15 Facts About Voice Acting That You'll No Doubt Find Interesting

You can hear Kari's voice in a long list of TV shows (seriously, check out her IMDB), like Rick And Morty, DC Superhero Girls, Ben 10 and Kung Fu Panda: Legends of Awesomeness, as well as video games like the Final Fantasy series.

Radio and TV commercials, talking toys, navigation systems, rides at theme parks — those are all part of a voice actor's catalogue, too! Basically, if there's a voice being used and you can't see the actor themselves, a voice actor is being used.

In Kari's case, she knew from a young age that someone was doing the voice of her favourite animated characters. Wanting to be part of that, Kari told her parents that she was going to voice a Disney cartoon one day. This led to her studying theatre and music while growing up, as well as mailing recordings of her voice to cartoon shows she admired.

According to Kari, every day is different. But you can expect a lot of driving from one studio to another, doing recording sessions for multiple projects, answering emails and phone calls from agents about scheduling, reading scripts and eating on the run. Oh, and prepping for the next day, of course.

"I JUST finished the most challenging role I’ve ever done. It was for a video game, and they had to split the work up over a number of sessions because the voice was so difficult to do."

Most voice actors have a decent recording set-up at home, so they're easily able to do this.

"With animation and video games, I read the character description and the scenes. But artwork that the client includes is the best. For example, if the character has droopy eyes or big buck teeth, that sparks my imagination as to what the character would sound like."

Singing in the car is a popular way of doing this for voice actors. For Kari, she does metal songs in really ridiculous voices.

"It warms up my voice, gets my energy pumped up and just puts me in a good mood for my recording session."

Voice actors spend a lot of the time altering their voice for roles to the point where it's hard to remember what their "natural voice" is.

"Sometimes I might be recording a cartoon with a group of people. And the next day I might be alone in a studio doing the AI voice for a live-action show like Supergirl. I love the variety and the different processes keep it fresh and interesting for me."

For example, anime has much more of a "rhythm" to it than your typical American cartoon.

"If I have a vocally stressful session, I will go home and not talk to anyone for the rest of the night. I don’t cheer and scream much at concerts and sporting events anymore. I’ve developed what my friends call my, 'very aggressive clapping' instead!"

"I’m a bit shy, so I rarely just whip out voices in public. But I make full use of my little girl voices when telemarketers call. I'll say something like, 'No, my mommy isn't here. No, I don't know when she'll be back.' Works every time!

"Just playing around and being silly with your voice can create inspiration. Sometimes talking to my cats triggers an idea for a voice. And more than one of my impressions of family and friends have ended up in a project!"

"It's a surprisingly hard gig to do and not everyone can do it."

"If you just change your voice to sound weird and kooky, that’s not necessarily good voice acting. There’s got to be something more underneath it."