Find the “Right” Voice

Today I’m chatting it up with voice actor, coach, and strategist Tom Dheere. We’re gonna talk about one of the more unrecognized parts of the entertainment industry. How voice acting truly works and what it takes to make words come out of the mouths of cartoon characters such as Homer Simpson and Bender. How there’s a fine line between voice acting and straight up impersonating your favorite movie characters. Chatterbox is available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music and YouTube at @Chatterbox-94. Don’t forget to check us out on IG @atkmedia_ #podcast #voiceacting #impersonations 

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:01

Late great president John F. Kennedy once said the only reason to give a speech is to change the world. Well Hooyah to President Kennedy and we miss you dearly. That's not the point. The point is speaking. Giving a speech. Being vocal, being open.

SPEAKER_03 0:22

On today's episode, we're going to talk about being vocal. Being open in speaking. Uh speaking in the world of entertainment. Shedding light on voices, voiceovers, the people who can shift, who can one minute sound southern, next minute can sound like they're dying, and before you know it, sound like they're an alien from another planet that we've never even heard of. So kick back, relax, prepare to hear some very interesting impersonations, forms of amusement, entertainment, maybe tickle your funny bone, maybe scare the living daylights out of you. And let's get started. Joining me today is acclaimed, renowned coach, voice actor, and specialist of all kinds. He's better than Billy West. He's better than Hank Azaria, Mr. Tom Deere. Oh my goodness, that was quite the setup.

SPEAKER_00 1:24

Thank you. Thank you for having me.

SPEAKER_03 1:27

You're welcome. So uh one thing that I think doesn't get part of the industry that doesn't get a lot of credit credibility is voice over work and voice acting, the people behind the cartoons, the people who made us love SpongeBob for all of you millennials out there. The reason why we even 30 years on have never grown tired of The Simpsons or Family Guy, etc. etc. Tell us more about this the voice industry. It deserves more recognition. Am I right?

SPEAKER_00 1:58

I would like to think so, uh considering I've been doing it for 30 years. Um yeah, it's it's it's one of the more interesting, like faceless uh vocations out there because anybody out there that you know of uh who is who uh does voiceovers is probably already a TV star or a film star. So they're not actually being a voice actor, they're being a product endorser. You know what I mean? But voiceover for me is it's all storytelling. It's the it's the art and science of storytelling because voice acting is an art, it is also um, it's also a craft. There's a lot of technique and a lot of technical qualities to it. It's really about seeking the author's truth and using purely the sound of your voice and everything behind that, your storytelling skills, is the ability to connect with the audience in the way that you need to be connected. Whether it's, you know, doing a car commercial or whether it's, you know, doing the cinematics in a video game in between the action sequences, or, you know, or whether it's helping employees pick out their insurance benefits, which this may sound crazy, is one of the most important and I think one of the most personally gratifying uh forms of voice acting that there is, because you're helping me people make very, very difficult choices under a difficult circumstance where they're terrified then they're not going to be able to pick the right prescription plan to make sure that their child gets the medication that they need. So I I I take my work, I don't take myself seriously, but I take my I take my art and my craft and my audience, regardless of the genre, very, very, very seriously.

SPEAKER_03 3:42

Yeah, I fully agree. It definitely is something that is there's a beauty to it, uh, at least I I feel, and people don't understand how tough it can be. Like whenever I do an impersonation of the godfather or the Don, I literally how do I put it? I have to use only half my mouth to be able to do it. Because you do have to remember he had a stroke. So to be like, oh my god. Folks, you're gonna be hearing some interesting tones, voices, and impersonations today, make them off you confuse. When I do that, I'm only using half my mouth to do the tone and the voice. Like, I try to put myself in that position. I'm like, okay, uh, you have a stroke, you can't use half your body. How are you going to communicate?

SPEAKER_04 4:33

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_03 4:34

Or what is it? Others I've done, I have to be holding my breath tightly the whole time I'm doing it. You have no idea what that does to your lungs.

SPEAKER_00 4:44

Right, right. Well, what you're talking about are all, you know, physical, physical things that you need to do to achieve a desired performative effect. And, you know, and for a lot of for for much of the work that is required, that's absolutely uh a part of it. But those physical uh techniques, while important, are all will only get you as far as your storytelling ability. You know, why is he, why has he decided to make an offer that he can't he can't refuse? Why did he bring him into the um bring him into the office to have this conversation? Who's in the con who's in the office with him? Why is he saying it in the way that he's saying it to the person that he's saying it when he's saying it? What's his motivation for saying it in the manner and using using that pseudo-humorous, I'll make I'll make him an offer that he can't refuse gesture. So so it's it's a matter of, to your point, complementing the physical things that you need to do to achieve the performative effect with the emotional and grounded in storytelling capabilities that you need to do to complement all of the physical stuff.

