Alicyn
Welcome to Alicyn's Wonderland. I'm your host, Alicyn Packard. Join us as we journey through the looking glass and down the rabbit hole into the wild and wonderful world of animation and video games. A do a girl a favor, and please subscribe to this podcast and go on iTunes and leave us a good review. If you like the show, please help spread the word it really helps us to get heard by more people. Thanks so much. Do you think a Bruce Springsteen concert could literally change your life it happened to David Errigo basically that one concert changed the trajectory of his career and caused him to want to pursue a career in entertainment. Now David started in New York doing commercials and dubbing and now he's in LA and his career is taking off he is deadly the dodo on Ridley Jones for Netflix as well as the new Ferb and Disney's Phineas and Ferb. So join me as I welcome David airy go. This is Allison's Wonderland. David. Dad, dad. Oh, I shouldn't probably sing that. Then I'm gonna get copyright infringement. Oh, no. How are you?
David Errigo Jr.
I'm doing well. How are you doing?
Alicyn
Good. It's good to see you. It's good to close. You actually. Absolutely. First time we met Big shout out to Ashley wind to it for connecting us. Just saying that. I have you on the show. Yeah, so you're a voice actor.
David Errigo Jr.
I am. I do I happen to be Yeah.
Alicyn
You've lived all over? Yes. Yeah. I
David Errigo Jr.
was born in North Carolina, raised in a couple of different spots in Florida to high school in college in Montana, to Arizona after that, then to Manhattan and then out to the ocean on a Disney Cruise Line ship and then back to man. And then in LA for coming up on six years.
Unknown Speaker
Wow. Well, like really close to six years like in August. That's amazing. Are you gonna celebrate? I'm already at the smokehouse, probably Yeah, smokehouse, don't leave me hanging. Oh, yeah.
Alicyn
That's amazing. And so because your family was in the
David Errigo Jr.
US for 26 years. Wow. Oh, my gosh. So good. So I wound up seeing they did a rerelease of the original and they had it over the Dolby Theater. That's that's the AMC Burbank 16. Uh huh. Seeing that movie with that soundtrack on a big screen for the first time with those speakers was like, super easy. And then I went and I saw Maverick just came out with an average. Some more tickets.
Alicyn
Yeah. Then kind of Yeah. Was that you? Were you? Oh, my
David Errigo Jr.
God. Okay, so my dad was more of he was something called a first shirt for the latter part of his career, which is basically like a guidance counselor for the troops. And he helped with morale, he helped when people got in trouble. He unfortunately, you know, was who they called when, like there was domestic abuse situations, things like that he would go and have to deal with his troops. And, yeah, so he had a difficult job. And it's something that he did for like, eight years. And I think it was while he was still in, but they decided, yeah, you're only allowed to do this job, this portion of the job for a maximum of three years. And so like the fact that he did it for eight, it really was sort of way to shifted some of his optimism, unfortunately, oh, I'm sorry to hear that. Yeah. became a lot more of a real estate scene a lot more of the world.
Alicyn
Do you feel that moving around a lot help you become a better actor?
David Errigo Jr.
I do. I mean, it's funny, because growing up in North Florida, and being born in North Carolina, it's funny, because I'll think like, oh, yeah, if I wasn't thinking about it, I'd talk to you like this. Yeah. When I was little that was, like, so many people around me sounded like that, right. And because we were about an hour below Alabama, like I said, and you know, you hear all these people. And then we moved to central Florida. And people sort of make funny if you sound like that a little bit. And I was like, Ah, I don't want to sound like that. So it basically helped me to train my ear for dialects. And that's why I kind of have a neutral or relatively non regional sort of sound. Yeah, fine. But you know, you go places and like living in New York, you pick up little funny things, like when you're talking to people around you, and you hear it and just get stuck in there. Yeah. And my dad, he's actually from Pennsylvania, New Jersey, which is like right across the river from Philadelphia. So he's got family members who say water and like all of that stuff, all the things you would hear on mayor of East town. And when he joined the military, his accent, just sort of sloughed off until he's back around people from those areas. And then, you know, it'll come out having a few drinks, which he's a bartender now, so he's been known to have a few drinks.
