Intro
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.
Hey, 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.
Alicyn
Welcome, welcome. Come on in. My name is Alicyn Packard, and this is Alicyn's Wonderland, the show that takes you on a journey down the rabbit hole and through the looking glass into the wild and wonderful world of animation and video games!
Yes, happy Wonderland Wednesday, everybody. How are you doing? How are you feeling? Go ahead and type one word in and let me know how all of you guys are feeling tonight. Hey, Sebastian! What's up, pretenderkitty? Brand new face. Chris! Angela! Hey Tamir, I'm always wondering if I'm pronouncing your name right. Genesis! Thank you for joining. How are you guys feeling tonight? Jonathan, good to see your face. Hey Angela. Hey Jeffrey. Good to see you, Hunter. You made it. I'm glad there wasn't a lightning storm that took you out of commission. It's so good to see everybody tuning in.
We're really excited because tonight we have award winning voice actress Jennifer Hale, prolific video game and animation voice actress. In fact, she's the Guinness Book of World Records holder for most female voices in a video game. Like what, that's kinda crazy. I used to read the Guinness Book of World Records for fun as a kid, and, I, I don't remember seeing that. But I remember seeing some other weird stuff. So what an honor and privilege it is for us to have her on the show tonight. We're going to talk all about her career.
And we're also going to chat about her brand new endeavor, which is skillshub.life. And it's a website that I've been using. Fun and it's super helpful. It basically connects voice actors and coaches for one-on-one on demand coaching. So if you need, if you have like a last minute audition that comes through and you need some coaching, or you just want to brush up on some skills, it's really great for that. So I reached out to Jennifer to see if she would come on the show. She graciously accepted. So I'm so excited to bring her on.
Hey Jen, I'm gonna go ahead and invite you right now. Let's see. Here we go. Thing on the stream. I just want to remind everybody that there's a box on the bottom with a little question mark, if you have questions, go ahead and type them in there and I will do my best to get to them.
Alycyn
Happy Wednesday!
Jennifer
Hey, it took me a couple of minutes to find the button to join. I was like, “I’ve never joined before. How do I do that?”
Alicyn
Yeah, yeah. There's the either you can invite either I can invite you or you can ask to be on but either way works great. So
Jennifer
Yeah, yeah. Thank you so much for your kind words. It's lovely.
Alicyn
Ah, you’re so welcome. Thanks for joining us, it's so glad to have you. You're definitely a big inspiration for me, not just in your career, but I feel like you're like my soul sister. Because we both like love being out outdoors in nature, and I think it feels like you're really aligned in a spiritual path and sharing your wisdom with others. And uhm I so appreciate that.
Jennifer
Thank you. Well, you know, if other people can benefit from my road rash and save the money that I've spent on fixing it. Yeah, baby,
Alicyn
Yeah baby, get it in there.
Jennifer
Yeah
Alicyn
Real dirty, real, lots of scars. But that's what life's about. Right.
Jennifer
Exactly.
Alicyn
Well, yeah. So I mean, so many questions. I mean, there's so many different avenues. I'm curious about your career, I definitely want to talk about skills you have and just some personal stuff as well like life lessons and things. I'm just curious, like, so what is your average day like these days? I mean, you're you're a voice actress, but you're also a musician and entrepreneur. How do you manage your time? How do you get it all in?
Jennifer
I'm trying to figure that out. It's, you know, it's a lot of brush fire resistance. I mean, today, we're looking for a Social Media Manager for SkillsHub. And until we find one, hi, I do a lot of it. There's a couple other people helping but it was a lot of that. There's a lot of slogging through things. I don't know how to do Canva and all these other apps and stuff, it's figuring it out. So it took me the whole day to accomplish about four tasks and you just have to accept it. But I get up and you know, my first priority in the morning, actually my very first priority before it even opened my eyes is where's my head today? And I don't, I check in and then I tell it where it's going to be today. I check in to honor where I'm at. And then I go, “Okay, so this is my focus today”. Like I've been sending my kid off to school lately with this. He's in middle school. He just started middle school.
Alicyn
Awwwww
Jennifer
And I've been sending him off. Yeah. Oh god, being a parent, man? It's
Alisyn
Yeah,
Jennifer
you know, alright. Yeah, it’s a thing.
Alicyn
Totally.
Jennifer
I love it so much and I, the size or because it's going so fast.
Alicyn
Yeah
Jennifer
It's just by like, “No, no, no, no, I want to go back and do it some more.”
Alicyn
But your mother of one?
Jennifer
I am, yeah
Alicyn
One son?
Jennifer
Yeah, I've known since I was nine. I was gonna have one and he was going to be a boy, and I was going to be a single parent. I have no idea. Maybe time is not sequential. Maybe it's parallel and it’s how I know that. I don't know, maybe the Flash was right. You know, I don't know. But yeah, so I send him off to school with one sentence, which, you know, after I love you, and bye and you know, be smart and all that is look for the good stuff. Look for the good stuff. And that's, you know, phrases like that. Or, if I'm feeling if I wake up just feeling completely like, “whoo, I'm not on my game today”. Then my saying for the day is, “Okay, slow down. Don't push it. If you're not there, you're not there. It'll all line up when it lines up”.
So anyways, so that's who they (are). And then, I do a lot of intermittent fasting. So I make breakfast for my kid. And I drink a lot of water. And then I'm trying, I'm working out. I'm experimenting right now with different times when I work out and work. I'm doing strength training now four days a week, and I take my dog for a walk. A nice long walk, because she's a big girl, and she will get quite bouncy, and she gets pissed off. She's like, excuse me. I think you forgot something. We don't do a long walk.
Alicyn
Me
Jennifer
Oh, yeah, she's a big girl. She's a girl. She's a Shepherd Pyrenees mix, and she's massive. And, and then I just come back and start digging in on auditions. It's really, the hardest part is executive function. It's organizing all this stuff that comes at us. Because in this freelance career, you know, for anybody who's freelance, or is an actor, and you know, your scheduling is very reactive. You tend to, for myself, my entire career, and I've been freelancing, since I was a teenager, full time since I was 20, supporting myself the whole time, which is cool and overwhelming sometimes.
So I've been trained to be reactive and light on my feet like, “Oh, you need me now? Great, drop everything. You need this? Drop Everything”. ‘Cause that's the, the myth of freelance, right, is that you get to do whatever you want on your own time. No, no, you come whenever they call. And so that's actually the one thing with SkillsHub, that I, you know, know, because the way this whole thing happened is I just had this idea a couple years ago. I get tired. You know, remember, we used to audition and we go places, and they would tell us, they would coach us and direct us, right?
Alicyn
I miss that.
Jennifer
And yeah, now you go, you get stuck at home. And I'm in this box that I built. I love my beautiful box I've built but I'm like, there's no one in here to say, “Yay”, or, you know, there's like nobody to weigh in. And so
Alicyn
Except for the various voices in your head, and you can’t always trust them.
