Very Voice Actors – E.G. Daily

E.G. Daily has the actor’s big 3 covered. She’s a very successful singer, a very successful on-camera actress, and a very successful voice artist.

From the early age of 15, E.G. has seen great success, going from one big project to another. She made her first television appearance in 1976 on an episode of Laverne and Shirley and from there hasn’t stopped her productivity. “If I’m not doing a movie, I’m doing a cartoon. If I’m not doing a cartoon, I’m doing an album. If I’m not doing an album, I’m doing a movie”, she says.

But her jump into voice acting didn’t come as voluntarily as her on-camera or singing work did. Having done a few radio voice overs and jingles in her past, E.G. was reluctant when her agent called her up one day telling her to audition for a “little boy voice” in a new cartoon series called Rugrats. E.G. recalls “I think I was having carpet installed” and said she wan’t interested. The agent persisted, saying it would only take ten minutes or so.

After finally agreeing to it, she hopped in her car and headed down to the appropriate studio. She read a page and the executives came back asking her to read another. After another they asked her to read a third. Page after page they had her read and then she left. Her agent called her soon after saying she got the job out of two huge groups that came in for mass auditions. This new role as Tommy pickles propelled her into her third very fruitful line of business.

A few years later she grabbed the role of another soon-to-be beloved character of a soon-to-be hit series when she was casted as Buttercup in The Powerpuff Girls. Her voices now include an abundance of credits from Rudy in Chalkzone, Knothead in The New Woody Woodpecker Show, Louie Duck from QuackPack, Cap’n Sticky in Recess, a majority of the voices in the new Pound Puppies, and Steve from the new Curious George. And she actually filled in for Susie for several episodes of Rugrats.

She’s even played the titular characters of Babe and Baby Mumble from Babe and both Happy Feet movies.

Her role as Tommy not only led to an explosion in the voice acting world, 13 years of work on the show, and several theatrical releases, but also handed her the new role of teenager Tommy in All Grown Up!. E.G. says that Tommy is her favorite character she’s ever played.

She says she never had to take proper voice classes or train in the art. She attributes her long lasting acting and singing career to her natural ability to create defined and original voices. Coming up with her voices is a natural ability, she says. She looks at an image of the character and instantly she knows what that person or thing would sound like. She doesn’t go through a process or create a backstory. She goes with what she knows is right.

That’s quite a bit of talent built up from her other lines of work. So what did success for her look like in those fields?

Well she’s played characters in plenty of movies including Dotty, the neglected girlfriend, in Pee Wee’s Big Adventure. She was in Valley Girl, No Small Affair, and Loverboy, acting alongside starts like Demi Moore, Patrick Dempsey, and Nicholas Cage.

She’s also been in TV shows like Laverne and Shirley, Chips, Fame, The Mentalist, and was a multi-returning contestant in 2013’s The Voice.

And as stated earlier, her musical career has always been a busy and bright path as well. Back in 1985 she signed a huge record deal with A&M records and went on to work with some of Madonna’s frequent collaborators. In 1986 she came out with the single “Say It, Say It” which hit No. 1 on the Dance/Club Music chart. She has composed and sang for around 30 soundtracks! She can be heard in Grand Theft Auto, Babe, Country Bears, Rugrats, and the theme for Two and a Half Men. She’s even written/sung for such famed movies as Scarface and The Breakfast Club! She attributes Tina Turner and Rod Stewart as some of her biggest musical inspirations.

E.G. is still strong in the VO and singing business today. Check out her website to get a more in depth look at her works and what she’s doing now: http://egdaily.com

And enjoy her Scarface song that was featured in Grand Theft Auto:

E.G. Daily. She’s got the whole business covered.

NEXT EDITION’S FEATURED VOICE ACTOR: This IS the voice actor you’re looking for…the force is strong with James Arnold Taylor.

Very Voice Actors – Hank Azaria

Hank Azaria models a very realistic staircase to success. His path on the entertainment business didn’t consist of stories of overnight success or lucky first breaks. A bit of a late bloomer to the acting world, he wasn’t one who knew since childhood that he wanted to be an actor. It wasn’t until he was 16 and performed in his first stage production that he decided he’d shoot for an occupation as a performer. He had, however, been mimicking and memorizing various parts from his favorite shows and movies since he was a young boy. In that regard he was training himself very early on.