Alicyn
It's par for the course. Now, I kind of heard a story about how you were attending a Bruce Springsteen concert and that was like a pivotal moment for you. You're like this. I want more of this performance thing.
David Errigo Jr.
Yeah, yeah. Honestly, I was just can never remember if it's like 11 or 12. And we were living in Central Florida at the time and my dad and I and another guy from his work went to Orlando to the arena where the magic play played. I don't know if they're still there. Well, it's been a while and my dad grew up Like I said, in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, right across the river from Philadelphia, where I think if you don't like listen to the music of Bruce Springsteen a couple times a month, they find you, they hunt you down, and you will be punished. So he was a fan. And I'm sitting there, just young kid, and I look at my dad, and he has what I affectionately come to call a shit eating grin on his face. And I watched him for what felt like two to three songs. But if I'm being honest, you dad like drinks, I watch my dad, dad's face, I'm sitting right next to him just kind of and felt like two or three songs, probably just one concert version of a Springsteen song because he does have a way of stretching them out. And I had this thought I went, I want to do that for people. I want to make people feel that way. And that's what sort of brought me toward performance, which like the next year, I started doing choir and drama and all of that stuff. Prior to that I thought maybe I would be a comic book artist, or people were trying to push me maybe toward architecture, and where you'd like to draw.
Alicyn
Wow. And so then did you go to college for performing?
David Errigo Jr.
I did. I did. I went to high school and Great Falls, Montana did really well academically, so I got to go to school for free if I stayed in state, and I wound up getting a bachelor of the arts in theater from the University of Montana, Missoula. Other notable or distinguished alumni include JK Simmons, hey. Interestingly enough, I started out in the BFA program, okay. And I wound up doing a show with one of the professors. He was the professor of voice and speech and he directed the show called The Time of Your Life by William cerana was his favorite play, and he was an asshole. Like, I just working with him through this thing. It was like, Oh, I'm gonna have to spend the next two years working with this guy. If I continue the BFA and like he was so bad. We had a community member in the show. We were like two weeks out from opening and the guy stands up in rehearsal. I quit. Nobody needs to put up with your bowls, you know, as view and none of you young actors should have to be dealing with this. He left like it was that kind of he was not a nice kid to show put
Alicyn
him on the pedestal and love him because I feel like there's always like two sides to the coin. Sure. There's like the Devo. taze there were
David Errigo Jr.
definitely people not a lot of people who didn't see what was happening in this show. But for the program, yes, strange, but I went to audition for the mid programs and like on that day, I told him you know, just pay attention to my scene partner. Don't worry about me. I'm not continuing with the BFA program and it was because I didn't want to work with ironically the voice and speech teacher and now this is what I do with my life. Wow.
Alicyn
Wow, it's all come come full circle. So how did you make it from college to them? Voice acting short
David Errigo Jr.
answer is out of college. I went down to Arizona and worked at a theater as a graphic designer and photographer and performed for them at night. I got what I consider like an unofficial Master's in theater, just experience based. I did like 11 shows with them over the span of two and a half years or something like that. And then also some children's theatre and stayed very busy. And then I moved to New York. And while I was in New York, oh gosh, I'm doing the short version. There's some stuff in the back in New York and got a manager manager takes me over to paradigm to this guy, Doug Keston and Doug's big theater guy, and he was on camera commercial agent, but we talked a lot about theater and I talked about having done a production of Avenue Q. I had this you know, that like the LIVESTRONG bracelets like I've got the BB Brad one and owner Brad Venable Rest, rest him. But I had one that said sucks to be me of Q Phoenix and I wore it for a really long time, because it was a reminder that I could do things that scared me because when I when I got hired to do this production of Avenue Q I had never puppeteer before. Wow. And I did Nikki trekking in a bad idea bear and we wound up getting taught by Rick Lyon, who was the original Nikki Trekkie, bad idea bear and the designer of the puppets and everything like that Phoenix Theatre brought him out. And he taught us how to puppeteer. And I was terrified. And then we opened and reviews start to come out and they singled me out for really strong puppeteering. And so I used that as a reminder to do things that scared me. And I told that story to Doug comes over to me around the desk, grabs me by the shoulders, walks me across the office sits me down in front of another guy named Matt Smith, who I think is now an agent at KMR. He's not at paradigm anymore. And he just says you to talk and Matt was a voiceover agent. And so paradigm started bringing me in for auditions. I remember like McDonald's squat about French fries. There was a miracle whip was getting into a bunch of different sauces. Like they had a zesty tangy sauce or something like that. Not character stuff and not officially just bringing me in and it made me go oh, they're gonna they're gonna let me do this without being on Broadway first or without being a movie star. Oh, that's neat. And so I sort of started pushing in that direction and studying in earnest reading books like voiceover voice actor by Yuri Lowenthal and Tara Platt. I like that book so much. I'm actually a testimonial in the second edition, and then listening to talk in tune Is with Rob Paulsen which I consider my cartoon University in New York, I would run by the river and just listen to an episode I owe Rob so much. And then vo buzz weekly, you know, great way to learn from people who were not actors, right? You get the producers, directors, voice directors, agents, whatever. So ton more information. So I'm like cataloging all of that information. And at the same time, I wound up signing up for voice 123, which is an organization that I actually kind of do not care for. I don't I don't like the pay to pay structures.