Jennifer
Oh, they're a nasty little committee that requires a lot of discipline. We'll talk about that. But I remember, I was just like, God, if I because I've done, I paid for private coaching. I'm like, “I don't need an hour with somebody I just need (to do this)”. I was like, “What if there was a place?”, and I met this developer a year ago to barbecue at my sister's and he was, and I like this, and Bill made it happen. It's extraordinary. My sister's like, I'll organize. And please be my executive function! So she does that in her spare time.
And so now that I'm running that, like, I can't be reactive in my schedule anymore. I have to be proactive, I have to make it happen. I mean, I have partners there and stuff. But it's a completely different approach. If you know us, we're hired guns. We come in, get it done, we check it off our list and pull, we're out. It's done. It’s off my list. This is like, it's like now lives in my house. It's never off my list.How can you start the projectY You're like, “Oh, it's always gonna be here”. And, you know
Alicyn
That’s how I feel about this podcast.
Jennifer
Yeah, we didn't know. What you're doing here. You know, it's the same thing as what we're doing. It's suppose, I was serving people. You're giving to people, you're helping and supporting people to expand their world. And that's, that's huge, so valuable.
Alicyn
Yeah I mean, the reward is, is worth the effort. But I agree that when you take on a project that is sort of in the developmental phase, there's, you don't even know what the to do list is. There's your to do list that you know, and then there's that whole to do list that you don't even know yet. And you're still working on your team and your systems. And those maybe are not our strong suit?
Jennifer
Oh my God, and I launched two things at the same time. I launched two things in June. I also launched a Patreon community. Oh, that's all I'm like, Oh my God. I was thinking less had, you know, those 4am things. I'm like, “Oh okay, that's what's next”. And then it's making that happen.
Alicyn
Beforehand, okay.
Jennifer
Oh, The things that come to you at 4am. You're like,
Alicyn
Oh
Jennifer
Half asleep, and you're like, “Oh! Yes, that's the answer”. And you hope you remember it the next day. You know, yeah.
Alicyn
Right
Jennifer
The unconscious is an extraordinary powerhouse of beautiful things. Yeah.
Alicyn
Yes. Do you do a lot of dream work?
Jennifer
I do some. I love my, my dream times very, very specific. I am blessed to be connected to a (I’m not gonna get into that) very wise person who is deeply, who is intensely spiritual and you'll never find in the phone book or or any yellow (pages), you know, or online anywhere.
And they work in the dream space and I, in my dream time ,I surrender and I have no agenda. My dream time is all about, “Let me know what I need to know”. You know, in fact, the other day, I had one of those dreams where something was happening, some significant apocalyptic thing was happening. And this has been my dream theme my whole life.
Alicyn
Yeah
Jennnifer
I had to get busy, because when I get out there and I start putting all these systems into place that I know are really, really important for what's coming. And nobody knows I'm doing it. Then it's okay. They don't need to know. (But) I know those systems. It's like a sorting thing. Like everybody's going into their sorting spaces where they need to go and it's happening seamlessly, and I'm behind the scenes and it all gets handled.
And, and, people are going to be okay, because those systems got put into place because it did it. And then I woke up. And I was like, “Oh, well, that felt very powerful and useful and kind of exhausting”. And my next thought was, “Where's the fun in any of this?” And I was like, “Oh, that's my message from dream time”. Not to sort people for the apocalypse. But let's find some fun.
Alicyn
Yes, yes. You know, even if the world is burning, we still need to be able to get through, get through
Jennifer
Yeah, we do. What do you do for fun?
Alycin
I love to go camping.
Jennifer
I see we’re soul sisters (haha).
Alicyn
Yeah, yeah, my family and I have a little travel trailer. So we take it out as many weekends as we can.
Jennifer
Which one you have? I’ve been looking at those.
Alicyn
Oh I, well, we could go out (extensive). It’s a 17 foot travel trailer. It's tiny. It's 2500 pounds, and uhm you can tow it with a small SUV. Oh, they're really great.
Jennifer
I have a foreigner ‘cause I love cars.
Alycin
Oh, so you can go bigger,
Jennifer
They get banged up. Yeah, but one of my neighbor kids had to get cut out of the roof rack of my foreigner
Alicyn
I totally need to hear that story, I’m sorry.
Jennifer
Oh my god. I've moved to an island off, you know, off the Canadian Coast and I have this roof rack on my foreigner, this, this awesome, like grid like this. And it has these rectangles, strategic points along sides that you can rig stuff to like I throw my paddleboard up there, I can throw bags up there, I'm thrown to, you know, carry, you know, containers up there, whatever. And there's a ladder on the back of my truck.
And my yard is that my house is the house where the kids come and hang out and like trash my front yard because it's just full of like wood ramp, things and pieces of lumber, and God knows what, like the trash pit front yard that they make stuff out of. And I've never cleaned it because I never want to lose that. And uhm they come on my record like this. And I put a little pool in like this is the height of the trampoline like this is the house come and do the math.
Right, and so they're playing nerf wars or something outside and I guess somebody must have shot a nerf bullet up onto that landed on the roof of my car. My car has a ladder on the back. And I was busy like already did this house top to bottom. But our meeting with the kitchen guy for the first time. And we're down there looking at the kitchen and figuring out what to do and then Shank was like, “Mom, Will’s stuck on the car!”. And I was like, “Oh, okay?” So I come out and he has reached through this little, this time I think he was five, if he had reached through, maybe six.
But one of those things on the side of the car that was about this big and stuck his arm through it to get the nerf through it, reaching around the side of the roof rack. You getting it? And reached through the hole. And he got stuck. And we tried soap and we we're all supposed to be masked. This was in the middle of you know the early pandemic times. And yeah, I mean, I tried oil. I tried soap. I tried ice. I tried stern comments. I tried gentle comments. I tried everything and it was not happening. And so they finally called the fire department and they came to my house.
Alicyn
Meanwhile, it was the most exciting thing the fire department had done all day.
Jennifer
Oh my god, they took a grinder and cut him out of my (roof rack). Yeah, welcome to the neighborhood. Hey, I'm that house. How's it going?
Alicyn
You need a sign, “proceed at your own risk”
Jennifer
Right? I should have said, “you know what you are getting into
Alicyn
So, I didn’t know that you’re living outside of Canada now?
Jennifer
I am in Canada. Yeah, I was born in Canada. I was born in Labrador. And I am NunatuKavut Southern Labrador Inuit. I am a First Nations roots. And I, my mom actually kidnapped me back to the US when I was just almost two. And I grew up in the US. And then I found my father when I was 19. And we connected very well. I had a dad, a second dad, who I didn't realize was my second. You know what I mean. Anyway, my mom was married a lot. Yeah. And then I got, we were very, very alike. We were extremely alike. He transitioned.
Alycin
You and your dad?
Jennifer
Yeah, we transitioned out about 16 months ago. And so, but I was so happy to have the time I had and then I recovered a bunch of family from finding him. And then, but I stayed in the state, stayed in LA working and then I had planned to kind of head up to here to this zone because my sister's really lives in this area and I wanted my kid to do Middle School kind of in a place where he could be outside and run around. He just have one of those, you know, “I'll be in the range I’m allowed to go!” kind of childhood. And that's what's happening right now and but it happened, it wasn't going to be as early as it happened. It was going to be a little later, and then March 16th.
