Welcome to episode 151 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 really excited to share with you the first part of my interview with the Emmy award winning voice actress and accomplished comedienne, Maile Flanagan! Maile has performed in theater, stand up comedy, television sitcoms, feature films, and numerous voice acting roles! She’s probably most famous for voicing the character of Naruto in the long running anime franchise of the same name. She won an Emmy for her performance in the animated show Jakers! The Adventures of Piggley Winks. You may also recognize her as Principal Perry in the Disney XD show, Lab Rats as well as her many other roles in shows like Grey’s Anatomy, The Mindy Project, and Modern Family. Maile is one of those rare actresses who work just as often in voice over as she does on-camera and I wanted to share with you her unique perspective on the industry!

I’m actually fascinated by Maile’s approach to voice acting because it’s so different from my own! If you’ve listened to early episodes of this podcast, you know that I attended a lot of acting schools in my youth. I took theater classes in high school, college and even went to graduate acting school to get my master’s degree. By contrast, Maile jumped into acting with almost no formal training whatsoever! Her approach to learning how to act was based on her keen observation of talented performers as well as her international upbringing. Maile’s father was a spy! He worked in counter intelligence for the U.S. government during the 1970s and 80s which meant that Maile’s family lived in many different countries as she was growing up. She was born in Hawaii, but moved to Bangkok soon afterwards. Later she lived in Nuremberg and Munich and eventually went to college in Boston. All of this moving from place to place meant that she had to learn to adapt to many different social environments. In order to survive, she became a quick study of people and their behavior!

In the first part of our interview, Maile and I discuss how she became an actress. She initially planned to follow in her father’s footsteps and become a spy herself! However, while she was waiting for her first assignment, she decided to organize a group of her fellow classmates from college into an improv comedy troupe and perform in venues around Cape Cod, Massachusetts during the summer. That decision ended up changing the entire trajectory of her life! It’s an amazing story and I think you’ll find it very intriguing!

Download Voice Acting Mastery Episode #151 Here (MP3)

Welcome to episode 150 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

This is the second and final part of my interview with the inspiring Maryann Strossner! In the last episode, Maryann talked about how she got started as an actress in New York in the 1960s, even though her parents did not approve of her pursuing a career as a performer. We also discussed how she transitioned from stage work to voice over work when she moved to Los Angeles in 1977. After arriving in Hollywood, one of her first theatrical acting jobs was working with the Variety Arts Radio Theater Company of LA which produced old time radio dramas on stage in front of a live audience. She also started working on audiobooks for Scholastic around that time as well. During the 1990s she moved around to different places in order to take care of family members. Eventually, she returned to Los Angeles and picked up her acting career where she left off doing commercials, films, and TV projects. However, it wasn’t until she reached her 70s that she started pursuing voice acting in animation and video games. In 2016 she was cast as Granny Marl in Blizzard Entertainment’s World of Warcraft game franchise. Now, she is probably most famous for her work in 2018 as Scrollsage Nola, the kind, grandmotherly turtle creature who lives in the land of the Tortollans. Maryann’s journey really shows that it’s never too late to pursue your voice acting dreams!

In the second part of our interview, I ask Maryann what inspired her to become an actress in the first place. We discuss some of her early childhood memories of going to see Broadway shows with her mother and falling in love with the world of the theater. We also talk more about her parents objections to her pursuing an acting career and the fact that her mother had artistic aspirations of her own that she never fulfilled. Then Maryann shares some details about the acting training that she got from her cousin, a theatrical director, whose special method of teaching Maryann was very applicable to voice acting. And finally, Maryann gives us her advice for aspiring voice actors and about how important it is not to wait to do what you want to do, but to just get out there and do it! So without further ado, here’s Maryann.

Download Voice Acting Mastery Episode #150 Here (MP3)

Welcome to episode 149 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 a truly unique guest, Maryann Strossner! Maryann has acted on stage and done voice over work on both the East and West Coast of the United States since the 1960’s! She was born in 1940 and started acting professionally in her 20’s in New York City. In 1977, she moved to Los Angeles where she continued to pursue theater in addition to working with the Variety Arts Radio Theater Company of LA. While she received rave reviews in the New York Times for her stage acting, and worked in voice over not only in Los Angeles, but in North Carolina as well, she recently became famous for her voice acting work in the online video game, World of Warcraft! Her first character for the franchise was Granny Marl in 2016, but she became a fan favorite when she voiced the gentle and caring Scrollsage Nola in 2018! In the game, if you visit the land of the Tortollans who are a turtle-like race in World of Warcraft, you are greeted by Nola who asks you to protect newly born turtles from predators as the baby turtles crawl from their hatching places on the beach and work their way towards the safety of the ocean. When you succeed, she exclaims, “A turtle made it to the water!”.