SPEAKER_03 5:49

Yes, yeah. And in regards to storytelling, would you say that uh the how do I put it? The cherry on top is the delivery. The delivery, like when you deliver that line, that's that's kind of storytelling. You want people to be intrigued by the story.

SPEAKER_00 6:05

Right. I mean, delivery is everything, but I tend to think of it gr more of a grounded, uh, you know, um I mean, I I went to college and I learned uh Sonia Moore Stanislavsky, which is a very specific uh one of one of Stanislavsky's students. For those of you who don't know, he was the the great Russian actor, director, author um uh in the uh early uh 20th century, late 19th century. And then when I went to the National Shakespeare Conservatory uh here in Manhattan, I learned I learned some other other techniques. So delivery is is extremely important as long as it's coming from a position of you being grounded. Um acting is about making strong choices in the moment. Now, with uh voice acting, you're reading off a script, these lines are predetermined. Um, I mean, I've been in recording sessions where that for time constraints or flow, they need to make alterations to the script on the fly, but 99% of the time, what happens, what's on the script is what I'm gonna say, and that is not gonna change. So, what I need to do is bring a life to the character and and bring bring everything I need to bring to the audience. So when I engage in the delivery, the delivery is uh grounded. Uh in most directed in a lot of directed recording sessions that I've had over the past 30 years, they'll say ABC that line. And that means give the the read the line three times in three different uh ways. And as long as I'm grounded, I can make uh adjustments and and do some slight recalibration to the delivery. Sometimes it's a matter of putting a little stress, you know, I will go to the store as opposed to I will go to the store. See how that completely changes? Yes, changes it, you know, just that minor inflection, you know, or elongating a vowel instead of saying maybe, or saying maybe. Again, that delivery completely, you know, is is a reflection of the motivation that the character has. So yeah, so delivery, just like the physical stuff you were talking about, all of it is very important, but it must be complemented and supplemented by good acting training and making strong acting choices in the moment.

SPEAKER_03 8:25

It seems like that thing that I believe in, which is where you kind of, when you read through the script and you kind of study the character, you have to absorb it in order to kind of develop their personality or at least get an understanding of what the writer's vision for their personality was when they were putting together this script, this screenplay. Uh me myself, I try to consider myself I consider myself a Shakespearean actor because when I'm given the script and I'm given the character, what I try to do is I try to absorb the elements of the character, their uh their motives, their desires, what makes them, what has pinned them in this position that they tend to act the way they do, give them a person not maybe they already have a personality, but in some instances, like with the project I'm currently working on, our director wanted me to basically give the character a backstory, which I did to kind of show how he went from A to B and became this ultimately a psychopath.

SPEAKER_00 9:25

Cool. It's interesting. Uh with Shakespeare specifically, they say that Shakespeare is uh is his text. Shakespeare, the writings of Shakespeare is a director in a can. Literally, what is in is what the words are is what you need to feel, what you need to look at, what you need to do, how you're reacting. But soft what light through yonder window breaks is in, oh, I'm looking over there. Yes, you know, or oh, I am slain is like, oh, I'm gonna die. Um, as opposed to Chekhov, which is his subtext. So if you're reading the Seagull or the Cherry Orchard or Uncle Vanya or any of these things, they're like on the surface, they're talking about the weather, but they're really talking about how much they hate their father. Shakespeare, that never happens. In Shakespeare, it's I hate my father, I hate him, I hate him three times, I want to do terrible things to him. But in Uncle Vanya, it's like, oh, you know, I think we're gonna have an early thaw, you know, and then they're but that's when they're talking about their father. So it's very interesting that you say that.

SPEAKER_03 10:29

Yeah, and also with Shakespeare, like uh one thing that drives me crazy is that so many people really spit on Shakespeare. They hate it. I don't really get why under any circumstances. Yes, I get it. It's a different form of English, but that's what makes it so beautiful. And also, I feel that it helps guide actors because you are l you have to read um a more complex form of the English language that we haven't seen in centuries, and use that to your advantage to really absorb it and by reading it again and again and again, because you can't get it all just by reading the lines once. You can kind of soak in and better understand the personality, the moment, what they're saying. Like when I think like uh Julius Caesar, friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears. I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him. You with Mark Anthony, that commanding strong presence, you are addressing the crowd. You are letting them know, hey, listen to me, all you. This is what I am here for. Focus on me in the moment.

