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Welcome to episode 168 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 so excited to share with you the first part of my interview with the multi-talented, Zehra Fazal! You may know Zehra from her voice acting work as Nadia Rizavi in Voltron: Legendary Defender, Halo in Season 3 of Young Justice, and Mara in She-Ra and the Princesses of Power. In games Zehra has played the voice of the Guardian in Destiny 2: Beyond Light, Amara the Siren in Borderlands 3, and the AI Announcer in Apex Legends. Zehra also performs on-camera and has appeared in shows like How to Get Away with Murder and Lucifer. In addition, Zehra is fluent in Japanese and spent part of her college years studying in Japan. Her passion for the Japanese language and for Japanese theater eventually allowed her to intern at the Takarazuka Revue, a very famous all female theatre troupe that had a big influence on Osamu Tezuka, the godfather of anime and manga! As if that weren’t enough, Zehra has also written and performed numerous one woman shows including a musical comedy about her experiences growing up as a Muslim-American of South Asian descent.

In the first part of this interview, Zehra shares with us how she got started as a voice actor. She grew up in Indiana, the youngest of 4 sisters. All of her older siblings were very intelligent, articulate, and self-possessed which meant that Zehra had to be very precocious and sophisticated in order to be able to get a word in edgewise! Her parents emphasized the importance of academic achievement, but they had an appreciation for the arts as well. One branch of her family tree had actually been heavily involved in the Indian movie industry known as Bollywood. Since communication was such an important skill to have in her family, Zehra became fascinated with talking. She got involved in speech and debate contests and also performed in many of her high school plays.

Since she was a fan of animation and comics, Zehra initially thought she would go to college to study drawing with the goal of eventually becoming a graphic artist or animator. However, a visit to an animation convention as a high school graduation present, helped change the direction of her career path. In 2001 she attended the Gathering of the Gargoyles, a convention to celebrate the Disney animated series, Gargoyles which had drawn so many fans to its mature storytelling and sophisticated themes. One of the events at the convention was a staged radio play where fans of the show would audition to play parts in an original script that the show’s producer, Greg Weismann, had written especially for the event. Zehra auditioned and was cast as the NY Detective and lead female character from the Gargoyles series, Elisa Maza. After the radio play, Greg complimented her on her performance and suggested that she seriously consider pursuing voice acting in the future. While she didn’t think much of it at the time, Greg had planted a seed in her mind that would flower many years later!

Zehra’s journey towards a professional acting career is full of interesting twists and turns. At many points along the way, it was not always clear which direction she should go next. However, she always did her best to follow her fascination and inspiration even if it took her down paths that may have seemed tangential or not obviously related to pursuing a career as an actor. But I’ll let Zehra tell you all about her serendipitous and synchronistic adventures!

Download Voice Acting Mastery Episode #168 Here (MP3)