Welcome to episode 215 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 back with the second part of my interview with the ridiculously talented David Errigo Jr.! David has worked on animated shows like Tiny Toons Looniversity, X-men ’97, Phineas and Ferb, and Ridley Jones where he was nominated for an emmy for his performance as the character Dudley! In video games, he’s been in Disney Speedstorm, Disney Dreamlight Valley, Harry Potter: Quidditch Champions, and Shin Megami Tensei V and V: Vengeance. In anime he’s worked on Yu-Gi-Oh, Pokemon, Tezuka’s anime Pluto, and the new production of Ranma 1/2!

In the previous episode, David shared with me how he got started as a voice actor. In Middle School he began taking acting classes and singing in his school choir. He studied acting in college, taught acting at a Children’s theater company after college, did a tour as an actor on a Disney Cruise Ship, and worked at regional theaters around the country acting and singing in plays and musicals. When he finally got to New York to pursue a career on Broadway, he discovered his love for voice acting in animation and realized that’s what he was meant to do in life. He knew then that he would need to move to Los Angeles in order to work on the kinds of animated shows and games that fascinated him. By 2016 he had arrived in LA and was making as many connections as he could to further his voice acting goals. With his prodigious talent, his breadth of experience, and the connections he had developed in the entertainment industry during his time as a stage actor, it didn’t take long before he signed with an agency and was working on some of the most high profile projects in Hollywood.

In the second part of our talk together, I ask David what inspired him to become a performer in the first place. He refers again to his experience watching his father’s face light up at a Bruce Springsteen concert and how that made David want to bring that level of satisfaction to as many people as possible through performance. I dig a little deeper to try and discover why it was so important to him to inspire that level of delight in others. This opens up a number of fascinating topics about how rewarding it can be to bring joy to other people, as well as how David’s father taught him values that helped shape who David is as a person and as an artist. We then discuss David’s fascination with mimicking the voices he heard in the cartoons from his childhood. He considers exposure to those shows to be vital to his voice acting education.

David has said in previous interviews that his brain is “beautifully broken”. I ask him to explain what he means by that. He tells me that he feels compelled to study, classify, and internalize cartoons and the voice acting performances in them. He just can’t help himself. He knows that the brains of many of his colleagues work the same way and the knowledge they’ve amassed is invaluable when they’re portraying their own characters. After I ask David for his advice for aspiring voice actors, he then actually applies his extensive knowledge of cartoons, by combining it with his impressive acting skills, to demonstrate in real time the difference between simply imitating the voice of a character, and actually embodying that character and portraying them in an authentic way. Listen closely, because’s David’s performance is not only an impressive display, but it’s also a mini-master class in professional voice acting. I’m truly honored that I get to share it with you!

Download Voice Acting Mastery Episode #215 Here (MP3)

Welcome to episode 208 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 very pleased to present the first part of my interview with one of the most industrious men I know, Mr. Zeke Alton. Zeke works in many different areas of the entertainment industry including voice acting, performance capture, and also on-camera. You may know his voice acting work as Terrell Wolf and William Peck in Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War, Quantum in Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart, Mike Abadio and Lendel Green in Starfield, and his amazing performance as Elias Porter in The Callisto Protocol. Zeke also works on camera and has been in The TV series S.W.A.T. as well as the movie My Dead Friend Zoe starring Morgan Freeman and Sonequa Martin-Green. Zeke is a member of the actor’s union, SAG-AFTRA, and serves on many of their negotiation committees helping to secure artistic rights, fair wages, and safe working conditions for performers. As if that weren’t enough, Zeke is also a founding board member of NAVA, the National Association of Voice Actors, who work tirelessly to promote the interests and protect the rights of all voice actors regardless of union affiliation.

We begin our discussion with Zeke telling me how he broke into the world of show business. His journey is incredibly unique. His father was in the Air Force and stationed in various places in Europe. Zeke was born in Italy and raised in England where his mother’s family resided. Eventually his father moved his family back to the U.S., and after spending his early childhood overseas, Zeke ended up going to High School in America. While he did study acting in elementary and high school, he didn’t act in college, but instead got a scholarship through the Reserve Officer’s Training Corps, commonly known as ROTC, and focused on pursuing a military career.