SPEAKER_00 11:37

That's the nice thing about iambic pentameter, but it's also the danger of iambic pentameter. For those of you who don't know, when you hear it's basically the structure of Shakespeare's primarily early works. The farther he got along in his career, he the more he it was more prose. But soft, what light, through jan, der wind, do breaks. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten. Five trochies, five Iams. And that it lends great structure. It gives it a very poetic, melodic, lyrical quality, which is great. But the danger of that is that you fall into the habit of going, but soft, what light, through jon, der wind, doe breaks. Trying to reconcile the poetic structure of it, the lyrical structure of it, but also at the same time being grounded, having your motivations and making strong choices so you don't just fall back on this rhythmic quality. Because if you say all of Shakespeare's uh iambic pentameter stuff in that structured verse, you're gonna bore everyone to tears because they're just gonna get lulled to sleep because it'll sound nice, but it won't necessarily be communicating or emoting anything.

SPEAKER_03 12:42

So yeah, I mean me, I'm I'm one for tradition, like the whole the Baz Lerman version with Leo DiCaprio and Claire Danes. I actually hate that movie, believe it or not. And it's no insult to Leo's uh character or like John Leguizomi or anything like that. It's just I'm a little bit more one for tradition. If I'm gonna watch Romeo and Juliet, I'm gonna watch the uh Zephyrelli version that was done in '68. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:06

Oh, I was thinking of uh the Mel Gibson one also that was done in the 90s. Yeah. No, I'm not sure. I know which one you're talking about. The you're the talking uh with Olivia Hussey, yes.

SPEAKER_03 13:15

Correct. Uh my fun fact, my wife and I actually uh watched that movie together the night I asked her to be my girlfriend, because she looks very similar to Olivia Hussey, and uh I was like, well, you be my girlfriend. The rest is history. Nice. Yes, yeah. Yeah, but the way you said it, it's it's almost like when you do it that way, it's almost more like you're how do I put it, half-ass singing?

SPEAKER_02 13:43

It's done like in a lyrical sense.

SPEAKER_00 13:47

Yeah, I mean, you don't, you know, you know, poetry can can have the rhyme, can the rhyme scheme or the limerick or or whatever. And sometimes it's structured that way to help accentuate certain words to make the point, to make it funny or to make it sad or make it, you know, do whatever it's supposed to make them supposed to feel. But, you know, it's very easy to get lazy and just depend on the structure, on the structure of it to I mean, I said at the beginning, Shakespeare's text is directing in a can, but you can't, you know, you gotta meet it, you gotta meet it halfway and bring yourself and the work and the study and the history of it and the work you did with the director and the work you did with the other actors to, you know, get where you need to go to give the audience what they deserve.

SPEAKER_03 14:32

Yeah. People uh, and this is kind of like what got me into voice acting, but of course I did a bit more of my homework. And we were talking about this before. People who can do like tons of brilliant impersonations and stuff, they seem to think they're cut out for like voice acting with animation and stuff. What would you have to say to those kind of individuals?

SPEAKER_00 14:55

Like, I would say that storytelling is more important than any impersonation that you can make. And also, you know, when you're impersonating someone, that job's taken. Like, unless they're dead or got their voice cloned, unless and they got their and didn't get their voice cloned, like that job's taken. So unless you're gonna be a professional impersonator and you, you know, work the Vegas circuit doing that, you know, or doing a couple, that's more of a it's more of a stand-up comedy thing than it is a than it is a voice acting thing. I mean, I I can do my share of dialects and characters, um, and I have many friends who can do a whole bunch of stuff, but like 90, I'd say 95% of the voiceover industry of working blue-collar voice actors that do voiceover work that pays their bills uh is the e-learning modules, the explainers, the corporate, the uh the industrial. Um, there's a lot more work to be had, it's a lot less competitive, and the pay is a hell of a lot better. Like anime and video games, while that's the most exciting romantic form of voiceover work, it is extremely difficult to get, it's extremely difficult to do, and the pay is crap, to be perfectly honest. You know, so but you do it because you love it.

SPEAKER_03 16:12

Yeah, I've seen some of the websites, and some of it's like, what is that, submitted one uh voice for something, and it's still under review, which I think is kind of a good sign. Pay is 7,000 bucks for that one, as well. Others you see are like 150 or 50 bucks, or some are like uh, I don't know, charity-based. You're not gonna get paid a dime. And I I stopped doing like uh work for free a long time ago.

SPEAKER_00 16:38

There's each each genre of voiceover, this is something a lot of people don't aren't aware of, but each genre of voiceover has their own rate structure, how they get paid. Commercials, for example, um, you get paid a session fee, which is you get paid to record the voiceover, whether it's 15, 30, 60 seconds or whatever, and whether it's radio or TV or streaming or a YouTube pre-roll or whatever. And then the usage fee, which is how much you get paid to license your voice for it to be aired in this market for this amount of time. And that's some of the highest paying stuff. Audiobooks, on the other hand, is gets paid by the finished hour. So it doesn't matter how long it takes for you to record that hour of audiobook, you're gonna get paid for one hour. So if you take four hours to produce one hour of audio for that audiobook, take whatever that rate is and cut that into fourths. And that's basically what you're working for ergonomically. And there's finished minutes and there's per word, there's per page. Um, there's, you know, there's so many different uh pay structures for all of them. But yeah, most of the uh the the video game and animation stuff is based on a session fee. There's never usage for it. It gets aired as long as they want to air it, you know, as opposed to a commercial where one commercial could get aired and it could pay for your grandkids' college because they just keep airing it again and again and again, you know.