Hank attended Tufts University in Massachusetts where he studied drama. While attending the college he became good friends with actor Oliver Platt, so much so that Hank eventually became the godfather of Oliver’s son. Together the two attempted to start up their own theatre and named it “Big Theatre.” This venture, like many ahead on his winding path, turned out to be a flop. They only put on one production: The Dumb Waiter. After his time at Tufts he moved on to the American Academy of Dramatic Arts.

Hank was offered representation by an agent in LA and, after realizing that the television world may prove a more fruitful endeavor than stage, packed up his stuff and moved to the west coast.

Once again his path proved to be a very gradual, not-so-glammery rise to success as he worked on small job after small job, performing stand up, and serving as a bartender for a catering company. (That’s right, Moe- I mean Hank Azaria, was actually a bartender when he was younger!) He starred in some commercials and had very small roles in several shows. He was in a few pilots that went absolutely no where. And even the bigger shows he was privileged to be in he only had a line or two, like Family Ties and Growing Pains.

The first, and no doubt biggest break for Hank came in the form of a “cattle call” for several characters on a new show: The Simpsons. 

The actor who had played Moe the bartender for the majority of season 1 had recently left the show and they were looking to dub and fill in his part. Hank only had one voice over credit to his name when he went in to audition. He’d played the dog in a failed pilot: Hollywood Dog. But the casting director for The Simpsons knew Hank from that one role and asked him to audition for Moe. Pressed for a voice, he thought of a character he was currently playing in a play. The character was a drug dealer and Hank had given him a “bad Al Pacino impression from his performance in Dog Day Afternoon”. He pitched it down and used it for Moe and the producers thought it was perfect. He dubbed in the character’s lines and was sure he’d never hear from them again.

He was continually shocked as they brought him in for more and more characters. Each time he’d leave the studio he was once again sure he’d never be back. He thought he did a terrible job, having to be led through “the ABC’s of comedy” from the producer. Whatever the case, the request kept coming. Finally, in Season 2, Hank signed a contract and became an official part of the cast.

The origins of a large base of Hank’s voices come directly from impressions, (and sometimes bad impressions), of famous celebrities. He cites the inspiration for many of the characters:

– Moe = Al Pacino

– Chief Wiggum = Edward G. Robinson

– Officer Lou = Sylvester Stallone

– Dr. Nick = Ricky Ricardo (an admittedly bad one)

– Wise Guy = Charles Bronson

– Professor Frink = Jerry Lewis (specifically from The Nutty Professor)

– Sea Captain = Robert Newton (as a pirate)

This gig set Hank up for the rest of his career. He did continue with more work in both the voice over realm and on camera realm playing Eddie Brock/Venom in the 90’s Spider-Man show, Gargamel in later iterations of The Smurfs (including both movies), and had roles in the ’98 Godzilla movie, a role on Friends, and performed in Monty Python’s theatrical musical Spamalot.

The Simpsons though, without a doubt, gave him the most steady and collectively highest salary of his life. The story of the cast’s pay is kind of crazy. When Hank first signed on, the actors were being paid $30,000 per episode. But in 1998, a rumble went down in Fox about pay rate. Fox threatened to replace the entire cast and even lined up their chosen actors, ready to pull a switch-a-roo. The dispute was settled and the payment landed on a meaty $125,000 per episode. That lasted until 2004, when the actors decided once again that they weren’t being paid enough. Several of them purposefully skipped out on table-reads as a protest. They wished for the amount to be heightened to $360,000. In the end the pay for each actor went up, with Hank’s coming to somewhere between $250,000 and $360,000 per episode. BUT THEN production for the 20th season was put on hold when, you guessed it, the cast demanded higher pay. It turned out in their favor and the payment for each episode was hiked to a whopping $400,000 per episode! However three years later Fox threatened to cancel the entire show if budget cuts weren’t made and the payment dropped to $300,000 per. (Oh no, whatever will they do.)