Alicyn
Yeah, I haven't they were sort of before my time, I guess or after my time. So I'm not too familiar with them. But I know they sort of polarized some people are really Pro and some people have other thoughts, but they work for a lot of people absolutely in secondary markets. And
David Errigo Jr.
absolutely, I found that it wasn't for me, but I appreciate one specific opportunity that I got from them, which was the first opportunity I got to audition for an animated feature, which was a dubbing feature, but it was called Wow, Richard the stork about a sparrow was raised by storks and I got to go in to audition for Richard and that day I woke up in smiling. I got on the subway grinning, I did the audition, beaming and I left I always say glowing like Eddie Murphy in the golden child. You ever see that movie? Solo movie from the 80s and he's glowing, others the whole effect around him. And excuse me this audition that like 24th and fourth or somewhere like that was in person. This was in person in New York, and I got out on the street and I was walking down to Union Square to meet my wife and I got on the phone with my dad and I said I think I found the thing I'm supposed to be doing. Wow. And it was just it was that sort of clear.
Alicyn
Bruce pop into your head he was not he did not but song would he have been singing if he did pop in your head?
David Errigo Jr.
Oh my gosh, thank you know probably Born to Run because I had to get out of New York to go to LA to do what I really wanted to do. And I knew that very clearly.
Alicyn
Okay, so then what was next? You just packed up?
David Errigo Jr.
No. Next was trying to figure out how you make enough money to leave New York and move to LA because yeah,
Alicyn
it's a little pricey there. Yeah, here. Yeah, both. We have more little pockets, I guess. Yeah. Not so crazy.
David Errigo Jr.
So I continued doing auditions for theater got pretty close to Frankie in Jersey Boys are the swing in Jersey Boys who would cover Frankie audition for those that creative team a few times actually. But funnily enough, that started to feel in my head like, oh, wouldn't that be a great survival job? While I pursue voiceover do
Alicyn
work with Meyer delu? No, no, he was, yeah, somebody I worked with. Okay. It did a little bit of voice acting, but he was on that ship.
David Errigo Jr.
Okay, so while I was there, actually, I wound up booking some commercials for Microsoft, where I played a Christmas elf on camera on camera. It was a lot of fun. It was a CO production with Macy's I think and Andy Cohen was on there, they were advertising the Surface tablet, but that commercial that ran just that day and online gave me about 10 grand, just gonna like badness. Thank you. Thank you universe. Yeah. And and shortly thereafter, it was the day after Christmas that your My grandfather passed away my dad's dad. And it really hammered home the idea that you know, life is short, not a terribly religious person. So I'm kind of unhappily inclined to believe that when you're done, you're done. So it made my made my brain go, oh, you get one go around. If you're not doing what you want to be doing, what do you do on and so we took that money packed up and I actually went back to do another production of Avenue Q and Phoenix before coming here. Same character moved out of New York to there. And then from there to here. Wow. And within six months, I signed with SPV off of the referral of Mary McDonald Lewis who's playing Ivan in Lightyear. Check that out, hey, theaters this week. Or, you know, when this comes out, it was there. Yes, I had on home video. That's true. However, this, make sure you get
Alicyn
your digital download. But she gave
David Errigo Jr.
me a great referral to SPV. They took me on a couple of months after that. I booked a campaign for Cox Communications, which is a cable company and got to stop having a survival job,
Alicyn
which was Congratulation. Thank you. It's always a
David Errigo Jr.
great day. Yes. Very much. Yeah. Wow. I
Alicyn
mean, it seems like in a way, it's like your career is long and yet just burgeoning, you know, bursting with life.
