Hi Emily, thanks for joining us today. We’ve worked with you for a long time now, and just wanted to put a little spotlight onto one of our best voices. So, let’s start at the beginning. What inspired you to be come a voice actor?

Thanks, Jack – I’m thrilled to be here. So, I began as an actor about 28 years ago. Interestingly, my first ever agent, when I was about ten years old asked me if I’d ever thought about becoming a voice artist. But at that time, I’d never thought of being one.

I’m also a classically trained singer, and so I had the music route as well as acting. Eventually that led me to being in a voiceover production house doing project management, hiring voices, casting voices, etc. One day my manager said, “Emily, you’re a singer. That means you must be a voice artist, right?” Of course, I said no. But then he said they needed somebody to go and do a scratch track, and he asked if I could do it.

So off I went, and I walked in that studio and the home I thought I’d found in audio production suddenly became voiceover. And that was 13 years ago. Ever since then, voiceover has been my love. I moved to a big production house in London and continued doing audio there, but voiceover is definitely my full-time job now.

Interesting, so you’ve very much had a seat on both sides of the proverbial table.

I have, and that’s what has led me to coach voiceovers. I think that is my big selling point: people come to me because not only do I provide voiceovers, but I’ve also sat on the other side. So, I know the ins and outs of the business very well.

Brilliant. That actually leads on very well to another question. So, as a coach, what skills do you think are essential for a successful voice actor?

There’s a myth that to be a successful voice artist, you have to have a nice voice. Essentially, if we were to put a pie chart together, 5% is about the actual sound of your voice. It’s all about what you can do with your voice. So if you want to get into voiceover, you have to learn all of the things that your voice can do.

Not only can it shift pitch, you can use your smile. You can change your speed, your warmth, and the texture of your voice. There’s so much to know about your voice, but it’s also about trying to learn all the different styles of scripts. It’s not like everybody does commercials. Corporate projects are completely different, games are completely different.

There’s so much to learn and you carry on learning. So, if you want to get into what makes a great voiceover artist, it’s persistence, flexibility, and the ability to hear and listen and learn from your own voice.

I think that’s very nicely put. A lot of people focus too much on thinking they have to sound pretty, or they have to sound x, y or z. Actually, the interesting things come from when you start looking at what you can do that’s weird or ugly, or what kind of strange things you can get it do.

Yeah, and it’s being playful. You know, we have two terms. We have voice artist and we have voice actor. They are used interchangeably, but they’re technically different things. But regardless of whether you are a voice actor or a voice artist, there is always an element of play, and it’s learning to not be uptight. It’s about trying to relax in the booth and enjoy it and pull scripts to bits, and look at things, and remember that you’re human. Then you have to read it the way you would like it to be heard.

So, when you’re looking at a new script, when you have a new character, for example, how do you take the character apart and approach the creation of a unique voice for that character?

Fundamentally, it’s important to understand how that character got to where they are. In everyday life, we don’t have a script, or the ability to know precisely what’s going to happen to us next. Then when we see a character on a piece of paper, we think they’ve just got to have a random voice and be done with it, but actually, although they don’t exist in real life, they have a backstory.

Their own experiences have shaped the person they are today. So you have to consider if they’re bitter, if they’ve had some terrible experiences, if they’ve had a very entitled upbringing. Then from that, you need to think about how that not only changes the sound of their voice and the way they deliver lines, but how it changes them physically.

Actually, I’d say physicality is a huge part. Let’s say you’ve got somebody who, on the surface, is a proud noble woman, but in reality, she’s not. She just wants you think that because she is manipulative and power hungry. Regardless of whether the lore in this world actually says she is a pure noble woman, that’s what she’s going to tell you. That character is going to stand in a certain way. She stands tall and proud and strong. So, when I voice a character like her, my back is absolutely straight. And I also try and angle the script below me for her voice.

Because you get that sensation of someone talking down.

Exactly, we’ve got the feeling of talking down because that’s what she does. She’s entitled.

I think it’s really interesting to hear how that physicality in the recording studio can have such a big impact on the voices you’re creating. Do you have any other examples of how you might have adapted that for other characters or for other voices?

Sure, so I played a traumatised young Mum about 3 or 4 years ago. She was constantly terrified. Her little boy had gone missing and the quest was to find him. She was often crying or blaming somebody else. So when I played her, I was completely drawn in on myself.

When people are traumatized like that, when there’s something going on that is causing such a huge emotional reaction, they’re not going to be confident. They’re going to be completely drawn in, so my shoulders were up and in, my arms were in, and my knees were together… Absolutely everything was almost caving in with her, and when she talked, she had a wobble in her voice. Partially because she was overcome with emotion, but then also because if a character is that vulnerable, they’re not going to project their voice and be confident.