Hank continues to enjoy a very fruitful career, recently performing on camera for the show Ray Donovan, appearing on Talk Shows such as Conan, and touring with a live show making use of his various voices. Check out a video of a bit he does as Chief Wiggum singing “Let It Go”.

Hank is a grounding reminder that success can, and most likely will, come at a gradual and realistic rate. Hang in there! Hank did, and look at him now!

NEXT EDITION’S FEATURED VOICE ACTOR: We’ll be exploring the Uncharted world of this voice actor’s world. Don’t speak poorly of this guy or he might take you out with a hidden blade. It’s Nolan North!

Very Voice Actors – Pat Fraley

Cowabunga dudes!

If you grew up a rad eighties child or a gnarly nineties kid than it’s very likely you were raised with the voice of Pat Fraley.

He wasn’t one of the turtles, however, he was actually the guy helping the turtles and the creature opposing them. That’s right, Pat played the sports sporting vigilante Casey Jones as well as the slimy screaming sack of Dimension X brains known as Krang!

Having started his career doing Shakespeare in Australia, he was pulled into the the voice over world when an audition call came into his theatre asking for someone who does a James Cagney impersonation. He got the part and, after going into record the spot, realized he not only enjoyed it but also made more from that one gig than he made from a week at his theatre.

Soon after, Pat came back to the States and moved to Los Angeles where he got his first cartoon credits as additional voices in Hannah-Barbera’s Scooby-Doo Goes Hollywood. He continued on doing Scooby-Doo villains in the late 70’s but, according to Pat, everything took off in the 80’s when more new original cartoon series began airing in the afternoons and not simply on Saturday mornings. Suddenly work was flooding in like crazy for Fraley and others lucky enough to be in animation at that time as there were, in his words, “only about twenty of us that could do multiple characters in a 22 1/2 minute show.” His first credit as a recognizable character was Major Glenn Talbot on the early 1980’s The Incredible Hulk cartoon series.

Pat called that time a “golden era of animation” as far as the work went. His co-voice-actors and him would take on all the additional voices as well as primary characters. Pat jokes there would be conversations that would go:

– Producer: “Alright who’s light on their contract?”

– Pat: *Raises his hand*

– Producer: “Ok great, you’re the Asian professor.”

– Pat: “I can’t do Asian!”

– Producer: “You do now!”

Finally in the late eighties, Pat landed on a gold mine when he auditioned for and booked the roles of several reoccurring characters on the soon to be smash hit show Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. He went in to audition for the show and remembered thinking to himself “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles…oh this’ll never go anywhere, what a stupid title.”

With only minutes to prepare a voice and after reading the brief description: *KRANG: An evil bodiless blurb of a man. A chortling villainous character but funny; Pat began breaking down his thoughts on the character. Check out the video, it’s a hilarious story.

He eventually went on to book, not only Krang and Casey Jones, but also Baxter Stockman and the crazy teenage turtle Slash.

With the Ninja Turtles, Pat says he finally came to the point in his career when his kids were interested in “daddy’s work”. Often in his kid’s school functions during auctions and sales, they would actually auction him off to use his voice for whatever purpose the bidder had in mind.

Pat is a veteran of animation voice over and one of the first in the group that essentially founded the business. He was, however, a bit younger than the rest, and such legends as June Foray, Daws Butler, and Mel Blanc would affectionally call him “The Kid”.

He attributes his success to both his mentors, such as Ed Asner and Chuck Blore, and to God and Jesus.

Currently, Pat is continually hard at work in the voice over business having done recent work on The Legend of Korra and the feature film Box Trolls. He’s been on a countless amount of radio shows, podcasts, blogs, and TV programs giving his stories and lessons. He offers coaching as well: http://www.patfraley.com/Learn/Learn.html

Pat got a reputation for his ability to quickly create characters. This, among other qualities, proves Mr. Fraley to be a model in creativity and risk-taking.

NEXT WEEK’S FEATURED VOICE ACTOR: He’s strongs to the finish when he eats his spinach, it’s Jack Mercer the VO man!

