother Wolf softly. The baby was pushing his way between the cubs to get close to the warm inside. Aha! Is he taking his meal with the others? And so this is a man's cub. Now was there ever a wolf that could boast of a man's cub among her children? I have heard now and again of such a thing, but never in our pack or in my time, said Father Wolf. He is altogether without hair. I could kill him with a touch of my foot, but see, he looks up and is not afraid. The moonlight was blocked out of the mouth of the cave, for Shir Khan's great square head and shoulders were thrust into the entrance. Tabuquet behind him was squeaking My lord, my lord it went in here. Shir Khan does us great honour, said Father Wolf, but his eyes were very angry. What does Shir Khan need? Makwari A man's cub went this way, said Shir Khan. Its parents have run off. Give it to me. Shir Khan had jumped at a woodcutter's campfire, as Father Wolf had said, and was furious from the pain of his burnt feet. But Father Wolf knew that the mouth of the cave was too narrow for a tiger to come in by. Even where he was, Shir Khan's shoulders and foot paws cramped for want of room, as a man's would be if he tried to fight in a barrel. The wolves are a free people, said Father Wolf. They take orders from the head of the pack and not from any striped cattle killer. The man's cub is ours, to kill if we choose. Ye choose, ye do not speak. What talk is this of choosing? By the bull that I killed, am I to stand nosing into your dog's den for my fair dues? It is I, Shir Khan, who speak. The tiger's roar filled the cave with thunder. Mother Wolf shook herself clear of the cubs and sprang forward, her eyes like two green moons in the darkness, facing the blazing eyes of Shir Khan. It is I, Raksha, who answers. The man's cub is mine, Lungri mine to me. He shall not be killed. He shall live, to run with the pack and to hunt with the pack. And in the end, look you, hunter of little naked cubs, frog eaters, fish killer. He shall hunt thee. Now get hence, or by the sumber that I killed, I eat no starved cattle. Back thou ghost to thy mother. Burned beast of the jungle, lamer than ever thou camest into the world. Go. Father Wolf looked on amazed. He'd almost forgotten the days when he won Mother Wolf in fair fight from five other wolves, when she ran in the pack and was not called the demon for compliments' sake. Shikan might have faced Father Wolf, but he could not stand up against Mother Wolf, for he knew that where he was, she had all the advantage of the ground, and would fight to the death. So he backed out of the cave, mouth growling. And when he was clear, he shouted, Each dog barks on its own yard. We will see what the pack will say to this fostering of man cubs. The cub is mine, and to my teeth he will come in the end. The cub is mine, and to my teeth he will come in the end, O bush tailed thieves. Mother Wolf threw herself down, panting among the cubs, and Father Wolf said to her gravely, Shir Khan speaks this much truth. The cub must be shown to the pack. Wilt thou still keep him, mother? Keep him, she gasped. He came naked by night, alone and very hungry. Yet he was not afraid. Look, he has pushed one of my babes to one side already. And that lame butcher would have killed him, would have run off into the Waingunga, while the villagers here hunted through all our land in revenge. Keep him, assuredly, I will keep him. Lie still, little frog. O thou Mowgli, for Mowgli the Frog, I will call thee. The time will come when thou will hunt Shir Khan, as he has hunted thee. But what will our pack say? said Father Wolf. The law of the jungle lays down very clearly that any wolf may, when he marries, withdraw from the pack he belongs to. But as soon as his cubs are old enough to stand on their feet, he must bring them to the pack council, which is generally held once a month at full moon, in order that the other wolves may identify them. After that inspection, the cubs are free to run where they please. And until they have killed their first buck, no excuse is accepted if a grown wolf of the pack kills one of them. The punishment is death, where the murderer can be found. And if you think for a minute you will see that, this must be so.