SPEAKER_03 18:07

I was gonna bring that up. Like they say one of the biggest uh uh bank bags uh in this in in the industry is actually commercials. Like most people don't know it. I was watching uh I love watching behind the scenes stuff uh about like with actors or movie making in order to better understand like the brilliance it takes to uh bring cinema to life. And it was one with J.K. Simmons, and most people don't know it, but the yellow MM in those uh in the MM's Christmas commercials, the yellow Eminem, that's actually J.K. Simmons. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 18:40

You think Santa's Billy West.

SPEAKER_01 18:43

I only met the guy. Yeah, he does exist.

SPEAKER_03 18:48

They do exist. Uh Santa? And the funny thing is, J.K. Simmons actually believed that he was meant to be the red M. Yeah, that's the one he auditioned for because he has a he shows it very well in the movie Whiplash. He's got like kind of a fast talking sort of uh hard ass kind of uh style of delivery. Uh I think the best example would be in the uh the Spider-Man movies. As J. Jonah Dameson, yeah. Correct, yes, yeah. So he very much uh felt that he was meant to be the red Eminem, but instead he uh he gets the yellow Eminem.

SPEAKER_00 19:25

I'd say I I would take that job.

SPEAKER_03 19:28

I would too, because it's am I right? It's easy money. It keeps recurring again and again and again. Every Christmas season, you know that the dollars are gonna come flooding into your bank account because they air that like I don't know, probably like 40 times every day.

SPEAKER_00 19:44

Uh yeah, it it airs quite a bit, uh, and it's been doing it for quite a long time. So those residuals must be uh pretty tasty.

SPEAKER_03 19:50

Yes, I definitely agree. If you were to like advise somebody on where to go in regards to voice acting, like what uh what the best target would be, would you say it would be commercial, audiobooks, or like where I don't want to say where the money's at, but where is the best place if you're like a newbie?

SPEAKER_00 20:15

If you want to get into voice acting, your job is to figure out how and where you can be relevant and effective. The best way to do that is to find a professional ethical voiceover coach who can give you objective feedback about your raw talent and then give you recommendations about which genre or genres of voiceover they think you would be best suited for. Um, because the the genres of voiceover that may attract you to the voiceover industry may not be the genres of voiceover that keep you in the voiceover industry. Because like when I decided I want to be a voice actor in you know 1994, I thought I would need to do commercials and sound like James Earl Jones. I do not sound like James Earl Jones. I never have, I never will.

SPEAKER_03 21:06

But same here. I've been trying to do Darth Vader perfectly for years, and I still cannot do it because your vocal folds are just not uh you know constructed in such a way to be conducive to that particular impression.

SPEAKER_00 21:20

Do you know who his competition was? Uh no.

SPEAKER_03 21:24

Orson Wells.

SPEAKER_00 21:25

Well, that's not surprising once the second you say it. That makes perfect.

SPEAKER_03 21:30

Uh for uh Orson Wells, however, um you'll hear a lot of shady stuff about him. He was difficult to work with. So I think that's why they said no and chose uh James L. Jones instead. And he only got paid seven thousand bucks for two and a half hours of work. But of course, turn back the clock to those day and age, that was a lot of money.