I was sitting in my kitchen counter and I lived by my intuition. And my intuition had been tapped me on the shoulder for a couple years going, ‘Go home’, meaning Canada. And I was like, “Yeah, not right now”. And then in February started going, “Go, go, go”, and I was like, “I'm working on it, I don't know”. It's gonna, and then March 16th. It was like, “Go now”. And I was like, “Ah! Okay”. And I bought tickets. I was like, we’ll just go visit my sister for a few weeks, because apparently school is closed for a couple of weeks? Okay. And, and that was that. Yeah.
Alicyn
Wow.
Jennifer
Yeah. Well, the crazy thing is I bought the ticket on Monday for a Thursday departure. And I was kind of like, friends of mine, we're gonna rent my house, like co-have, like, I love the whole community living thing, and their rent was up. And I was like, “Man, I love you guys. Just, we'll figure it out. Just come stay at the house.
And we'll figure, we'll work it out”. I'll probably be going this summer and I'll start kind of packing up my house a little bit, make room and then on Monday, I was like,”Alright, I'm gonna pack up a little more”, because the feeling I'm having is pretty intense. So I started packing my house. And then Wednesday, the government closed those two days later, the government closed the border to all but Canadian citizens, the Canadian government. And I was like, “okay, so it's tomorrow. 8:30 Flight International. Okay”. So
Alicyn
Maybe we'll, maybe we won't be able to come back.
Jennifer
Yeah, I kicked it into high gear, got some help with everything and just, it was like, “Okay, here we go”. And it's crazy. Because sorting out your (il)legal and your banking and you know, all the stuff you’ve got sort out, you know, in a day was a thing. Yeah. But we made the flight. Yeah.
Alicyn
Wow, congratulations!
Jennifer
Thank you. (The qu-) The cool parts was my, you know, the way my mom kidnapped me was not so good. It was not necessary.
Alicyn
Were you aware at the time?
Jennifer
I was not even two and my father basically just came to visit me, and came to visit me, and came to visit me, and then I was gone. And you know, he couldn't find me. And so the first thing I did when I got back across the border was call my father and tell him I’m back. Oh, so that was cool. That was really cool. Yeah.
Alicyn
And so you said he, he just passed 16 months?
Jennifer
He had a stroke 10 days after I got up.
Alicyn
My God.
He was, he was in Labrador. He was across the continent in Labrador on the west side of Canada. He's on the east side. So we, and then I was still in quarantine, when he had a big stroke. And so I couldn't, if even if I had flown to where he was, I would have had to quarantine again. Yeah. And so if he was going to transition, like, but it didn't make any sense. So I stayed here. And I, we walked in through virtually. And it was interesting, because at the time, like there's so many people who have had who haven't even had that level of privilege. Like I had that level of privilege, because yeah, he's an amazing man.
He was in that hospital, and he was completely there. Like, he didn't lose any of his mental facilities. He just couldn't form most words. And he couldn't stand up. And he was an activist and he made his whole life, doing you know, manual labor jobs like that's what he did. Drove truck, plower, you know, through heavy things of plougher like snowplow, like working, he worked. And he was also a tribal elder. And and most importantly, he was a phenomenally powerful, internally activist for First Nations and for land rights and for water rights, especially in Labrador.
He said the greatest thing. Labrador technically falls under the Newfoundland government. But it's the big land part and Newfoundland’s the island part up here. And there were no Labrador flags that flew at the border of, with Quebec. So my father, they kept asking, and they're like, “No”, kept asking, they went, “No”.
So my father took a big long (thing, creek), sanded it down to a pole, loaded his truck up with (uh) Quikrete, drove to the border, which was several hours, I don't even know how long it was, dug a hole, stuck it there, put the concrete in, put the flag up and left. And the government never took it down, so they put one up on the other side. When he died, you know, this just abnormal guy who was a wonderful activist, the flags across Labrador were at half-mast, across in government places and a lot of places. It was great. Yeah, yeah
Alicyn
Wow, that's amazing. What a legend.
Jennifer
Yeah, yeah, he was awesome. He was awesome.
Alicyn
And do you feel that some of that spirit is distilled in you as well?
Jennifer
Oh, yeah. I will, I am definitely a poop stirer. That is what I do. You know, my career is sort of a delivery system for whatever divine inspiration comes through. And for breaking down barriers. That's really what I do. That's what I do. That's actually quite (how) SkillsHub is about. It's about breaking down barriers to entry. We've had a crazy number of people who've never done voice acting before who just want to try it or just want to up their D&D game and or people who live in (like)
Alicyn
D&D game? (laughs)
Jennifer
Yeah! I've coached, who coaches people on their d&d stuff. It's crazy. Charles Ross, he's amazing. Yeah. So yeah, like we've got people. I want people in all parts of the planet to be able to participate in the game.
And you know, we got this thing that we've opened up called the opportunity board where like, if you're just making fanfiction, or if you're making a game out of your basement or an animated thing out of the corner of your kitchen, and you have, you know, 50 bucks to pay somebody or nothing to pay anybody and you need actors, we've got a free place for you to post is called the opportunity board doesn't cost creators a thing and creators don't have to be members.
Actors are members because of all the other benefits and the coaching and I just found out actors pay a piece of their salary when they book these jobs on some of these sites. Like if you're not, you know, the non-union world and a site posts a job, you give them a percentage of your, of your job pay. I was like what, what?
Alicyn
Like an agent? So they're like acting as an agent?
Jennifer
It’s not even (like an) agent. It's like a fee? It’s like, you know, it’s on Fiverr. You pay a X percentage of your earnings toFiverr. And like, we're not doing that. We're not doing that so, but yeah. Anyway, so breaking down barriers. Yes, I do have pieces of my dad for sure. Just ask my sister.
Alicyn
Yeah. So how is it working with your sister? That must be (a) fun experience. What, what do I know?
Jennifer
No, she's a, my sister is a phenomenal human being. My sister is just, no, she really is. Like, it's not like, “Oh, I speak well of her”. No, no, she's, she's an awesome human being. I didn't know her. I didn't grow up with her because my mom didn't, I didn't know she existed. I didn't know any of them existed. But my, my, they always knew I existed, which was kind of a really beautiful thing. She was the keeper of my history. She gave me back my history. Yeah, I get all choked up about it. But so, it's amazing. I trust her. I trust her completely. I trust her completely. Yeah.
Alicyn
When did you reunite?
Jennifer
When I met my father. She was away that summer. But the following summer, I think I was 20 and she was 18. We both met in Labrador.
Alicyn
Wow
Jennifer
She's got this beautiful, just still point inside. And I'm like, pew, pew, pew, pew. And she's just still, you know, she sees everything. And she would sit with my grandma. And she gathered all the facts. And so she, because she could sit and listen and pick up details and just wait. She had the whole story. And she, overtime, just gave it to me in pieces. It was beautiful. Yeah. Because my mom created a lot of fiction. So she helped me straighten out the fiction. Yeah.
Alicyn
Wow. And so now you guys are working on this endeavor. You just launched SkillsHub just a couple months ago really.