After graduating college, Zeke joined the Navy as a pilot and subsequently achieved the esteemed status of test pilot, flying new and experimental aircraft. He ended up serving in the Navy for 20 years. He knew that after those 20 years were up he had some options available to him: he could choose to stay in the Navy which most likely would have led to a distinguished career being promoted up through the ranks, or he had the option to retire and enter civilian aviation as a commercial pilot which was another common career path for Navy fliers. Zeke did neither, however. Instead he chose to pursue a career as an actor. It was a momentous decision, and one that he did not take lightly. He knew that if he was going to pursue a career in entertainment, that he would need to approach it with the same focus, dedication, and commitment as he would give to any goal that he attempted in the military.

Zeke took years to study, plan, prepare, and train as an actor before he finally decided to make the move to Los Angeles. He arrived in LA in 2019 and has made great progress in his acting career ever since! The story of how he went from being a Navy test pilot to deciding he had to pursue a career as a performer is a fascinating study not only in what steps you can take in order to be successful as an actor, but also in how important it is to adopt an effective mindset so you can achieve your acting goals. Zeke attributes the bulk of his success to the professional attitude he adopted, which helped him approach his acting goals in a reliable and effective manner. I hope my listeners can take inspiration from his journey, as well as adopt his practical approach to pursuing an acting career. So without further ado, here’s Zeke!

Download Voice Acting Mastery Episode #208 Here (MP3)

Welcome to episode 197 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 voice actor and theme park voice performer, Josh Petersdorf! You may know Josh from his work in games like League of Legends, Fire Emblem: Engage, World of Warcraft: Shadowlands, and Overwatch. He’s worked on the English language dubs of anime shows like Aggretsuko and on live action shows like Project “Gemini”. He’s also the voices of both Megatron and Optimus Prime at the Universal Studios Theme Park during the live action show that takes place before the Transformers 3D ride.

That last time we spoke, Josh shared with me how he became a voice actor. He was inspired to pursue performing at a young age after watching his sisters perform in dance recitals. However, during high school, he focused more on athletics, and it wasn’t until after he was living on his own that he realized that he wanted to pursue voice acting as a career. He moved to LA, started taking classes, and was fortunate enough to be able to book work at the Universal Studios Theme Park and to also get agent representation. He started booking voice over work, but when he landed the role of Roadhog in Overwatch, it definitely took his career to a new level.

In this episode, I ask what inspired Josh to become a performer in the first place. He shares with me how much the artists from his childhood influenced him to try to create things himself, and how his love of pro wrestling and his nostalgia for 80’s cartoons still inform his artistry today! The characters from the entertainment he consumed often served as role models for him and helped shape not only his creative sensibilities but his personal development as well. He and I also talk about how the most successful voice actors are always looking to expand their capabilities and grow into different areas or niches of the industry. And finally, Josh gives me his advice for the aspiring voice actor, which at its core seems to contain a paradox: He suggests that actors both be ready to work hard and also be easy on themselves. He thinks they should both be demanding when it comes to their own skills, but forgiving as well. It’s a fascinating contradiction that I actually think you’ll find very insightful as we explore it in this episode.

Download Voice Acting Mastery Episode #197 Here (MP3)

Welcome to episode 196 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 share with you the first part of my interview with voice actor and theme park voice performer, Josh Petersdorf! Josh works extensively in games where he uses his booming voice to embody characters such as Galio in League of Legends, Morion in Fire Emblem: Engage, Stonefist in World of Warcraft: Shadowlands, and most notably, Roadhog in Overwatch. He’s worked on the English language dubs of anime like Aggretsuko and live action shows like Project “Gemini”. He’s also worked for many years at the Universal Studios Theme Park portraying the voices of both Megatron and Optimus Prime during the live action show that takes place before the Transformers 3D ride. This process involves a stilt walker putting on a large Transformers costume and interacting with the people in line for the ride. Josh then provides the voice for the person in costume, speaking in real time to the park goers and improvising dialogue to keep them entertained. It’s an amazing collaborative performance that is fascinating to watch!