SPEAKER_00 21:51

Yeah, that was a lot of money. And and James L. Jones had done a couple of uh movies. He starred as a boxer. I don't remember the movie, the name of the movie, it escapes me but um That was kind of his introduction uh to the to the to the cinematic world. So uh great way to help. Thank you. I think was the great way to help. I think you're right. Thank you. Um but um finding a good coach uh who can guide you through the industry on a performative level, help you figure out which genres you'd be best for, coaching you up. This could take months or years and thousands and thousands of dollars. So let's just be totally honest about it. And then you need to get a demo, a voiceover demo produced for the genre in question so that you can market said demo in the genre that you're pursuing. But um uh SmartB marketing time, I would also say if you need to understand the business and marketing side of the voiceover industry, that's what I do as the voiceover strategist. I help guide voice actors of all experience levels through the voiceover industry. So I encourage everyone to book a 15-minute consult with me. Tell me what your interests and passions are, and I can kind of help point you in the right direction, recommend the right coach for you, and just give you some basic steps about what you need to do. I will say this is that I teach my students there are four pillars that you need to erect and stabilize to have any chance at voiceover. Training, demo, website, home recording studio. You need to get quality training from a good coach, you need to get a professionally produced genre demo, you need to build a website that's your marketing home base, and you need to build a home recording studio. This one is, I mean, all of them are critical, but um, 100% of your auditions that you're gonna be doing are from home. And probably, depending on where you live, 100% of your voiceover bookings are gonna be done at home. So if you do an audition, regardless of the source, whether it's an agent or a casting site or a contact that you developed, when you are submitting that audition, your talent is one thing, your performance and acting choices are another thing. But if your home studio isn't up to snuff, they will never, ever, ever book you because they're never gonna put out the extra money to get you in a studio. So this is extremely important. The training, demo, website, home recording studio. Now, for those of you who are listening, don't run out to Guitar Center and start buying stuff. Don't do that because you don't know what you're doing, you don't know what you're buying, you don't know what your space is gonna be, you don't know how you're gonna treat it, and you also haven't talked to a coach who could tell you whether this is something that's worth investing in anyway. So talk to a coach. I have a list of coaches on my VOStrategist blog that you can look at, contact them. They're friends of mine. I've interviewed them extensively, I trust them and endorse them. So go find a good coach. That's the biggest part of this all. Good coaching. Look, Tiger Woods has a coach, Mozart had a coach, all the Olympians have coaches, you need a coach too.

SPEAKER_03 24:41

And some crazy stuff has been happening at the Olympics. That's a fact.

SPEAKER_00 24:44

Fun fact that's a whole other story, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 24:47

Oh, yeah, yeah. The entire uh all the Israeli Olympians had their passports stolen. Oh no, I didn't know that. Yeah, and they still haven't recovered them. But that's politics, and I try to avoid politics on my show because it only makes things uglier than they already are in this world. I agree. Me, like uh, I've I've learned a few things from like um virtual seminars I've attended and stuff about uh when it comes to like voice acting and stuff, and like you s like you said, about like I guess one might say finding maybe not your genre or something. One thing I've reflected on a lot with the impersonations I can do and how I can shift my voice is it's usually something more in the horror kind of gritty element. Um, thinking about characters that I've kind of impersonated or portrayed, that being like Heath Ledger's version of the Joker, uh Dirty Harry, uh Hannibal Lecter, uh, and just even just trying to sound kind of like a demonic individual from the very depths of hell, using my own uh imagination and shifting my vocal cords to sound very uh death-defying and disturbing.

SPEAKER_00 26:05

That's cool. Um the the affectations of all that, which are really, really fun. Uh again, like I said, as long as they're grounded and they're from a, you know, you're not doing it for the sake of doing it, but you're doing it because it's originating from a character's motivation or maybe some kind of accident or injury that resulted in them speaking that way. Um, but for people who can do that sort of thing, audiobooks, fiction audiobooks, horror audiobooks, uh that could definitely uh that could definitely be a way to uh go. It's a very compet audiobooks is an extremely competitive. I mean, all I say this, I truly believe that there is no competition in the voiceover industry. I truly believe there's plenty of work for everybody that knows what they're doing. The question is, do we know uh what we're doing? Do we have technique? Do we have business acumen? Do we have the marketing savvy? Do we have the actual storytelling skills to complement the impressions and and and things like that? But yeah, that stuff's that stuff's a lot of fun. If you get the opportunity to do that in a professional environment, I mean that's a dream come true.

SPEAKER_03 27:08

Yeah, me, I I'm at least glad I have my at-home studio or a half-assed studio. It is basically what was supposed to be our dining room. Uh got the mic and everything, but at least I know this. When I'm here, I'm able to be in a state of zen and focus. And I think that's something that people also need to think about is that just because you're alone and have that element of privacy and stuff like that, does that really mean you're in the moment? You can't let your mind wander too much. You, as uh, as one of my coworkers said, you have to have your eyes on the prize, focus on what you're doing. If you're trying to be, if you have to do the voice of like an old, aging, dying, 80-year-old man, you need to, like you say, be grounded, be in that moment, and not just exercise your vocal muscles per se, but exercise your mind as to what would they sound like. Maybe think about like your grandfather and stuff like that.

SPEAKER_00 28:07

Yeah, absolutely. Um, you know, finding ways to use memories or experiences to uh ground yourself and make strong acting choices is a is a really uh great way to go. Lawrence Olivier once said, um, if I have a character and I need uh I need to cry, um I look at the experience that my act my character is having and I look for um the same experience that I have had in the past. And if I don't have the same experience that I've had in the past as this character, I look for a a similar experience. While it may not be the exact same experience, the emotion that happened within that experience is similar, so I can apply that. And then if that doesn't work, then I pluck a nose hair. Whatever gets you there, man.

