Welcome to episode 155 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 multi-faceted Julie Nathanson! Julie has worked on many high profile animated projects such as Suicide Squad: Hell to Pay, Elena of Avalor, and Avengers Assemble! She’s also worked on major games such as Call of Duty, Far Cry 5, and Lego DC Super-Villains. In addition to her voice acting work, Julie is also a professional screen writer! She was a staff writer and then Executive Story Editor on the NBC TV Series, Just Deal and she’s written and consulted on games such as Guildlings, an RPG currently available on Apple Arcade, and Vader Immortal: a Star Wars VR Series! And if that weren’t enough, Julie also has a Master’s degree in Clinical Psychology! Her interests and skills are wide and far ranging and I’m so excited to share her journey with you!

In the previous episode, Julie and I talked about how she got started as an actress. She shared with us some of the most influential experiences from her childhood and how her passion for performing lead her to pursue acting and singing as a career. Our conversation was a deep dive into the psychology of a creator and I highly recommend you listen to it first before moving on to part 2 of our talk together!

In this part of our interview, we explore the details of how Julie transitioned from her on camera acting career into voice acting. Julie was fortunate to be hired as an actress in soap operas and TV shows, but she never felt fully relaxed in front of the camera. Ironically, the catalyst for her shifting her focus to voice acting came from an insult she received online. A viewer criticized the sound of her voice in the comments section of her soap opera’s webpage and said she sounded like a “chipmunk”. Instead of letting that discourage her, Julie took it as inspiration to capitalize on her unique voice. Discovering the world of voice over was like coming home for her and she’s never looked back.

Also in this episode, Julie explains the 3 step process she uses to develop a character and how it helps make her performances grounded and authentic. She even shares with us a recording of her as a little girl trying out different voices while telling Knock-knock jokes! It seems she had a fascination with voice acting from a very young age! I find Julie’s journey completely inspiring and I hope you will too!

Download Voice Acting Mastery Episode #155 Here (MP3)

Welcome to episode 154 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 stunningly multi-faceted Julie Nathanson! You may recognize Julie from her performances as Samantha Maxis in Call of Duty, Silver Banshee and Jewelee in Suicide Squad: Hell to Pay, Jess Black in Far Cry 5, Captain Scarlet Turner in Elena of Avalor, and Crimson Widow in Avengers Assemble. Not only is Julie an accomplished voice actress, but she’s also a professional screen writer as well! She was a staff writer and then Executive Story Editor on the NBC TV Series, Just Deal, where she was nominated for a Writer’s Guild Award for one of her episodes! She’s written and consulted on games such as Guildlings, an RPG currently available on Apple Arcade, and Vader Immortal: a Star Wars VR Series! If that weren’t enough, she also has a Master’s Degree in Clinical Psychology! Julie’s interests are wide and far ranging which is one of the reasons I was so eager to interview her on the podcast!

In the first part of our discussion, we go all the way back to the beginning, when Julie was only 6 years old, to find out where her fascination with acting comes from! She shares with me the story of her first time on stage, and how the absence of one of her fellow actors in their first grade pageant inspired her to step up and save the show! We also talk about her parents and how their work in psychology influenced her. She absorbed a lot from their study of the emotional life of the human mind. In fact, her father even asked her to edit some of his writings on the subject! Julie’s parents always respected her intelligence, never talked down to her, and made sure to include her in their adult conversations. Her parents were very multi-faceted as well which helped inspire Julie to think outside the box when it came to making her own career decisions!

Not only is Julie a font of energy and enthusiasm, but she’s also put a lot of thought into her journey and you can hear it when she speaks!

Download Voice Acting Mastery Episode #154 Here (MP3)

Welcome to episode 153 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 Emmy award winning voice actress, Maile Flanagan! Maile is probably most famous for voicing the character of Naruto in the long running anime franchise of the same name. She also won an Emmy for her performance in the animated show Jakers! The Adventures of Piggley Winks. Maile is an accomplished on-camera actress and comedienne as well! She is one of the few actresses who works almost equally in voice acting and on-camera and I was excited to bring her on the podcast to share her experience with my listeners.

In the previous episode, Maile and I discussed what inspired her to become an actress in the first place. Her international upbringing, her family’s penchant for wry humor, and her training to become a spy for the CIA were all big influences on her! These varied experiences helped her hone her observational skills which served her incredibly well when she was studying other actor’s performances. Each of these environments also provided her with opportunities to test her social skills and to learn how to communicate effectively with a wide range of people.

In this episode, I ask Maile what advice she has for aspiring voice actors. Maile teaches voice over workshops so she has lots of hands on experience working with students and helping them understand what it takes to succeed as a professional voice actor. She shares with me some of the common mistakes she sees her students make and she emphasizes how important it is for an aspiring voice actor to “do their homework”, as she puts it. We go into great detail about how voice acting homework differs from more traditional homework you may have been assigned in school. Learning how to immerse yourself in a character requires a different mindset than figuring out algebra problems and Maile has some great insights on what you can do to improve the believability of your performances!

Download Voice Acting Mastery Episode #153 Here (MP3)

Welcome to episode 152 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 Emmy award winning voice actress, Maile Flanagan! Maile is probably most famous for voicing the character of Naruto in the long running anime franchise of the same name. She also won an Emmy for her performance in the animated show Jakers! The Adventures of Piggley Winks. Maile is an accomplished on-camera actress and comedienne as well! She is one of the few actresses who works almost equally in voice acting and on-camera and I was excited to bring her on the podcast to share her experience with my listeners.

In the first part of our interview, Maile and I talked about how she broke into acting. Although she joined an improv comedy group when she was in college, her primary focus in school was training to become a spy for the CIA. After she graduated, and was waiting for the CIA to give her an assignment, she connected with some of her fellow improv classmates and decided to take a chance, form a group, and travel to Cape Cod to perform comedy for tourists over the summer. That decision changed the path of her life! After that summer, she realized that she wanted to pursue a career in acting instead of one in espionage!

In this episode, we discuss what inspired Maile to become an actress in the first place. While she did not receive any formal acting training while she was in school, her upbringing played a big role in helping her learn how to observe people and communicate with them effectively. Her father was a spy for the CIA and their family moved around a lot. This meant that Maile had a very international upbringing and had to learn how to relate to many different types of people. Her family was also very funny! They often used humor to interact with each other and the ability to joke around with her family members was an important skill that Maile developed at a young age. These experiences helped her hone her observational skills which served her incredibly well when she was studying other actor’s performances.

Download Voice Acting Mastery Episode #152 Here (MP3)

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 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)