Jennifer
Yeah, June 25th.
Alicyn
I remember seeing it on your Instagram being like, because at that time, I was like, there needs to be like, we need more community in the voiceover industry. Because we don't have that, like we used to. We're not going into a casting agency. We're not even going into our agencies. And I very much missed that. And, and I thought, Oh, my God, this is such a brilliant idea. I signed up right away. And I've been doing some coaching.
Jennifer
Yay
Alicyn
And yeah, it's just, it's great. The on-demand aspect is what I really like.
Jennifer
Yeah
Alicyn
Because sometimes, you know, you might start working on something and you're, “Oh yeah, you know what, I need a second year on this” or, “I'm just not quite sure, am I hitting it or not?” And then you know, to bring someone in for 15 minutes or 10 minutes or 20 minutes to say, like, “You got it, but here's the beat. You need to tweak” or like, “You know, what you need to start over. This character is not working”. It's really great. Yeah. And I know that you have been seeking to build community. And so I was wondering, what are your hopes for the future in terms of that?
Jennifer
We have a forum that is incredible. And people are starting to weigh in, in the forum. And I'm hoping to see the forum build. I'm hoping to see these workout rooms with Jeff Burns, who I think is here. Yeah, he's got a great idea. Yeah, we used to, you know, we used to do workshops, right, and we get inspired and we'd create a workout group, then we'd meet once a week and work out and pay the engineer. And this is a virtual version of the same where people can get together like, I think we've got people in the rooms who are like, just gonna do readings from, from a script and JD went sky, JD, who's organized it is one of our members, is gonna just hand out roles. And it's just a great place to practice.
They could also just be cocktail hours, you could just meet to talk about, like, “Okay, I don't know what to do now, where? Oh my God, I do this thing andI just wanted to tell somebody”. You know, community gatherings, their gathering rooms, they hold up to 10 people right now. And this is the beautiful thing about the site. Like, almost everything on this site came from 50 plus beta tests that we did one-on-one with coaches, actors in levels one, two, and three, which is the beginners middle and, you know, advanced actors, people who come in and just beta tested with us. And so if there's something that people discover that they need, let us know. We will create it. We know we will create hangout rooms and people can meet and chat and stuff, you know, like
Alicyn
Whatever I like, there used to be, like a business group that I was a member of that Lauren Kling started many years ago. That was a fun little way for people to check in with each other every month. Yeah, just give each other support. How did you come up with the name skillshub.life?
Jennifer
We, we came up with SkillsHub because the skills is what you get out of the coaching, and the hub is what we get out of our community. The hub is our community, and the community is a huge piece of it. And then .com was taken so we grabbed .life. And we actually, you know, SkillsHub is about connecting experts with people who need expertise in little bite sized affordable bits that they can manage work for their budget and their schedule, right? Yeah, vertical, as we call it, the first vertical is acting. And the next one we're probably going to move to is devs. We're going to do the same thing connecting people who know with people who need to know, in space for devs, we're just going to keep going. And so skills, we picked SkillsHub because it's a name not specific to any industry. But it describes what we do. Yeah,
Alicyn
Very cool. So when you say dubs, do you mean ADR dubbing for video games?
Jennifer
No, sorry. Devs, devs, uh developers, developers and content creators.
Alicyn
Oh, ah!
Jennifer
That’s our next vertical. Yeah, so we have. .
Alicyn
So the other site. .
Jennifer
Yes, we already cover. I think we have over 25 different acting skills that we coached in ADR and looping is one and podcasting and performance capture and on camera and sitcom and like all these different, different aspects that we cover. We got, now we have, I think, 54 coaches, maybe 55, we're adding every week, we have to, you know, catch up.
Alicyn
And how does one sign up for SkillsHub?
Jennifer
You just go to acting.skillshub.life, and you find, find the site there. I think we have a seven day free trial. We have been in beta. You are the first to know, you have an exclusive. We are out of beta now. We are full version, we are fully opened. Yes. Yes. Yeah. So excited. Yeah. I'm really, really excited. And yeah, so we are fully live now. And it's awesome.
Alicyn
Aww, congratulations!
Jennifer
Thank you. Thank you, thank you. Yeah,
Alicyn
That’s so cool.
Jennifer
Hit that forum because community is super important. And ask us for what you need, just email skills support at skillshub.life. Let us know what you want in the site, we'll make it happen.
Alicyn
And then, so groups that are in there, those are from any one that is a member of SkillsHub can just join or create their own?
Jennifer
Okay, cool. Maybe we'll have to do a wonderland thing sometime like a workout group thing.
Alicyn
Yes, I love that. Very cool. A lot of people come on here, and they have a lot of questions about breaking into voice acting. And because this is a forum that also, we talk about people's careers, we talk about personal and really kind of dive into this world. There's not a ton of time for just advice and that sort of thing. But we could do, maybe do a subset for those that are specifically looking to break into voiceover. So yeah, maybe 20.
Jennifer
Yeah, hit me with your questions. I'm here, I'm here.
Alicyn
So, I’m curious. We've talked a little bit about your patreone. Patreon, patreone
Jessica.
Depends on where you’re from, how you only say these.
Alicyn
Yeah, I was calling it “patrone” for a while, I'm not gonna lie. I was like, “Yeah, she's got ‘patrone’”, you know,
Jessica
Not this month, I'm in my one time, one month a year cleanse. But after this
Alicyn
So can you tell us a little bit about what, what kind of things you're sharing on that platform?
Jennifer
Yeah, Patreon is my personal mission. It's, It has three pillars. It's called The Haven, it's just patreon.com/Jennifer Hale, we call it the Haven. And the three pillars of my Patreon. Basically, it happened because I haven't, you know, haven't had the easiest road on the planet in this life. And I've invested a lot of time, money and energy into healing and clearing out and I've learned a lot on the way, learned a lot. And some of it was expensive and painful.
And so if I can share any of my road rash with people. I'm not a therapist, I'm not a financial expert. But money is something we focus on a decent amount, I'm getting ready to jump into a money program there, you know, create a structure for people to start talking about that.
So we have three pillars. One is, “let's reconnect you to your gut”, your intuition, your instincts. Let's connect you to that. Second thing is “let's get you what you want”. Do you even remember what that is? And are you wanting what you want? Are you wanting what you think you should want? And the third thing is “we are the ones we've been waiting for”.
The current system works so beautifully for the corporations that have overtaken the planet like a bad virus. And they're not gonna to change it because it works for them. But I don't know that it's working for us, individuals, and nobody's coming to do it for us. So let's link arms and let's rise up together.
Alicyn
Hey guys, this is Alison Packard. Sorry to interrupt, but I just want 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.
Alicyn
And don't you think that, that COVID and sort of the changes that have come about from the pandemic have shifted globally, the way we approach sort of our goals and the way we're structuring our life? Do you see this as kind of being a good jumping off point for?
Jennifer
I think so. I really do. You know, COVID has been a really interesting thing. I mean, we all are pretty clear about the pain points of COVID, right? We know those really well. I think there are also blessings of COVID. You know, we don't gather at malls anymore, we go outside, you know We don't focus constantly on, “Am I, have I achieved enough? Am I ahead enough? Am I good enough?” Right now, we've been intensely, intensely focusing on, “Is everyone okay?’