SPEAKER_03 28:57

What is it? I saw one with John Luguziomi, and he said that for I think it was maybe for when he does Sid the Sloth in the Ice Age movies, there was one thing what he would do is he would like run in place frantically for a couple of minutes to exhaust himself in order to get that I'm out of breath kind of element. Yeah. Me, when it comes to like, I don't know, like triggering sadness and stuff like that, or triggering a level of fear, I reflect on things uh experiences I've had that have given me PTSD, even though you don't really want to reflect on that stuff. And uh I let that kind of pulsate through my brain in order to trigger the raw emotion.

SPEAKER_00 29:40

Yeah, uh, whatever you got to do to get there, as long as you're doing it uh to your point in a safe environment. You know, too many there's been too many stories of too many movie actors who got a little too lost in their character and um and and problems ensued, and it took them a while to uh you know get their, you know, claw their way back to reality.

SPEAKER_03 29:58

Yes, yeah. Just look at what happened to uh Shelly Duvall.

SPEAKER_00 30:02

There you go.

SPEAKER_03 30:03

There you go. Yeah, or Heath Ledger, the role killed him. Yeah, some some would say. Because there's so many conspiracies surrounding all of that, and like I know stories. What is it? Bill Skarsgard, when he played Pennywise the Clown, he was so in deep that he had nightmares about himself and ended up going to therapy. Malcolm McDowell, who played the legendary Alex Delage, um, he was, I think, like psychologically exhausted, where he went three days without an ounce of sleep under any circumstances from being a psychopath again and again and again.

SPEAKER_00 30:40

I have never watched Clockwork Orange.

SPEAKER_03 30:42

It's the most it's one of the most disturbing movies I've ever seen in my lifetime. And it's ironic because I share the same birthday with Stanley Kubrick, and he's my favorite director. He is amazing, yeah, was amazing. Yes, yeah, was definitely. Uh yeah, no. You're right. That's why, like, the one actor who I admire, and we don't hear him do much voice work, is uh Sir Anthony Hopkins.

SPEAKER_00 31:08

I think he's pushing 90 now, so I think he's uh I think he's you know semi-retired, so he does what work, you know. He he's very he he is also being an Academy Award-winning actor, he has the luxury of just you know choosing his roles, and he's probably just enjoying the good life uh in his golden days.

SPEAKER_03 31:24

But what he does, and this is how he avoids the whole like mental element, is he reads the script 365 times in a row. In so doing, he completely absorbs the character, every element of it, their personality, or he's built the personality for them. That's why like he was easily able to one minute be Hannibal Lecter and next minute be uh people call him Tony. He'd be Tony on set.

SPEAKER_00 31:52

Yeah, some actors like him are able to um draw a clean line and be able to go into and get out of character. There's other actors who insist on being called by their name, by their character's name on set, both of which I think are are totally valid as long as there's a level of psychological safety for both themselves and for the you know the people around them.

SPEAKER_03 32:11

Yeah, yeah. I I'm I'm not one. I don't agree with method acting. I'm not like Christian Bale under any circumstances, because that man pushed the limits to levels that even I don't think I'd ever be able to go to. I mean, I'd be willing to diet, I'd be willing to get fit for a role and stuff like that. Um what is it? One one play I was in, I actually played an Iranian shop owner, and what I did was this is the furth one of the furthest of methods I've ever gone. I went a whole week speaking only in an Iranian Arabic accent. I looked it up online to kind of try and study it and absorb it and practiced it again and again and again. I just went a week speaking with that accent. Uh no, no vocal change at all.

SPEAKER_00 32:54

Wow. Fascinating. It's funny what you said about method acting. Dustin Hoffman, when he did the Marathon Man, uh he uh I believe he was he slept on the streets for a few days to truly be able to get himself into character. And Laurence Olivier, who co-starred with him, said to him, Why don't you try acting, my dear boy? Uh so again, two great uh legendary actors, both with very different ways of getting to the same place. So I guess it's just whatever works for you.

SPEAKER_03 33:22

It is, yes, yeah. Um, as a voice actor, are you one who can do like certain voices and personations? Are you kind of like uh uh like Hank Azaria or Billy West, the people we mentioned uh prior?