No, not at all. Do you think that those experiences are some of your most memorable in the recording booth, or do you do you think that anything else stands out as a particularly memorable moment for you?

I love anything where I get to be playful and characterful, and gaming is my big, big passion. I also love doing ADR, because of the improvisational aspect. But I’m remembering my favourite commercial ever, which was Barbie.

I had to sing and do the voiceover for that. I think that was the most hilarious, wonderful and fulfilling commercial I could’ve ever done, because I was obsessed with Barbie dolls growing up. So to actually get to voice those commercials was a dream come true.

I think the key theme for when I absolutely love a session is because it’s given me the chance to be a bit more me, and a bit more playful.

So that was very much a dream-come-true role for you. How about looking forward from now? Do you have any other, dream projects or dream roles you’d like to take on in the future?

Well, one day, and this is something I’ve said to family and friends for years, is that I’d love to be a Disney princess. I’ve always wanted a role where I get to be animated, but also get the chance to break into song randomly because, of course, that’s what we all do: all day, every day, according to those movies!

Our emotions just get so strong.

They just overwhelm us and we have to sing about it, and we have to grab people in the streets and, and sing with them as well! So that’s an ideal one.

I’m a massive fan of commercials. I absolutely love doing them. So if I could keep learning and growing in that way, doing different kinds of commercials, different things… I’m also a huge advocate for mental health and I would love to do a project that is of significant importance in that field, you know, something that is going to make a difference.

I’m liking the range of projects there, from Disney princess to mental health. So continue on with the topic of the future, do you see that the voice acting industry will change much? And if so, how?

Let’s introduce the elephant of the room, which is, of course, AI. I think that the voiceover industry is shifting not just every year, every month, or every week, but every single day. For good and for bad. I think that AI is a very powerful force that is here to stay.

But what I do know is in question at the moment is legislation and figuring out how to support creatives, whether they are voiceover studios, writers, or some other kind of content creator. What’s become more important as a result of AI for voice artists specifically is maintaining humanity when we record. It’s about being able to portray emotions authentically, realistically and in a way that is going to connect with an audience.

I think the biggest shift that we’re going to see now is the difficulty of breaking into the industry. It’s never been easy, but I think now there is an added pressure of, before you needed to be good, but now you need to be human and good and have this drive to be constantly learning. I think what we might see in the next few years is AI advancing even more.

Of course, some people think it’s going to go the other way, and that AI is going to evolve so much that actually people start to miss the human. It makes it difficult to say which way it’s going to go, but what I’m saying to people who ask me that question is to keep nuance in everything that you do. Keep being human and putting yourself out there, and showing the value of what you can bring, how you can be directed.

It’s definitely an interesting point. We do see that there was this explosion of digital experiences in the wake of social media really taking over the world, but now there’s this small shift back towards people wanting some offline experiences. That desire for something very human could be part of that.

Absolutely. We’ve got that at home, where my partner is a massive film buff and insists on having physical media. And I’m the same with books. I’ve got e-readers on my phone, but nothing for me beats the paper and the ink and the smell of print.

I can totally appreciate that. I also want to quickly touch on Alpha Studios a little bit. I know you said that obviously as a voice artist, voice actor, you have to feel comfortable in your environment. Do you find that the team there are particularly good at making you feel at home?

Oh, I absolutely love them. In fact, prior to this interview, I had a job booked in with you. I quickly popped into the office after, and we were having a chat and a laugh and it was really lovely. I absolutely love coming here.

What was really sweet as well was, when I walked in the office, I mentioned I’d been doing videos this morning for a separate client. I’d been playing a young person and I was worried I sounded quite young during my session with you. The project management team were  like, right, let’s pull up the session and have a listen to the recording and see. They knew my voice so well that they were able to say, actually, no, this is how you normally sound when you voice. I feel like I walk in and I’m seen.

That’s very nice to hear.

I’m seen and I’m heard, and they know what I’m capable of, what I can do. They know the kinds of projects that I would maybe shine in, but are also able to recognize the ones that maybe I wouldn’t be the most suitable for. It’s nice to know that I’m not just a statistic. I’m not just a random person. There is real knowledge of who I am, and what I’m good at, and of how I sound.

If we don’t feel safe and comfortable, we’re not going to perform our best. If you feel like you’re being micromanaged, or if there is somebody kind of breathing down your neck when you’re performing or doing whatever it is you do, you’re not going to feel confident enough to just try something different.

Here, I feel like we have a really collaborative process that helps us capture those ‘lightning in a bottle’ moments, where it’s magic. Magic happens when you’re both collaborating.