And I don't think that's a bad thing. We've been deeply forced to reconnect to community and self care, it's kind of sink or swim, right, with that. Look, I mean, for a long time, these, these corporations, you know, these legs, Thor's, etc. have been really putting the planet through some pretty bad stuff, and doing it in the name of profit.
And it's a form of capitalism that is not sustainable at all, in any way, shape, or form, not for humans, not for the planet, not for any of it, and the planet would push back, and the corporations would just send a bigger bulldozer. And this time, the planet sent her smallest soldier and went, “Sit down”. You know, so I hope we remember, you know, yeah,
Alicyn
Yeah. I hear you. Speaking of corporations, do you do commercial video? How does that sit with your, you know, philosophies on life? How do you feel about auditioning for projects that maybe aren't in alignment? I'm curious about how you approach that at this stage in your life, and maybe it was different 20 years ago?
Jennifer
It was way different. It's such a great question, Alicyn. I started my career in Birmingham, Alabama, where there were five ad agencies doing nothing but syndicated small market car commercials. And what that means is they would go around the country and sell their advertising package to a bunch of different car dealerships. And it was the same commercial, they just take out one dealership’s name and put in another one.
This one goes to Gulfport, this one goes to Shreveport, this one goes to you know, (arab), this one goes to Reform, you know. like whatever the towns were. And I got really, really good doing though, I did so many of those. That's how I started.
I was still in high school when I did my first you know, VO and maybe Yeah, barely into university. I've no idea. And I got really good at that. And I worked really hard at it and then I went to Atlanta. I worked (in) both cities, Birmingham and Atlanta, to expand that. And that's how I get my first film audition, which is what got me out to LA. And when I came out to LA, my intention was to do, and I was there to do film and TV stuff. That's why I left where it was because I had a killer career where I was.
And, you know, like, a lot of us, I booked a few things, but it wasn't enough to pay the bills, right? So I made a VO tape just to make some money. And that tape was commercials. I had never done any animation.
And my first audition in LA was for a cartoon series. And it was, I booked it now, and it was a series and I was like, “Oh god, I don't know what I'm doing”. I jumped into class. So training has always been my ally. So yeah, and I personally pursued commercials hard. I did tons and tons and tons of and there was a point in the early 2000s, where I couldn't turn on the TV or radio without hearing myself. I was a gateway computer spokesperson for over 10 years forever.
Alicyn
Oh, wow.
Jennifer
Yeah, yeah. And Ted is so great. The owner of the company, I used to get flown to do their Christmas parties and hang out with him. And he was riot, such a riot. And I did tons of them. And I, I definitely had an evolution. I, in 1995, I wasn't feeling fabulous, mood-wise, emotionally.
And so one of my mentors had the wisdom to send me to this woman in Santa Barbara, who did kind of more alternative, you know, at that time it was really alternative, now it's called functional medicine, healing, and she had me give up sugar, dairy and caffeine. And I was drinking green juice and taking probiotics in 1995. And everybody thought I was nuts. And it helped, right? And I'm, I've just started, you know, really understanding what big food does to us and how it messes with us.
And then I started really jumping into money and educating myself around money and because I think in the sort of 50 and 70 year timelines and I'm like, “There's stuff I want to do in my life and I need to work less and go do that stuff”. I mean, I did a volunteer vacation in Thailand in 2006, and just fell in love with that kind of connection? You know, and that kind of living and giving back. That's, I hate that phrase.
Because that kind of community combines with, you know, people, people from different socio-economic groups coming together to better everyone. Yeah, that's really the more accurate description because I got a crap ton out of it when I went, and I thought, “Okay, this is I want more of this in my life”. But I have bills. Now I bought a house and I've redid the whole house. Okay, I need to concentrate on money.
So the more I learned about money, and, and food and health, the more I looked around and went, “Oh my God”, you know. McDonald's is not food. These health foods are not health foods. They're full of soybean, corn, all these oils that will, that will kill you, eventually, over time. They're full of all these things that are slowly poisoning us and making us sick and sending us over to big pharma and big medicines for them to make their chunk of the money. You know, and it's all being passed to lobbyists. And it's all being shoved under the rug by those lobbyists and those paid foreign bought representatives. It makes me insane.
So yeah, a thing has started to happen over the last few years. I remember going to an audition for a financial services company. And I'm like, they make their money on commissions. They do not care whether you're having a good investment or not. If you're lucky, you might get the one rep that really cares. But he's being duped by his employer. It's a whole racket. And I'm thinking to myself, “I have no business auditioning for this. I'm not the one they want. I can't do it anymore. I can't do it anymore”. So yeah, that's been my commercial evolution.
Alicyn
Straight up past here, like this is not me.
Jennifer
I will straight up, I won't do McDonald's. I won't do pharmaceuticals. I won't do those. But I hesitate to say that because there are, I hope, many, many people out there do because it's for that, it's for anyone to come and audition. Listen, you build your career on anything you need to build it on. Build it, do it, you take care of yourself. Don't, I'm not judging anyone who does that. I'm just sharing my particular journey. Because, because it was asked.
Alicyn
No yeah, totally. I think that the hard part is when you get to that point where, you know, you might think, be thinking for whatever reason, X job or Y job or Z job doesn't resonate with you. How to then, there's this fear of disappointing your reps or, you know, I don't know, you know, to be like, “Okay”. Like, for me, like actually, I love a good Big Mac, like once in a while. I'm cool with McDonald's, but there are other things that maybe, you know, I just I, you know, you you're not aligned with it, you know, so I think it's very empowering to, for you to be able to say, “Not for me”, you know. Yeah, increase room, then we're creating space for the opportunities that are for us, right?
Jennifer
Amen. Amen. Absolutely. Yeah. We are so aligned, you and I. We are so alligned
Alicyn
Jennifer Hale said, okay? Listen, and you know what? It comes down to one thing that I have really, that's been in my face ever since the beginning of the pandemic, which is
Jennifer
Gorgeousness?
Alicyn
No. You caring for yourself so deeply, that you stand for yourself more than anyone else in the world. What matters to you most is what you, what feels right for you. Not like you're gonna go damage anybody else. But like, it's okay. You do you, and full respect to you because I'm fully doing me. And I know, there's room for all of us. And I'm not judging you. You can disagree with somebody without disliking them. Yeah, you know,
Alicyn
And that's the uncomfortable place we're all in these days.
Jennifer
Oh yeah.
Alicyn
Yes, sir.
Jennifer
Yeah. Yeah. Big time. Yeah,
Alicyn
And it's very wise. You also had a money podcast. I know you mentioned that you're very active in financials. Can you tell us a little bit about (that)?
Jennifer
Yeah, that actually was born because I started reaching that point where I couldn't do certain things anymore, because I knew I just didn't have the stomach for it. And I knew that, if you don't, if you can't make, as an actor, if you can't believe in what you're saying, you're not going to book it. What's the, don’t waste their time? Yeah. So I thought, “Okay I really love money and the study of money”. I always have.