Maryann’s performance as Nola was so charming, that she became a sort of grandmother figure to the players of World of Warcraft. In 2018, Maryann was a guest at Blizzcon where she recited her famous lines on stage to great applause. In fact, these lines have become such a meme that someone has turned them into a song. Here’s a clip of it from YouTube!

I first met Maryann back in 2014 when she took some of my voice acting classes. I was not only impressed with her work in class, but also with the fact that she was jumping into the world of animation and video games as an older actress. Most people who enjoy animation and games tend to be of a younger generation, and often my class is filled with these young people. However, recently at conventions, I have been asked by more mature adults whether I think they are too old to voice act. Now, if you’ve been listening to this podcast for a while, you probably already know that my answer is that it’s never “too late” to pursue your voice acting dreams as long as you’re truly passionate about voice acting. But rather than simply trying to reassure any of you out there who are thinking of getting into voice acting later in life, I thought it would be even better to share a real-life success story! It is my honor to bring Maryann here on the podcast to share her experiences and talk about what it’s been like for her to start voice acting in animation and games in her 70’s!

We begin by exploring how she became an actor in the first place. While she discovered at a young age that she was fascinated with acting, her parents did not approve of her pursuing a career as an actress. They were immigrants to America who had weathered many challenges in their lives. They wanted their daughter to have an easier life than they had experienced, and they saw acting as not only economically unstable, but morally questionable as well. In the face of such resistance, Maryann had to find her own way to accomplish her career goals. She kept her dreams of being an actress to herself until she had the opportunity to move out on her own with her older cousin, Nancy, who just happened to be a theater director! Nancy coached Maryann privately as she began her acting career in New York City. From there, Maryann’s journey as an actress went to many interesting places and I’m eager to have her tell you all about it!

Download Voice Acting Mastery Episode #149 Here (MP3)

Welcome to episode 148 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 third and final part of my interview with the mind-bogglingly talented Dee Bradley Baker! Dee has worked on hundreds of animated movies and shows including Cow and Chicken, Dexter’s Lab, The Box Trolls, American Dad, Avatar the Last Airbender, and Star Wars: the Clone Wars just to name a few! Dee has a special affinity for creature voices. He’s often called in to voice characters that don’t speak a human language, but communicate through non-verbal sounds.

In the previous episode, Dee and I discussed what inspired him to become a performer in the first place. We talked about his passion for monster movies and how that helped him find his special niche doing creature voices in animation and games. Dee also explained how important it is to replenish your own well of creativity by pursuing artistic projects that you find satisfying. He compared it to cultivating a terrarium where new ideas can sprout and grow. For Dee, his terrarium includes his fascination with macro-photography which he shares at deebakerphotography.com. Being playful and creative with photography has helped Dee nurture his own psyche and avoid becoming overwhelmed by the professional demands of being a voice actor.

As we wrap up our interview, I ask Dee to be more specific about how he’s able to pull ideas from his artistic terrarium. How does that process actually work? In response, Dee shares with me his concept of a ladder of ability. It’s an incredibly useful metaphor to help you understand your own growth as an artist and to be able to chart your progress along the way to mastery in any artistic field. We then dive into Dee’s advice to aspiring actors. As I’ve mentioned in previous episodes, much of Dee’s advice can be found on his website, iwanttobeavoiceactor.com. I ask Dee about this amazing resource for actors and find out what information on his website is too often overlooked. Dee’s comments are both thoughtful and generous and I can’t wait to share them with you!

In the interview, we talk about Dee’s creative projects outside of voice acting. You should totally check them out!

Dee’s Macro Photography can be found at:
www.deebakerphotography.com

Pictures of Dee’s Halloween yard decorations can be found at:
creepyyard.com

Download Voice Acting Mastery Episode #148 Here (MP3)

Welcome to episode 147 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 interview with the mind-bogglingly talented Dee Bradley Baker! Dee has worked on hundreds of animated movies and shows including Cow and Chicken, Dexter’s Lab, The Box Trolls, American Dad, Avatar the Last Airbender, and Star Wars: the Clone Wars just to name a few! Dee has a special affinity for creature voices. He’s often called in to voice characters that don’t speak a human language, but communicate through non-verbal sounds.

