VAM 198 | Interview with Sara Secora, Part 1
Welcome to episode 198 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 resourceful and multi-talented Sara Secora. You may be familiar with Sara’s voice acting work in games, where she voices Dunyarzad in Genshin Impact, Mathila in Warframe, and Pat Myers in Fallout 76. In animation and dubbing she’s played Radia Rainbowfish in Enchantimals, Avi in Boonie Bears: Back to Earth, and Hayate in Rumble Garanndoll. Sara has also worked as a casting director on games like Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty, Smite, and Paladins, and she’s voice directed the games Smite, Paladins, and Overload. In addition to all of that, Sara has somehow found the time to write a book on voice acting called The Anywhere Voice Actor about what it takes to work as a voice actor no matter where you live. You can find it on Amazon. Sara has been so successful that she was invited to be a coach on Jennifer Hale’s amazing website, skillshub.life where she’s available for private coaching sessions.
One of the reasons I was so eager to get Sara on the podcast is because she has built her entire voice over career without leaving her home studio. Sara has a disability that keeps her homebound which we discuss in detail in this episode. Despite this challenge, Sara has not only been able to book voice over work that would normally be possible to do from home, such as commercials, independent games, and narration work, but she’s also been able to break into areas of voice acting that have traditionally required performers to move to the city where such work was being done, such as animation, dubbing, and AAA video games. Sara’s ability to achieve so much while negotiating her limitations is a testament to her ingenuity, her determination, and frankly her courage in the face of adversity. What she’s accomplished is truly admirable and I hope my listeners can gain some inspiration from her journey.
Sara and I begin our discussion by talking about how she got started as a voice actor. She was initially a YouTuber who enjoyed playing horror games and decided to create a YouTube channel where others could watch her play. Many of these horror games would have letters or notes that the characters had written, revealing information about the world of the game. Usually these important pieces of text did not have any voice acting associated with them, so in order to keep things interesting, Sara would read the letters aloud to entertain her audience. Her impromptu performances became very popular with her fans and many of them encouraged her to pursue voice acting. After receiving enough of these supportive comments, Sara eventually decided to reach out on twitter to a voice actor whose work she had admired. He was kind enough to respond and to give her suggestions, including some advice on getting training as an actor.
Sara took these suggestions to heart and started applying herself diligently to creating a voice acting career. While her success speaks for itself, I’m very eager to let her share her story with you in her own words!
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