There was this crazy board game that I bought that was stupid expensive. It was put out by Robert Kiyosaki’s company. Yeah, it's called Cashflow. It was a board game. And I used to sit by myself playing this board game to sort of figure out how it all worked. I just loved it.
And my second dad, who was the dad that I spent more time with growing, you know, when I was younger, he used to call me the little capitalist Piglet, but the flavor of capitalism that I was, yeah, I would run the numbers at 10 years old about how much I could make if I spent this much money on macray rope and this much money on beads and made like, you know, plant holders, hangers and stuff and what I could sell them for.
And then I'd make them and then I just give them away like, “Oh no, just take it”. That's my form of capitalism. It's like, oh, I missed the step that got to have business partners, right?
But so at that point, I realized that I loved real estate, like I had wasted money trying to learn how to do stock options to help my self directed pension that I created, you know, as we do is independently, self-employed people grow and I was like, “Oh, wasted that stupid, huge chunk of money because I hate stocks. It's just not my happy place for people, who it is, it's, please do it because, but it's not mine. Real estate's mine.
So I jumped in and started learning about how to syndicate real estate investments and how to kind of, because money is all about velocity, and education. And, but I felt this weird hitch. I felt embarrassed. I thought, “Does this make me less of an artist and less of a performer?” And I went, “Oh, no thank you. No, no, Timeout, timeout”.
That is an old paradigm. It's been around a long time, a stupid old belief that needs to be kicked to the curb, which is if you're creative, you're not good with money. And if you're good with money, you're somehow less creative. I was like, “Let's shatter that myth”. Because what if we had a world where artists were financially empowered? What is that government look like? What does that decision-making power structure look like? What does that look like? And we're getting closer to it every day, which I love.
And so I just did, it got me thinking about money. And it's, it's what we're about to take on. And in the Patreon sometime in the next few months is the structure in these conversations. I look at money like a table. I frame it like a table. this is what I did in the few episodes. The podcast was just me going to cons and setting up a mic and going, “Okay, who wants to sit in the hot seat and talk to me?”.
And people did, it was just like, it was very cowboy. And like, who cares. And, you know, I just did a few episodes, but it was really compelling to me. And because I've had the privilege of, of all the help that I have gotten for myself over the years. And it's given me a different perspective. You know, and I had hours and hours in the car in LA to listen to podcasts about this stuff, and to inform myself.
And so I look at money like a table. The four legs are this, The first leg is knowledge, which were not given on purpose. We'll talk, we'll talk about that. Once you get knowledge though, and start getting a little knowledge, then you make a plan. That's the next leg. And once you know your plan, then you know the habits you need. Habits, so the third leg. And then we get to the fourth leg, which is the super oversized, massive leg which is being, and being is, you know, the beliefs you were raised with, the soup that you live in.
I remember one of my early, early conversations with this guy was a guy who called, called in when I had like a call in an episode. And he was pissed off at all of his wealthy friends. And I thought, I said to him, I said, “I, that is blocking you.
Because your unconscious mind understands now that if you're wealthy, people don't like you, because you're not liking wealthy people. It's unsafe”. So that's being and like, you know, who you can get too big for your britches, or we're not good with money, or rich people are selfish. Like, there's the whole soup that we all (are in)
Alicyn
Tall poppies, nobody likes tall poppies.
Jennifer
Exactly. And, you know, it's, it's the stuff that we don't even know is running in the background, all that early, subconscious programming, right?
Alicyn
Yeah. Very cool. Well, I know. I have so many people chiming in and asking, “when are you going to get to the audience's questions?”
Midtro
For anybody that's just tuning in, and you might not know this show is called Alisyn's Wonderland. We’re a weekly IGTV show and podcast where we interview people that work in animation and video games to go through the looking glass and down the rabbit hole to discover what it's like behind the scenes. So I hope you guys tune in every week. I'm so happy that we have so many people that tune in every week.
Hey guys. Hey, Luna, Hunter, Chris, don't worry celebrity fun01. We're gonna get to your question. Jeff, thank you guys so much for sticking around. Let's see I cannot see who these are coming from. Okay, a lot of people are asking.This is… I'm gonna use this question to cover three questions about can I dm Jennifer? Can I reach out on Twitter? What's the best way for fans to communicate with you? Is it “patrone”?
Jennifer
Patreon. Patreon is a good one. Patreon is a good one actually. I do sit down there and answer questions and I have, we have a private Instagram that's private for the Patreon people and I will directly interact there. The Streamily signings are for like signing and stuff. Man it's hard because I'm so swamped right now I would say just signings and and the Patreon and and if you need coaching um, yeah. And so...
Alicyn
But I follow you and I haven't seen... You haven't had a lot of time to pop up recently.
Jennifer
No. I haven’t, and I actually, next week I will. I'm trying to get through some of this market until we find a marketing person. I'm like, Oh no I have to learn a new job.
Alicyn
You know I would love to coach with you.
Jennifer
God that would be so fun.
Alicyn
So fun. Yeah, fun. Yeah, let's see. Okay, so that's...that's a lot of good resources. This is kind of like asking you “Which's your favorite child”, but I know you only have one child. So it's your choice for us. What's your favorite role you've ever played? Can you even answer that question?
Jennifer
I actually have an answer for that and it's, it's not a role. It's the sheer diversity of the roles I've been privileged to play. Everything from Princess Morebucks to Commander Shepard to Cinderella to Rivet in Ratchet and Clank to a dribbling toddler in a new series I'm on. Like, it's, it's so fun. Yeah, I like the diversity.
Alicyn
It’s amazing. We have... we got to act in a scene together in Ratchet and Clank. Chef Tulio and Rivet. I have pulled a little clip from it somewhere and it was so cute.
Jennifer
I would love that. Throw that up, will you? And if you find it, throw it up on social media. I would love to see that.
Alicyn
Rivet is adorable. She asked us if we can do a duo session. Oh, let's see. So that, I’m gonna cover this one.
Jennifer
You’re working on something with a certain Japanese team right now and a director who might have also been involved with the project you just named.
Alicyn
I don’t know. I don't think so. I am working on something Japanese and something with a different team. But I think those are two different things. Let's see, was playing Cinderella your favorite?
Jennifer
I loved being Cinderella. I mean, that is such a privilege to step into Aileen Wood’s shoes and, and carry that mantle. I think I stepped into that 1995 and man, what a, what a privilege and also some super fun stuff like Wreck It Ralph and all the toys, the theme parks like, it's awesome.
Alicyn
Uhm people were also asking, “Do you own the dress? Do you wish you own the dress? Have you thought about getting the dress?”
Jennifer
No, but there might have been a moment that might have happened but is certainly never allowed to happen with Rusi Taylor and I. When she was still with us in Orlando, you know, looking somewhat like our characters, but that's all I'm allowed to say.
Alicyn
Internet, do your thing.
Jennifer
It's not on the internet.
Alicyn
Oh.
Jennifer
We made sure.
Alicyn
Somebody's asking, “Do you have a favorite moment from Spider Man as the Black Cat/Felicia Hardy?”