David Errigo Jr.
It's funny, because I started working professionally, in high school in the summers, I would I would get paid to do theater, like my senior year, I think was the first time I got to do that. And so I've been a working actor in some way, shape or form for 1819 years. Right. And it's funny to like, start getting traction in the last couple of years. Right. And it's that feeling and I think Kevin Hart might have said it years ago or something, yeah, it took me 12 years to become an overnight success or whatever. So 100%
Alicyn
And as you like, See, I told you people I knew it. I mean,
David Errigo Jr.
but also I wouldn't trade all of that experience for the world to be able to bring all of that living to the booth now. I just think it's incredibly important. Yeah.
Alicyn
And so you are the new firm. urbane Phineas and Ferb. So tell us a little bit about the casting process for that. Well,
David Errigo Jr.
Dan and swampy created the show called Milo Murphy's law after Phineas and Ferb had had ended, its run. And they always intended to have a crossover. And when they were at that point in production, they reached out to the cast and said, Hey, do you want to come back? Everybody did except Thomas. And I really don't know the story. I know a lot of you would like to know, what's the T on that? And I know none of it. I don't know if it was scheduling. I don't know if it was like how I just feel fortunate that then it meant they sent out auditions. So I got that into my inbox. And I listened to and by the way, I've been a fan of the show. For years, Perry Oak has been my Text Tone since like, 2012. Oh, my goodness, what's the shout out at Bradley Baker? Oh, I can't make the sound. It's their platypus. And it's like it's that like, or whatever. When your phone rings. So that's, that's what my text Jonah is, is allowing D I'm sorry, I'm butchering it. But it came in. I was like, Oh, this is actually really exciting. And I love the show. I've watched a lot of it. I think I've got it in me. And there were lines like God, I wish I could remember. But one of the lines that I wound up having to do for the show, I'll do Oh, I'm sorry. Did you want to say that? It's just that it's been a long time. And so I you know, did the whole audition, put that in sent it? And then like a couple of weeks later, I got a callback for it, which was just a reread. I think they just wanted to check like, can you do this again? In person? No. And this was a submission again, can you do this again? And I did and I wound up booking and so I went over to was la studios just down the road here. Yeah, and I walk in. Dan is the first person to greet me. Before you say anything, we have a bet going. Are you actually from England? No. I'm from North Carolina, because dammit swampy was the only one who didn't think so. Which tracks really well for me, because I'm swampy. He lived in England, while
Alicyn
back years ago. Yeah. Wow. Amazing.
David Errigo Jr.
So I just was lucky enough to sort of sonically hit that same space and understand where the placement was for the dialect. And my wife at the time actually said, If you don't book this one, I don't understand your business. Like she
Alicyn
loved those little magic moments. Yeah. So when you do get a voice match audition, how do you approach it? Like, what's your process
David Errigo Jr.
for that? I will listen to the samples, and then oftentimes, immediately sort of have a sense of do I understand where this is placing Right? Like, I don't know how you feel about it. But I would almost always rather voice match a character voice than like a normal speaking voice. Just because I can sort of hear the placement and give my body a trajectory to understand you know, what's going on there. So if it's, if it's voice matching, just what's one that I turned down, there was an audition for something for Jim Parsons from the Big Bang Theory, okay. And I listened to it, and I tried it, and I went, I am alone at sea, I have no idea what to even aim at. And so I wound up passing on it, I worked on it for a little bit, I passed on it. So generally, I'll listen to it work on it. If I think that I understand the placement, then I will listen to it on repeat and try and really understand, Okay, what's the cadence? What's the where's he pausing? Why is he breathing here? What's the emotional sort of underpinnings of the sample that they sent? How can I manifest all of that, but I have to feel like I understand where to put it on my equipment before I get to that point, because excuse me, otherwise, it's just sort of a lost cause, in my opinion.