As we begin our interview, Josh explains to me how he got started as a voice actor. He grew up in the San Francisco Bay area, where he watched his younger sisters perform in plays and dance recitals, and he decided that he wanted to be a performer as well. He got into an advanced theater class at his school when he was in 7th grade, and participated in the debate team. However, when Josh went to high school, he got more involved in sports, specifically water polo, and had less time for acting. After high school, he attended college briefly, but decided to leave college to pursue his interests in music. He made friends with many creative musicians in the Bay area who also had access to all sorts of recording equipment. In addition to making music, he and his friends would have fun doing fan dubs of live action Japanese Power Ranger-style shows like Kamen Rider. Over time, Josh realized that he wanted to pursue acting more, so he eventually moved to Los Angeles with the goal of becoming a voice actor. He started taking classes to develop his skills, and was also working a restaurant job in order to support himself at the time. A friend at the restaurant told him about an opportunity to audition to be a voice for the live Transformers show at the Universal Studios Theme Park. So Josh auditioned and booked the job. As his confidence grew, he was also able to find agent representation, and one day, his agent sent him an audition for a character in a new game from Blizzard Entertainment which turned out to be Roadhog in Overwatch. Josh was then called back and eventually cast as Roadhog which helped his career blossom even more.

Listening to this overview of Josh’s journey towards becoming a professional voice actor, it might seem like his path was relatively straightforward and almost inevitable. What the summary leaves out, however, are all of the challenges, setbacks, and uncertainty that Josh endured on his way to discovering what he truly wanted to do and how to go about achieving his goals. He and I spend the majority of this episode talking in depth about all of these issues. Josh is very candid with me about what he went through and what it took for him to grow both as a person and as a performer. It’s always been my goal with this podcast to share the reality of what it takes to become a successful professional artist, and I’m so grateful for Josh’s willingness to give both me and my listeners these honest insights into his struggles and his triumphs. I think you’ll find his story very inspiring!

Download Voice Acting Mastery Episode #196 Here (MP3)

Welcome to episode 190 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 extraordinary Courtenay Taylor! Courtenay has a signature sound to her voice that she’s been using to great effect in both commercials and character work since the early 2000’s! You may have heard her performances in games where she’s played Juhani in Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, Ada Wong in numerous Resident Evil titles, the Female Player Character in Fallout Legacy, and Jack in the Mass Effect series of games. In animation she’s famous for playing Starla in The Regular Show and K.O. in OK K.O.! Let’s Be Heroes. In addition to her voice acting work, she’s also helps run NerdsVote, a non-partisan organization that encourages nerds of any fandom to register to vote and participate in American democracy! You can find out more information about it at NerdsVote.com.

In this episode, we begin our conversation by discussing how Courtenay got started as a voice actor. Her acting background is a little unconventional. She initially got involved in theater in high school as a makeup artist. She was a fan of the punk band, Siouxsie and the Banshees and would often do her own makeup in the style of the lead singer. A theater teacher at her high school admired her look and asked if she would help do the makeup for a show that he was directing. She agreed. Working on the production made her curious about acting, so she tried an acting class in High School, but she did not find it rewarding.

In college, she decided to try again and enrolled in another acting class, thinking that it would be an easy way for her to get a good grade. She was surprised at how hard the class turned out to be and at how demanding her teacher was. Fortunately, Courtenay tends to excel when she is challenged, or when people think she won’t be able to achieve something. That sort of criticism motivates her to prove the naysayers wrong, so she redoubled her efforts to improve her acting abilities. She was certainly put to the test when she later auditioned for a graduate level acting program. She was told by the man auditioning her that she would never work because her voice sounded too damaged and that the audience in a large theater would never be able to hear her clearly.