SPEAKER_00 33:37

There are things I there are things I can do, but the majority of the time, I'd say 98% of the time, I'm I'm hired to be Tom. Tom, uh what I also call Tom Plus. Tom Plus is it's Tom, but a little more Tom. Thank you for very much for calling our company. For for customer service, press one to speak to a representative, press press two. For all other calls, please press three. Like that's a big chunk of the work uh that I do. Um and then for most of the e-learning stuff and the explainer stuff, it's just I'm be I'm just hired to be, I'm hired to be me, just to be a grounded, friendly, um, sincere uh guy next door who is like, you know, this is a pretty good product. You know, we can do this and this and this. So, you know, you may want to go to www.blah.com and check it out. You know, it's pretty cool. Like that's the vast majority of the work that I do. Like when I when I was in Red Dead Redemption and Red Dead Redemption 2, and when I played Inspector Gadget and Mad Time Party, like, yes, Cowboys and you know, getting my best, you know, Don Adams, you know, go, go, gadget roller skates, you know, whatever I did. Um, that sort of thing. Never mind, Penny. Like, you know, that sort of stuff. Like that comes up very, very rarely. And for me, it's a treat and it's fun, but it's funny because like that stuff, that and 50 cents gets me a phone call. You know, it's a you you audition for it, you book it, you get paid, and then you just go to the and you go to the next thing. When I'm narrating telephony projects, or when I'm narrating a series of explainer videos for a software company, or I'm narrating um e-learning modules to help uh students in other uh countries learn English, those are the clients I've had for 10, 15, 20, 30 years. You know, that's the work that sustains me. So, you know, Red Dead and Inspector Gadget, that's my street cred, but that doesn't pay for my Hawaii vacation. Uh, you know, doing all the e-learning stuff consistently, you know, and putting in doing good, solid, steady work, knowing that I can be dependent on again and again. Because like the the video game and the animation stuff is what I call audition and pray gigs. You audition for it, you pray. You most likely you're not going to get it. You may get it. Great, amazing, wonderful. But the the the the e-learning and the explainer, the corporate and stuff, that stuff I don't, I most of that stuff I don't even audition for. Like even to get on those rosters 10, 15, 20, 30 years ago, I didn't even audition. I just called them or emailed them or they found me or a friend said, Hey, you should work with Tom. And they just keep sending me work over and over and over again. And that's what makes the vast majority of my bot of my body of work as a voice actor. But when I get the opportunity to do the fun stuff, you know, I dive in, I dive in with both feet.

SPEAKER_03 36:27

Yeah, I I mean yeah, I I definitely am one more for the fun stuff, that's for sure. Like I I I'll never be able to reach the levels of like Billy West or Hank Azaria, but the just having that opportunity to completely twist your voice and people listen to it and they're like, is this the same guy we were talking to five minutes ago? That's where a lot of the joy is. That's where a lot of the magic comes from.

SPEAKER_00 36:53

I get a lot of joy from that too. I I have you I don't know if you've heard of Mad Balls.

SPEAKER_03 36:57

No, I haven't.

SPEAKER_00 36:58

Uh in the 90s, they were like these softball-sized squeezy toys that had all these different gross faces, and it was really big in the 90s, and they re-released the product line uh a few years ago, and I got to be the voice of seven of the mad balls in these series of YouTube videos, and I got in there was what there were multiple scenes where I got to play all seven of them right next to each other, going back and forth and doing exactly uh exactly uh what you talked about. And yeah, that's that is uh that's a real thrill. It's a lot of fun to do.

SPEAKER_03 37:30

Yeah. I I mean what is it? I I can do I th I can do some characters from The Simpsons. I can uh what is it? I can do a poo. Why are you crazy millennials? What are you doing? This is my quickie mutton, not yours. And Wiggum's a little more challenging per se, because you have to do it with like a sniffle. How do I put it?

SPEAKER_01 37:53

Wow, that was close. You see, we got this convict we were gonna fry tomorrow, but like now we can't.

SPEAKER_03 38:00

Nice. So I do have a few tricks as to how I do it. I think there I would yeah, with that, what was it, with another one? I've I don't want to say like suffocate myself per se, but I do have to kind No, but I have to kind of like hold my throat in a certain way in order to tighten it. Like that's another thing that people I think need to understand is that there is some physical work that gets put in. You can't just twist your voice like that with a snap of my fingers or anything like that. Sometimes you have to use a few tricks from time to tr time to time in order to have adjusted your your jaw and uh vocal muscles properly in order to get that delivery. I don't know if you're one who's had to do that because you were you like you said, you do a lot of like the e-learning and corporate uh related stuff.

SPEAKER_00 38:52

I mean, I've done thousands and thousands of voiceovers over the past 30 years, but yeah, the majority of it has been the non-broadcast content. But yeah, uh yeah, there has been I've I've had to do my share of vocal contortions. If you go to YouTube and type in uh Mad Balls Under the Bed, uh and you go you go hear me play all seven of those characters at the same time, you can uh you can get an idea of like you know the range, the range that I have, and it's always a pleasure to do stuff like that.

SPEAKER_03 39:17

Yes, yeah, it it really is. Um would you say that there's a a method to studying to uh in order to perfect those voices, like aside from coaching, ca because one thing I've done uh is I'll like if there's a a certain individual I try to impersonate or I try to be able to mimic their voice so that I could maybe use it later on to my advantage, is I'll watch footage of them multiple times and really I I feel that listening uh is kind of critical to it. Listen to the pronunciation, listen to the tone and everything.