Jennifer
I do! I have a couple. I mean just sitting in the lobby with like Ed Asner, and Martin Landau, and Efrem Zimbalist Jr, these actors who were in like old Hollywood. I mean not Ed. Ed was more recent but... and listening to them tell stories. That was amazing.
At one time, our director was a character man, Tony Pastor, he was a character, and Mark Hamill and I were doing a scene together. And we were standing, you know, we were standing side by side at our mics.
And it was when Felicia and I think he was Hobgoblin? They had... they were like, you know, together for a little bit of it. Tony made us do the scene holding hands. The whole talk.
Alicyn
Oh, so funny. How did that inform this?
Jennifer
It was great. Actually, it was kind of cool. So I've held hands with Mark Hamill. You know, what's so great is like, I feel like the world is rediscovering him. And he's such an incredible actor. And a wonderful, wonderful guy. Because I feel like in, you know, in VA, he was ours. For a couple decades before people were, like, rediscovered him and he became the thing again, I'm like, Look, he's always been talented. You just like him because the Star Wars but you don't even know his talent. It's huge.
Alicyn
Yeah, here in the VO world, we know.
Jennifer
We do. We do.
Alicyn
Let's see. We have so many questions. Great questions. What was your experience like being on Billy and Mandy?
Jennifer
Oh, it was awesome. It was so awesome. Because I played Gladys, Billy's mom, and she was nuts. There was this long stretchI had...
Alicyn
Can you do the voice? I’ll fangirl out.
Jennifer
Let's see. Oh my god, she was, I’m reminded of Chris. Chris Zimmerman who directed Ratchet and Clank ripped apart, she directed that as well in her direction for me would be just, “She's got no Prozac today, out of your trippy mind”. Yeah, that was really fun.
Alicyn
Let’s see. Okay, so this answers that question (do da do da do). This is a very open ended question. But do you love being a voice actress? And I guess I want to tack on to that. If you weren't a voice actress, what would you be?
jennifer
Oh, my. I absolutely love being a voice actress. I, I, I've been gifted with this incredible career. Now listen, you know, gifted in that I had an opportunity and then I worked my butt off for decades to make it count. But look, it's incredible. It's the things I've gotten to do, the, the barriers I've gotten to break down, the experiences I've gotten to be a part of are unbelievable. And let's see, if I wasn't doing that, I would be a singer. That is my first love. And or, an someone who built and designed and built houses, redid houses because that's another one of my addictions.
Alicyn
That's so cool, and you’re, you’re..
Jennifer
Or, or disaster relief and rebuilding like some combination of disaster relief and reconstruction. Yeah. In developing nations, not in areas where people don't have enough to make it work and need help. Yeah.
Alicyn
That's funny. At first glance, they seem so disparate, but actually they all have heart. They all have heart. You have two singles that you put out in 2020. Is that right? Yeah. So yeah. Are you currently? How much, are your singer songwriter? Can you tell us a little bit more about that? And if you have any new music?
Jennifer
Yeah, I wrote my first song when I was 12 at camp and then I started singing in clubs and I was 15. And, but I didn't have any confidence. And now finally that I'm getting some, some self love. And some like, it doesn't matter if you have confidence. I care about myself, and I'm going to do it because I like it. I finally put out those those two songs. I'd written one of them quite a while ago, “Never” and then “Sea of Stars”.
I, my first audio book, I did last summer. It was for Christopher Paolini’s book, “To Sleep in a Sea of Stars”, which was 800 plus pages, 880 plus pages and 50-ish characters. So it was a deep dive. Yeah. And out of that, he heard “Never”, and he's like, “Hey, do you think you would want to write a song?” So I grabbed Todd Herfindal, who’s a guy I know, and we came up with “Sea of Stars”, which is one of my favorite things I've ever written in my life.
And I have more songs coming. It's just a matter of, of making it fit into the day. Yeah. Yeah, I haven't chosen to put that at the top of my schedule priority list, because I have a responsibility to SkillsHub right now. So I'm choosing to do that right now.
Alicyn
I can completely relate. When you're a creative that has a lot of different interests and passions. They can't all be on the front burner at the same time. So there's seasons I think, yeah, seasons to season the, the pots of...
Jennifer
Yeah, exactly, yeah
Alicyn
I put out an album in 2019, I think?
Jennifer
Oh, did you? What’s your genre? What’s your vibe?
Alicyn
It's singer-songwriter, folky pop, but I have a handful of pop songs that I want to put out. And that requires collaboration, you know, but it's just, it's something that is where my soul is at and something that's super important to me. But then, then the pandemic hit and it was like, I didn't sing for over a year. I just didn’t even open my mouth to sing rarely. And so yeah, it’s nice to kinda feeling it out again.
Jennifer
I had singing sessions last week for a thing that will be released soon, but I think people will be very happy about. That’s all I’m gonna say, and I was like, “Whoo, girlfriend is not in as good a shape as she would like today”. But I mean, all came out great. But I was like “Whoo”, I'm used to like, “Boom knocked it out. I was like, “Ooh, I gotta do a few a few approaches today. That's okay”. But maybe you and I will collaborate on something.
Alicyn
It’s, it’s definitely a muscle.
Jennifer
It is, it is.
Alicyn
Okay, gotta get this muscle back in shape. Like the tiniest little,
Jennifer
I don't even know how it is, how that works.
Alicyn
But awesome, so many. So I think we got through most of the questions. Yes. Chef Tulio and Rivet in the same room together, it’s so cute. Okay, I guess I want to just with, leave with. I know, we just have two minutes. I don't, I wanna to be super respectful of your time. But uhm..
Jennifer
We can go a little over, it’s okay. I got a couple of extra minutes.
Alicyn
Okay, all right! For the next hour. No, just kidding. We'll just say I did. I was curious to ask you if you have any incredibly embarrassing moments, like did you ever just let one rip when the mike’s one or I don’t know.
Jennifer
When I was 17, I did. I didn't realize everyone could hear. I was like 17 and I was like, “oh my god lesson learned”. And let's see. I yeah, you know, I gave up the ability to be embarrassed a long time ago, mostly, because you can't have that in this career. But I do remember, I was at Warner Brothers one time doing, oh God, it was my first time ever worked with Kari Wahlgren and she just blew me away. It was, I think it was that series was, that she was on. She was incredible.
But I was guest recurring role on that thing ,as one of the villains and I come in from my very first session, and they did the whole scene with this kind of voice and eating up the scenery and doing it this way and jumping in fully, and they finished. Ron and Lisa Schaefer was directing, and she goes, “Jen”, she was “That was great”. She was, “she's 16”. I was like, “Oh, great. Let's go again”. (She said),“Okay, we'll do it in here now because that's where she belongs”. I was like, “Oh my god, why did no one tell me.? It wasn't in the description”.
Alicyn
So funny. Yeah. And so I was curious, how do you balance your relationship with social media these days? I know that for a lot of voice actors, it's becoming more, it's becoming more of a thing that we have to do, and how are you juggling your mental health and well being with getting enough content out there and communicating with your fan base? Some struggle?