Alicyn
And do you ever come at a character with a physicality, like with a placement or some kind of, you know, do you develop characters just by playing around with where they sit and see what comes out?
Unknown Speaker
Oh, yeah, you know, I just want to put something in the back of my face, right? I'm just going to think that and who's going to come out then to me that that winds up is a little bit gruff, right?
David Errigo Jr.
Or, you know, do I what do I want it to come out of my forehead? And a lot of times, those are smart characters or whatever. And you know, we can we can play with those tropes, those stereotypes or things like that. But yeah, a lot of times, I will. And I think it's because I grew up as a sinner. And there's so much about placement when you're when you're working in a choir or whatever, you're, you're working in voice lessons, or whatever. And so I think that's why a lot of where my stuff comes from, is where am I going to put it? Yeah. And it's
Alicyn
fun to play it that way. I think.
David Errigo Jr.
Absolutely. Yeah. Absolutely. A lot of times, though, I'll let the text and for me, right. I'm one of those actresses. I'm a tremendous fan of writers, because if they have done a great job, my job is so easy. All I have to do is listen to the writing. Yeah. And it takes care of it. It takes care of it.
Alicyn
Wow. That's amazing. So now you also worked with Meredith Elaine? On Dota dragon's blood. I know I love her to I get to work with her and it's funny for Nickelodeon. Okay, so very different show though. It's ponies a comedy. Yeah. Tell us about Dota that was
David Errigo Jr.
is it just got announced for season three. Which is great. Yeah. Good for them
Alicyn
threes. Hey guys, this is Alicyn Packard. Sorry to interrupt, but I just wanted to let you know that if you like the show, please, please please remember to Subscribe to this podcast and leave us a review on iTunes. It really helps us to get heard by more people. Thanks so much.
David Errigo Jr.
Meredith brought me in for just some some, like one off character. And one of my favorite stories that I've been able to grab from for my career actually comes out of this. And they brought me in and it was just a character. He was called Medeco, which was really just his title. And I said, What would you like? And I was talking to the showrunner guy named Ashley. And he was like, Well, you know, it's from this group. So it's probably a bit of a Scottish thing. It's okay. So is it Scottish? Like maybe like an IndyCar sticker, right, who's from Agents of SHIELD? Because that's, that's actually a fairly easy to understand Scottish dialect as opposed to like, if you were really to get into a proper sky share. A lot of American ears just cannot hear it. Yeah. Okay, great. So I went in and did that for the session. Give me a give me a shake. You know, thank you so much for coming in. But today, oh, thank you. Thank you for having me. Meredith blah, blah, blah. And then they brought me in again. And Alex, thank you so much for having me back. The characters now called Maddox. He goes, Yeah, now you have a name. You acted your way onto this show. There's going to be a lot more coming to you. And I went, Oh, thank you this very nice thing for you to say. I was sort of like taken aback by the kindness of his of his comment, and I have so appreciated working with them. They're just lovely people. And Meredith has brought me a couple of other other projects, too. Like she brought me in for Yun vests. Amir in The Witcher nightmare of the wolf, which was the anime feature that they did was studio mirror on Netflix. And that was that was a blast to anytime I get to work with Meredith is she's such a true thing.
Alicyn
Yeah, Emmy Award winning. Emmy award winning is so now it's interesting to hear, you know. So you have this experience, both as a dramatic actor and as a comedic actor. Do you find that you gravitate towards one over the other
David Errigo Jr.
is an interesting question.
Alicyn
Or should we say honestly,
David Errigo Jr.
I love that you can you can learn a lot about a dialect and like the vowel placement just by the ways that they say. That's what sticks in my brain. But I shouldn't fool boy, I think I probably gravitate toward bigger characters. So that's what it's, that's what sort of tends to get me hired. Which it's ironic, because, you know, Ferb is such a soft spoken fella. And it's just a very quiet voice. And when I'm speaking to people, when they want to hear it out in the world, I get it a little close, because I'm not gonna be able to project and have it have the same effect. But then there's a character that I do for Ridley Jones, which is basically a bastardize. That when without the list, right? Because if it was said, when you'd have the he'd have the thought of this treatment, right? And that's how I auditioned it initially. And when I did the callback with Chris and the team, she was like, Can you do it without the list of tech? Yeah, of course. So he's a big character. He's got a lot of neuroses. And he's a lot of the comic relief at times. And when I get to do that, I can often sort of feel the energy from the other side of the glass, or now that we're home, like the other side of the screen. I was in a session for something else recently that unfortunately, I can't talk about, but I'm doing a couple of really big characters for and one of our show runners goes why are you so good at this? And I said, because how do you answer that question? Right? Like, what are you gonna do? I study a lot and
Alicyn
crazy
David Errigo Jr.