SPEAKER_00 39:56

Um, I mean when I when I did Inspector Gadget, I I you know, I re- I watched those cartoons growing up, the original series, but I rewatched some of them to make sure I could get the the vocal cadence down and and things like that. But um I don't want people to get caught in the trap of the indication of doing uh of doing a voice. It's not doing a voice, it's playing a character that happens to have a certain voice. A lot of people getting into the voiceover industry, they they think they need to work from the outside in. Come up with a goofy, goofy voice and then you know, stick it on a r stick it on a roll. In my 30 years of doing this uh for a living, it's it's always from the the more of the most effective, grounded uh voice actors that keep working, all the work is done from the inside out. Who is this character? Where are they from? Why do they do what they do? What were their influences? And then let all of that character work inform the voice. So for me, the voice is more like what pair of shoes are they uh wearing and what life choices based on their physical situation or their taste in clothes or the money that they have access to informs the kind of shoes that they are wearing, or maybe they're not wearing any uh shoes at all, you know. Maybe they maybe they wear flip-flops or they wear Uggs or they don't wear shoes or they always walk around barefoot, regardless of the circumstance, whether they're in the Arctic. It's like, okay, well, that's a strong character choice. Where is that coming from? But if it's just like, eh, I don't think you wear shoes, it's like, okay, that's that's that's what's called indicating. You know, you want and indicating is death for voice actors. Indicating is burr, it's cold, I'm tired. Uh, you know, just putting this like thin affectation on top of everything. So I I always try to focus on starting on the inside and then working my way out, and then let my character work guide what what that what kind of voice that character is going to have. And sometimes it's something completely different from something that I envisioned before I started really drilling down into the role and doing the the work. Sometimes the sometimes the the the voice has surprised me because sometimes it's just me. Sometimes it is a cartoonish-like character. Sometimes, you know, it's it's you know, it's the guy that works at the pizzeria down the street or something similar to him, you know. So I recommend an inside out approach for for everybody. Let the don't find the voice, let the voice find you.

SPEAKER_03 42:42

Yeah, I definitely agree with that. Uh, what is it? Yeah, uh with like I said, I had mentioned John Luguziami with Ice Age. Apparently, to voice Sid the Sloth, he tried multiple accents. He tried sounding like uh a Chinese guy, he tried a southern accent. He and what is it? And finally he asked them, hey, just send me some footage, some National Geographic footage, so I can study what sloths were like. And he was watching it, and he they he studied like how the sloth behaved, and he was eating like I think it was a hamburger or a chicken sandwich, and he started talking with it in his mouth. And that's the secret behind Sid the sloth. He pretends he's eating a chicken sandwich.

SPEAKER_00 43:29

But I he did work behind before then to get him to that spot to make that to make that acting choice be uh organic. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_03 43:39

You have to experiment a little bit in order to find the right vibe. Like one that I do that amuses people is I'll do like an 80-year-old dying man, and uh I kind of think about like, because I've worked in healthcare uh before, and I think about some of the elderly patients uh that I've encountered. Uh but also kind of how do they they want to enjoy the last month?

SPEAKER_05 44:04

I'm like honey Irene Darling, look, I we've had a good run together. We have, and I know that I'm in I see you. Look please, there's one type of pill I need that'll satisfy everything and heal all this. Darling, get me a Viagra!

SPEAKER_00 44:28

Ha ha, nice.

SPEAKER_03 44:31

I use that one and it cracks people off a lot.

SPEAKER_00 44:35

Mission accomplished.

SPEAKER_03 44:36

Yes. But I definitely am glad that you you emphasize the whole impersonations. Yeah, you do that. You're right. You might as well just be doing a show in Vegas, Atlantic City, or Southern LA.

SPEAKER_00 44:49

Yeah, absolutely. You know, um, I mean, there's a time and place for everything. Because if you're in character and your character does an impression of somebody, you know, like, you know, Tom Cruise doing an impression of Jack Nicholson and a few good men for one line that cracked everybody up, you know, like that sort of thing is always good.

SPEAKER_03 45:07

Well, folks, uh if you want to be a voice actor and if you want to hear more and support this podcast, uh, you can check me out uh on YouTube at chatterbox-94. Don't forget to like and subscribe, leave your thoughts in the comment section below. You can DM me via Instagram. Don't forget to tune in. You can listen on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, pretty much anywhere you get your podcasts from. Uh I'm on Instagram, I'm at ATK Media. And uh for those of you who want to put in the voice work, well, now you know what you really need to do. Impersonations will only get you so far. It's putting in the work, the studying, and developing something fresh that'll actually get you the money. So uh it was great having you on the podcast here, Tom.

SPEAKER_00 45:54

Oh, it's my pleasure. Thanks so much for having me.

SPEAKER_03 45:57

No problem. Until next time, folks, stay high on life.