Jennifer
Yeah, I put my mental health first. And I may come up short on content, but I just don't keep an eye on it that way. It has to be organic for me. I like, I crushed my phone accidentally in the back of my car. And
Alicyn
Oh no.
Jennifer
And I had to order one was just..
Alicyn
Cars are very (debt) deadly and dangerous.
Jennifer
My car does not mess around, you know
Alicyn
It eats children.
Jennifer
I found this. I found a deal on Kush. I'm redoing my entire deck. Like this whole house has been taken down to the studs and put back together because it was like it needed it. And my deck was literally falling apart, like the entire, it's 22 by 20. It's a big deck. It's the whole top of the garage, basically.
Alicyn
Oh, wow.
Jennifer
And the railing was built in 1973 and was literally falling off the side of the deck. And we had a puppy running around a bunch of kids? I was like, “Oh my god”. So I'm redoing. When I see that Lowe's has cushions you know, like those seated seating cushions for outdoor couches kind of thing. Yeah, on clearance. And those are bloody expensive. And I was like, “I'm gonna Lowe's”. So I shove I like, got all I needed.
I'm cramming these things in the back of my car and like strapping things on top of my car and, and I barely get it in and I shove my bag in the car, my little bag that has like my wallet and stuff in it like my phone, like shove it in the back of my car and slam the car shut. But it slid down right, right, so my phone got crushed. I was like, “Oh well”. And I had no phone for a couple weeks. So I really wasn't posting much during that week. So I was, “Eh, I’ll take it as a break”.
Alicyn
That’s what’s my advice for, right?
Jennifer
I know, I don't. It feels artificial. If it's artificial. I just, I just can't. It's like acting, like I remember there were forms of acting where I was like, “This feels artificial. I don't, I can't, I can't lie. I don't like it. I don't want to do it”. And if it should take, I'm just not gonna do it. Because that's gross. People can smell that. Why would I do that to people? Yeah.
Alicyn
People can smell that.
Jennifer
Yeah. And other things
Jennifer
True.
Alicyn
Right? Okay, one question for me. I'm curious about how did becoming a mom change the way you approach your work?
Jennifer
Man, they changed everything. Yeah. And I knew it would. I always knew I would have one kid and it would be late, like I would have a career first. And then I had my kid late. We're late. I had, I always joke. I have kids like Indiana Jones goes through a door like (nyaw). And so, you're gonna get me here, Alicyn.
Alicyn
It's okay to cry,
Jennifer
Making cookies, and just being there. Whether it's, you know, multiplication table drills, where I somehow become Commander Shepard to my poor son in a battle. Or just listening is the most important thing in the world.
Like my career used to be the most important thing in my world. And then my sort of spiritual growth became the most important thing. Yeah. And it's this relationship, and who am I going to show up as because the thing that they don't tell you as a parent, is that the whole time, there's a clock running, and it's a countdown clock. And you're going to hit that number. And it's not your turn anymore. And you hit various, the clock doesn't go straight. It counts and counts and counts. And then it leaps.
And you're like, “Wait, no, I had that pocket”. And, and my kids like, “No, I'm good. I'm going to school all by themselves now”. And you go, “Yes, you are. Because you got this”. And then you go, “Oh my God, I miss it so much!”. But you know, it's 1000 little (debt), it's 1000 little losses, it's 1000 little things that go. And that's what matters most.
I don't care if I miss some auditions, because I was upstairs making cookies for my kid. Because I'll never get to do that again. You know? And also, the other thing is that, you know, we don't know, but you know. I think a lot of parents do this, like, we want our kids to be their best. And you can ask them to do what you're not doing.
Alicyn
Yeah.
Jennifer
Which also means you teach them how to handle mistakes. Like, “Oh, look, I'm making a big mistake, right now. Watch, watch. This is how you do it. And this is how you clean it up”.
Alicyn
Yeah, it's so apropos that we are having this conversation this week. My son just started kindergarten. And we are, I have just been so many tears, and I was like, met with this shaman and she's like, your West, your energy is very Western facing and, you know, coming to terms with, you know, I had a baby and it was like just mortality, this deep realization that, “Oh my god, it's all temporal” and like, “We're not here forever” and, and she's those little moments in the fall where you're like, “Oh my God, he's starting at a new school” and he’s a big boy.
Jennifer
Yeah, it teaches, it teaches us such deep lessons about love without attachment. And that is a hard road to navigate, man. Like my kid last night had a melt about nothing, but it was it Deep melt. And I was like, “You making up stuff and you torturing yourself over something that is not going to happen, that may never happen. And you're torturing yourself right now”. You know, and I was like, “I get I don't want to invalidate your feelings and there's also perspective”. And then at one point, he's like, “you know what, I need space”. And I was like, “Whoo”, and he walked himself through it and I'm like, “Of course you did that ‘cause you're awesome”.
You know, it's, it's thing, man, but there, and just that fine line of being there with them as they make their mistakes. Like, don't, you know, like, it's not always good to prevent them from making their mistakes, like let them make them. Let them make them but while they’re still juveniles. (It) doesn't go on their permanent record, like go make your mistakes. You know,
Alicyn
It's, it's really interesting.
Jennifer
Yeah, it's, it's, it's definitely a road and you know, but the thing about this life, like, we're all, everyone on this on this live, and everyone watching it later, you're gonna die. All dying. The thing is, if the ride went on forever, you wouldn't value the ride, you know?
Alicyn
Yeah. There's so many, so many helms we’re meant to take.
Jennifer
Yeah, yeah. Amen. Oh, my God, we have lots to talk about, you and I. Yeah
Alicyn
Mother. Yeah, boy, mother. Well,one final question I want to leave the audience with, with just a question I like to ask everybody unless I forget, which is if there was a song in your heart, what would that song be called? Hmm.
Jennifer
Hmmmm. It's a song of mine that I'm writing right now. thing I'll sing for you for a second. “Everything's gonna be, everything's gonna be just, everything's gonna be alright. Just hang on, and you’ll see. Just hang on with me” That's myself.
Alicyn
Awwwwww! How perfect and a perfect way to end. Jennifer, thank you so much for your time. It's been just lovely chatting with you and getting to know you a bit better.
Jennifer
Yeah
Alicyn
Everybody check out SkillsHub, I think you'll find a lot of value in it. And yeah, let us know if we can ever help you spread the word or share any details.
Jennifer
Oh yeah
Alicyn
And yeah, thank you so much. If anybody's still up to hang, I'm going to go on TikTok and do some music over there. Anybody in about 15 minutes, if you want to come and Jennifer obviously you're welcome to come and play some songs. Of course. I'm sure you probably have.
Jennifer
I'll be, I'll be parenting. Yeah
Alicyn
Of course.
Jennifer
Oh, my God. This has been wonderful. Alicyn. I love your company. It is fantastic. And I really enjoyed it. I hope to do it again.
Alicyn
I’ll look forward to the next time. See you guys soon. See you next time. Oh, next week. Next week, we have Ezra Weiss, voice actor and animation director. He directs Miraculous Ladybug as well as a ton of other projects. So I hope you guys will join him next. It's gonna be a completely different show every week. All right, Jennifer, take care.
Jennifer
You too. Bye.
Outro
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