but I sort of at a loss for words, is it cuz you have so much fun? And I said, Honestly, I think that's it. So when I'm doing those big characters, I get to have so much fun, and I think that it translates
Alicyn
Yeah, what's it like working with Chris me, I'm Chris Snee dream
David Errigo Jr.
Chris is one of the titans of our industry right. And she such a warm person to she's got it's funny because she's she's incredibly kind, but she's also direct. And not everybody knows how to navigate being direct and still qualifying as kind. I appreciated every session that we got to do together and her encouragement throughout all of read Lee Jones was just second to none, such as such a sweet, sweet person, we will message occasionally on Twitter, and she's always just got the kindest things to say and like, man, let's coffees coming back. She's just so very, very supportive of her casts and our teams, oh, my god, the way that she loves her teams, look at her social media, and you'll see just the support that she has for her writers, her writers rooms, her artists, all of that. And that translates to her voice cast too, and the
Alicyn
impact that she's made on an entire generation booting, you know, diversity and what she's done for casting and authenticity and casting and the clarity the role she's created. It's just really inspiring.
David Errigo Jr.
I mean, I encourage everybody check out WWE the people you want to learn a little bit more about how like our government works. We the people was such an ambitious project. And they essentially wanted to do a civics lesson right and sort of rethink the idea of what a Schoolhouse Rock version of that would be. And they killed it. It's Oh God if you haven't watched it if you haven't watched it, check it out.
Alicyn
Yeah, thank you for sharing that. Now I know you also have done a lot of dubbing and I think you did a lot of anime in New York City.
David Errigo Jr.
Yeah, I did some I did some Pokemon and Yugioh and then that's fine. Oh, yeah,
Alicyn
definitely you a fan of Pokemon before?
David Errigo Jr.
Oh, I grew up on it. Yeah, I mean, I was of the first generation of like, middle schoolers who got in for their Gameboy they got either Pokemon rat or Pokemon Blue. And then you had your cable would connect the two devices. Yeah, trade back and forth. Can
Alicyn
you do your character? Oh, do you remember?
David Errigo Jr.
I think he was just me. But a little younger, a little energetic. He was a ninja from a mountain clan. You know? What was Venusaur vine with go like that kind of that kind of thing. If I'm remembering correctly, it's been a few years now.
Alicyn
Did you pop into dubbing kind of with the plan? Like, was it easy to pick up for you? Yeah, I mean, for me, it was gonna throw you right in a lot of times. Oh, yeah. You're like, three weeks and they go Okay. Okay.
David Errigo Jr.
So before I did this off off Broadway show called nothing but trash. And I worked with a guy named Rory Max Kaplan. Okay. And his dad is a guy named Kip Kaplan, who runs a studio called audio works out of New York. And Kip is sort of old school, New York. He's a personality. And he ran a an interesting and interesting ship, right? He didn't have beeps. Oh, wow. And he would get all sorts of different properties, things that you know, you and I probably would never have heard of, but he would just say and go, she would do it. I wanted so badly to get it right the first time each time, for various reasons. But we don't need to get into that. And it was my sort of trial by fire. And it made me get very good at that specific part of our industry very quickly. So by the time I got to pokum, on a new Gil, I felt spoiled. And like, go on the imaginary fourth beat, I was like, wait, I'm gonna have a chance to have a lead up and like, take a breath and Oh, very cool. Very cool. So yeah, dubbing I took to dubbing pretty quickly. Fortunately, I think it's an incredible space. Very technical, very technical, it is honestly one of the hardest things to succeed at in our industry. And it's why I think you see a pretty widely varied quality level, because it's, it is difficult. And when you're when you're really good at it, it can be insane to see like their shows like Deathnote, I think was a really, really successful dub My Hero Academia, I think is incredible. That's that comes out of Texas with Funimation. And then you know, some of the Netflix things that we see some of the live action, some of the features, some of the features, you can see when it's really, really good.