When she told her acting teacher about this negative feedback, the teacher suggested that she try taking a voice over class. As soon as Courtenay got behind the microphone, she felt like she was home. Voice over allowed her to explore her emotional life without needing to project her voice to the back of a large theater. She also didn’t have to memorize her lines, a skill she had always struggled with when working on stage.

Once she realized that voice over was her niche, Courtenay had a clear focus to her career. She eventually moved to Los Angeles, where she faced many other challenges while breaking into the business. But I’ll let her tell you that story in her own words!

Download Voice Acting Mastery Episode #190 Here (MP3)

Welcome to episode 175 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 part of my 10th anniversary feature! As I mentioned in the last episode, the Voice Acting Mastery podcast is now officially 10 years old! I released my first podcast episode in July of 2011 and I wanted to take these two episodes to celebrate that important milestone. I’ve always tried my best in this podcast to share the most practical and useful information I could on what it takes to succeed as a professional voice actor and I hope the content I’ve provided in this podcast has in some way helped each and every one of my listeners.

For these episodes, I asked my listeners to either call in or e-mail me a voice message letting me know how the Voice Acting Mastery podcast may have influenced their own acting journey or any other part of their lives! I received a flood of messages and I’m grateful for each and every one of them. I thought it would be a nice way to celebrate the occasion if I shared some of the messages I received and responded to them here on the podcast.

In the previous episode, I shared 3 messages from listeners who talked about how the podcast helped their mindset when it came to approaching voice acting. It allowed me to expand on their ideas and share some important mindset goals including how to approach auditions without stressing about them afterwards, the importance of doing your best to express a character rather than impress a casting director, and why there is no such thing as a “right” way to perform a character.

In this episode, I’m going to be sharing 3 calls that focus more on the practical approach one can take to pursue a professional voice acting career. I think it will be a good compliment to the previous episode.

I’d like to start with a message I received from Riley, a young voice actress from Louisville, Kentucky.

When Riley was in the 7th grade, she watched a Netflix documentary about the voice over industry. It so inspired her that she became obsessed with researching what it would take to become a voice actor. One very wise thing she did was to surround herself with other actors and creative artists by attending a local performing arts high school and then continuing her artistic education in college.

I emphasize how valuable it can be to participate with a community of creative artists, even if the only way you can collaborate with them is online! I’ve learned just as much, if not more from my fellow actors as I have from my acting teachers!

Our second call is from Paul in Los Angeles.

Paul feels like the podcast was the friend in the industry that he always wanted, but never had in real life. Paul shares some of his professional acting journey with us and it’s clear that he’s been able to combine both professionally competitive acting skills with an entrepreneurial business spirit. I congratulate him on his ability to manage those two sides of his career and say how much I wish I had had teachers that helped me learn more about the business side of an acting career. I emphasize how much I try to share my business acumen in the podcast and how heartening it is to hear that Paul has found my podcast so helpful in his journey!

Our last call in this episode is from Afaz in Greece!

Afaz wants to thank me for both the detail I pursue in my interviews with industry guests, as well as my commitment to making sure I explain any confusing or esoteric terminology. I thank her for her compliment. It’s always been a high priority of mine to make sure my podcast remains accessible to anyone who is curious about voice acting, regardless of whether they are already familiar with acting jargon. Often teachers will suffer from something called “the curse of expertise” where they will forget what it was like when they were a novice in the industry. I’m glad that Afaz appreciates all the work I have put in to making sure none of my audience is left behind.

There’s a piece of advice that I’ve heard articulated by many different teachers including the famous physicist Richard Feynman that goes like this, “If you want to master something, teach it.” I can testify to the fact that teaching others has improved my own artistry tremendously and I advise my listeners to teach what they know to others if they truly want to achieve Voice Acting Mastery.

I’m grateful to all of my listeners who have diligently listened to this podcast over the last 10 wonderful years, and I look forward to the topics we’ll explore together in the future. Thanks again to those of you who called in and left such wonderful messages. I truly appreciate them all. Until next time, I wish you all the best in your voice acting endeavors. Take care!

Download Voice Acting Mastery Episode #175 Here (MP3)