Very Voice Actors – June Foray

June Foray is one of those legendary legends. A legend of legends.

She’s one of the founding fathers mothers of animation voice acting. A quick a glance at her IMDB will show you her cartoon credits date back to the early forties! Her work goes back even earlier than that, however. Her voice was first aired on a local radio drama when she was just 12 years old. Originally doing radio voice work in and around Springfield, Massachusetts, her home town, she and her family eventually moved to Los Angeles. Her voice credits only grew as she eventually got work on The Jimmy Durante Show and the Lux Radio Theatre.

It’s comical to note the point at which June started working toward her acting career. Her parents were very artistic. Her mother was both a pianist and a singer and pushed June into piano and dance classes. June hated the piano so much that she recalls being overly-thankful when she accidentally broke her fingers at a baseball game. After the ordeal she finally said to her mother ‘I don’t want to play the piano! What I really want to do is act!’ Her parents immediately began sending her to top-notch acting teachers.

So what makes June a legend? Is it her many awards and acclaims through the years including Annie’s for her work on The Garfield show and Tweety and Sylvester Mysteries and the Hollywood Star made in her name? Is it her dedication toward the recognition, appreciation, and growth of the animation industry as a member of ASIFA-Hollywood (a group devoted to promoting the art of film animation)? Perhaps it’s her countless iconic roles as some of the world’s most beloved cartoon characters? How about her undying passion for voice over? Did you know she’s 97 years old…AND STILL WORKING?

Or is it a bit of all of that?

No.

It’s A LOT of all of that!

It’s very difficult to excessively express the talent and importance of June Foray in the world of entertainment.

If there’s any second guessing her relevance, just check out the images below to get a taste of the endless voice credits:

 

                

     

 

Crazy right??? I bet you wouldn’t have guessed that the well known voice of Rocky the flying squirrel was also the classic Talking Tina of the Twilight Zone or nearly every kid from the Rankin Bass Frosty the Snowman or the Granny from Mulan or Cindy Lou Who from the classic How The Grinch Stole Christmas! Her credits don’t stop there! She did voices for two animated characters in Who Framed Roger Rabbit including the weasel “Wheezy”. She was the popular Fortune Teller character from the original Scooby-Doo series. She was the mother, the evil cobra, and the wife bird from Chuck Jone’s Rikki Tikki Tavi.

Want me to go on? Oh I could. I could go on all day!

June brought to her characters a vigor and life that existed no where near mere silly voices. They had energy and complexity. They had life and they had truth.

If you’d like to hear all about a legend’s life directly from her own words, pick up a copy of her autobiography: “Did You Grow Up with Me, Too?” You’ll see deeper into all the corners of your childhood.

NEXT WEEK’S FEATURED VOICE ACTOR: Straight out of Dimension X it’s….Krang- I mean, Pat Fraley!

 

 

 

Very Voice Actors – Rob Paulsen

Rob Paulsen. What can I say? He’s toony and a whole lotta looney.

A role model is what he is.

Sure he’s big in the voice acting business. I mean BIG. He’s the voice of so many-a starry eyed kid’s childhood. You can hear him singing about llamas, going crazy over pizza, naming every country in the world, and Narfing up a storm on your screen. Some of his lesser credited roles are some of my favorites! Jack Phenton never ceases to send me into fits of laughter. Mark Chang is a thoroughly entertaining character. And Batroc the Leaper from The Ultimate Spiderman is an absolutely hysterical bit.

But these things aren’t what put him at the tippy top of my role model list. (Well, they do, but something else seriously solidifies his place there.)

He is a model citizen in socialization.

I mean it, you listen to him on his growingly popular Rob Paulsen’s Talkin’ Toons, hear him talk to his fans at conventions, or watch him in any interview and you’ll see that he’s what every entertainer should strive for. He’s stupidly polite and makes the person he’s talking to feel like a million bucks. He has a joke up his sleeve and a voice ready to pop out at any minute. He does his best not to bad mouth a soul and endlessly sings the praise of the people he’s so honored to work with.

I’m fascinated by the way he can essentially get along with anyone. You throw him in a crowded party without a soul he’s familiar with and you can bet he’d have a list of friends by the time the night’s over.