In part one of our interview, we discussed how Dee got started as a performer. His route was a serendipitous one. He did not follow any established plan or recipe for becoming an actor. He didn’t even take many acting classes! Instead, Dee let his guiding principle be to follow what fascinated him. He was open to taking any job possibility that came his way as long as it seemed interesting. If it also had a performance aspect, so much the better! However, regardless of what he pursued, he always did it with gusto and discipline. He wasn’t just aimlessly wandering through life, he was actively testing things to see what truly appealed to him and what didn’t. He would always do his best to learn as much as he could from every opportunity, and then move on once he felt he had learned as much as possible. It took a while for him to realize that the majority of work he was getting was as a performer and that he could make acting his primary vocation. After he moved to Los Angeles and decided to focus primarily on voice acting, he discovered that he was also fascinated by creature sounds. He had always loved dinosaurs and movie monsters, so he had a natural affinity for voicing creatures of all shapes and sizes! If you haven’t listened to episode one of this interview where I played some audio of his creature acting, I highly suggest you check it out. Alternatively, you can head over to Dee’s website at deebaker.com and listen to samples of his genius there!

In the second part of our discussion, Dee and I talk about what inspired him to be a performer in the first place. Dee has always been a quiet intellectual which may not initially seem like a personality type that would be conducive to becoming an actor. However, performing allowed Dee to learn how to interact with people and adapt to society and the world at large. It was a way for him to develop as a human being. It helped him improve both his inner emotional life and his external relationships. I completely identify with Dee on this point! I too was a shy, quiet, introverted boy when I was young and I learned a lot about myself and others by studying acting.

Also in this segment, Dee and I delve deep into his love of movie monsters and how his passion for dinosaurs, Japanese Kaiju like Godzilla, and even dressing up like a Jawa from Star Wars, helped inspire him to work in some way with these creatures. Initially he thought he might become a special effects makeup artist, but it was only later that he realized that his best contribution would be to give voices to the characters he loved so much. It’s incredibly apropos that the first movie he saw as a child was Dr. Doolittle, a movie about a man who can talk to animals by mimicking their sounds! Dee has been making good on his own fascination with animals ever since!

Later in the interview, we talk about Dee’s creative projects outside of voice acting. You should totally check them out!

Dee’s Macro Photography can be found at:
www.deebakerphotography.com

Pictures of Dee’s Halloween yard decorations can be found at:
creepyyard.com

Download Voice Acting Mastery Episode #147 Here (MP3)

Welcome to episode 146 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’ve got a very special treat for you in this episode! I’m honored to bring you the first part of my interview with the stupendously talented Dee Bradley Baker! As of the release of this episode, Dee has over 500 credits to his name on the Internet Movie Database! He’s worked on hundreds of animated movies and shows including Cow and Chicken, The Angry Beavers, Dexter’s Lab, Ben 10, The Box Trolls, The Fairly Odd Parents, Phineas and Ferb, American Dad, Avatar the Last Airbender, The Legend of Korra, Star Wars: the Clone Wars, and the list goes on and on! Dee has great comedic instincts and has played numerous characters over the years, but he also has a special affinity for creature voices. He is often called in to voice characters that don’t speak a human language, but communicate through non-verbal sounds. It’s a highly specialized skill and Dee excels at it. He can do small animal and bird sounds, large scary monsters, and every kind of swamp creature in between all without the use of pitch shifting or electronic alteration. He just gets in front of a microphone and is brilliant!

I was really excited to get Dee on the podcast because I wanted to talk to him about his acting process. While the vocal pyrotechnics he can produce are impressive, Dee doesn’t just get hired because he can make crazy sounds with his throat. His special skill is to convey emotions through creature noises, in other words, acting. He combines his amazing technical prowess with his road-tested acting abilities in order to make his creature sounds so expressive and believable.

In this first segment of our interview, I ask Dee how he got started as an actor. While he did get involved in theater at a very young age, his journey to becoming a professional voice actor was anything but typical. He didn’t take many acting classes in school and he never planned on having a career as a performer. Instead, he simply did what sounded fun to him in the moment and gave himself permission to try any interesting opportunity that came his way. This meant that his journey has been filled with serendipity and synchronicity. He never had a concrete plan for his career, but rather followed his fascination and did his best to capitalize on where his skills overlapped with his interests. His story is as inspiring as it is unconventional.

Download Voice Acting Mastery Episode #146 Here (MP3)