Alicyn
But it's tough to stay focused and be in the moment with the characters when you're listening for three beeps and also watching for lip flaps. And absolutely, it may or may not be timed out. Do you have any tips for staying focused?
David Errigo Jr.
Oh, interesting. Don't pay attention your phone. Like I know, that seems like a sort of trite thing. But if you are going to your phone in between takes or anything like that, it's really easy to lose sort of that energy continuity. I suggest that for pretty
Alicyn
well, pretty. Yeah, that's pretty for everything. But I can see you know, and especially I think just I've heard like the more comfortable people get with them, the more the phone comes, for sure, especially if everybody's working from home and there's constant distractions. But see, I'm
David Errigo Jr.
such a nerd for this job. Like I know, I know from doing work that I don't want to be doing versus doing work that I love that I'm the guy in the group record is just the whole time the whole time. I'm not sitting down. I'm not on my phone. I'm like paying attention to what everybody's doing because I'm so enamored with our industry.
Alicyn
And that's how we learn right? group records are the best training out there. When we get another human, we're here in the same room together
David Errigo Jr.
during the pandemic, when we switched from group records to individual records for Ridley it was such a bummer because you know, I would go into these sessions and was that at La studios. This one was at Studio opolis over on Colfax and Ventura. But you know, to my right I have my buddy Tyler to my left was oftentimes Ashlyn is another Powell and then right next to them was Bob Bergen and Laraine. Newman, sitting there going, yo, let me just learn to learn everything that I can. And just especially hearing teacher to Yeah, he's such. I miss it. I miss it.
Alicyn
Yeah, yeah. What do you do these days to stay fresh? Is it just auditions and bookings? Or do you do improv or take any classes
David Errigo Jr.
honestly, to stay fresh? A lot of times it's devouring content, and not just animated stuff, but I will like during the pandemic, I decided to watch Doctor Who, right because it still gets trotted out by people on the other side of the glass. And they're like, you know, just like, like the doctor. He's kind of crazy, but he's good. Crazy, right? This guy that you're playing today is kind of crazy, but it's a bad kind of crazy. So let's let's do that. I'm like, I have context for that. So I'll do that. I've just has gone back to start re listening to talking tunes Rob's podcast just because hearing those stories inspires me so much like I love getting the chance to hear what the people who came before me faced and how they got through it.
Alicyn
And of course those podcasts lately you get to listen to this. Well, of course, of course.
David Errigo Jr.
Come on. We've I wouldn't come on if I didn't think it was worthwhile episode with Rob. Actually, I will. I will. I do take classes when I can, particularly casting director workshops, things like that. That's how I got to know Meredith, voice actor network. Yes. Voice actors network, I swear by because they vet their guests, their students. And I'm a firm believer that you can learn from everybody around you. Yeah. However, I will say it'd be nice. Yeah, it's nice to go to these classes and know that I will be learning from people that are sort of have a level because sometimes, you know, when you're in there with more beginner level talent, they can learn from you sort of out balances, what you can learn from them to some degree, although there's also times when you know, I've been in in a beginner's workshop, and I've gone holy, what a great reminder. Yeah, I need to be doing that, my goodness. And I wouldn't have necessarily gotten that from from people who are sort of on my same level.
Alicyn
Can you talk about any of the upcoming projects you have coming up?
David Errigo Jr.
I wish I could. I wish I could. Nothing has been announced yet. Keep your ears out in the next couple of months. I'm really, really hoping that some big stuff is announced. There's there's something coming out in August, but I have not been announced as a part of it. So there will be something in August. I can talk. A lot of fun. We'd
Alicyn
love to have you back. I would look at all about your new projects. David, thank you so much for coming on the show. We appreciate it. Thank you guys so much for tuning in. Stay tuned next week, we're going to have more amazing interviews for you. And make sure to subscribe if you're not already, which you probably are. So we'll see you then. Bye. Thanks for tuning in to Alicyn's Wonderland, where we explore the wild and wonderful world of animation and video games. Please remember to subscribe and leave us a review. For more episodes of Alicyn's Wonderland. Please visit us at www dot Alicyn packard.com See you next week.