Don’t get me wrong, his acting chops are among the best. I mean, come on, I feel like I don’t even have to say anything to applaud his award winning performances. But it’s the way he gets along with everyone so well that draws me to him constantly.

He’s got it all. The right mind set for the business, the acting skills, AND the inability to be disliked.

We could all do well to take a page out of Paulsen’s book. Whether it’s self-deprecation, just as Rob mocks his own film career with credits such as “Body Double” and jokes of his age saying “I was the entertainment at the last supper”; whether it’s in humility, just as Rob praises the musicians and directors of Animaniacs and Tiny Toons saying they are the true rock stars; or whether it’s in charitable acts, just as Rob donates the proceeds of his ordered autographed photos to The Wounded Warrior Project and Operation Smile, Rob Paulsen is an icon to follow.

No, I’m not Rob’s secret promoter. And no, he didn’t slip me a twenty. 😉 I simply want to spread good advice: Be like Rob Paulsen.

NEXT WEEK’S FEATURED VOICE ACTOR: Is it Ricky Gervais? Is it President Bush? Is it Robert De Niro? NO! It’s…All of them! JIM MESKIMEN

The Image of Commitment

I think that in most people’s minds, the image of commitment is a never-ending struggle, with achievments few and far apart. As if the difficulty at the beginning of this commitment will be as difficult all the way through.

When starting on a new skill or endeavor, we have very different ideas of how commmitment looks than we do years down the road. This may be from original lack of knowledge on the subject, but I find that commitment, if constant, does unquestionably become an easier task.

If we begin our new skill with only a vague idea of where to go or what to do, but are nonetheless constantly moving; constantly working towards the goal, a wonderful knock-on effect takes place. And it doesn’t always happen as quickly as we’d like, but it happens!

For those of you asking “What’s a ‘knock-on effect’?” It’s simply this (put in lamen’s terms): Something happens, and as a result, something else happens. So in other words, if you strive towards your goal, with full commitment, something will eventually happen. And once that happens, you will gain another something from that first event.

For me, this commitment and knock-on effect relates to my passion in life: Voice Over. I would say I’m quite comfortable with where I’m at and what I’m doing. Especially compared to the beginning of this road. I am still fully committing myself to it; working hard everyday. The only difference between now and the beginning is: It’s much easier to stay committed.

Why? Well because the image of commitment isn’t constant. It actually becomes easier and easier. It does not remain a continual struggle, but evolves into a comfortable work ethic.

Take another example: Working out. Oh, you can be sure those first few weeks, or months, going to the gym on schedule is more than tedious, it’s maddening. After a while, every fiber in your body is telling you to stay home and Netflix the hours away. But one who pushes through that begins to see results. This is where the knock-on effect begins. The results are obvious… You lose weight, you’re healthier, you feel better, you’re proud of yourself. And these effects cause something else to happen: You want more! So you continue to go to the gym, and although it IS still difficult going those extra reps with the weights, or the extra minutes on the tredmill, you’re more comfortable with it. The pain is easier. Perhaps after that, by going to the gym so often, you meet a friend. You now have a companion to meet with regularly and work out, keeping you even more committed and giving you even more results. Yet another knock-on effect.

The Commitment becomes easier.

For me and my voice over career, the knock-on effect has been extraordinary. And continues to be so. I started off, years ago, clueless. So I researched. And by my research I gained these things: Insight, motivation, and confidence. And through this research and its effects, I gained much more: Books and DVD’s of the “how-to” nature, tips and tricks of the trade, eticate in and out of the studio… I even gained a voice-over mentor! Each event branching out and giving me more to work with.

But that’s the key: More to WORK WITH. Those “branches” I refer to…You can’t just let them grow out and wither. You have to be pruning them, and watering them, and even planting more seeds. The knock-on effect is useless unless you’re staying committed to your goal, just as much, all the way through.

But isn’t this changing image of commitment such a hopeful thought? The difficulty in it will be gone with time. The commitment WILL get easier. You just have to keep moving forward.

So in a sense, we can say this: More Commitment = Less Commitment.