Like, lately, I'm doing like you've seen me do it. I used to do it on set all the time. I like pretend I would like and I'd like, do a cigarette out of my mom. I'm like, yeah, that's show business, kids.
More and More Better, More and More, Got a little bit more Better More.
Welcome to More Better, a podcast where we stop pretending to have it all together and embrace the journey of becoming a little more better every.
Day, or at least trying to. That's Stephanie Beatrice and that's most of a Merrow. Welcome back you guys, hilcome back. How you doing, mel You know.
Girl, remember a few weeks ago when I was like, I'm on point, man, I'm doing all these things.
I'm the again Bandy Believe and I'm killing it and you were like You're gonna get burned out. And you were like, I don't know what I mean. And guess what. I'm sick. Oh, you're sick.
I'm not that sick. I just have like a cold or it's like bad allergies. I also got sick last week too, with either like a stomach bug or food poisoning, so obviously my body's like chill.
The fuck out, the fuck out? Yeah, did you get the poops or just the bombs? I just had the nausea. Actually no output, no output, just the best case scenario, truly, except I felt like throwing up all day. Oh yes, ah, yes, yes, the first three months of my pregnancy. Yes, yes, that's no output, just the feeling of a feeling all day. Yeah, tried to make myself throw up. Didn't happen. No, that's source. I'm sorry. Yeah, I'm sorry to get graphic listeners. Hey,
how are you? You know what they're doing? They know who we are at this point, I'm fine, Uh we are. I'm packing up to leave Toronto. We leave tomorrow. We wrapped season two of Twisted Metal. Thanks so tired. I spent most of my day in pajamas the last two days trying to get stuff done on my laptop or on my phone. And uh yeah, I feel what a
great time to wrap though. I was just thinking, like wrapping right before the holidays, when like things are slowing down anyway, and there's usually not like a lot of work starting at this time of year, Like, yeah, probably we'll get a nice break, which I'm happy. I love that for you. I better I was looking through my pictures trying to find some photo of something, and you know, your phone really acts like a scrap book of time.
And I was looking at stuff, going like, I just need to stop, like it, I need to actually physically yeah moving, and you know, and I'm in a very lucky position where I can stop. I don't have to work for the next month maybe, and that's wonderful. But what happens is my brain goes like, what if you run out of money? What if you die? What if? What if? What if the worst possible thing happens and your family is stranded about you. It's like my brain
just goes like work, work, work, work, work, you know. Yeah, no, no, no, no no. So and you can take forward to hunkering down. And you can hunker down. You just did two shows in a row. You can hunker down. Yeah, it's time for me to let go a little bit and take the break. So that's what I'm doing. It's more better. Actually, transition into my segue. Wow, my segues are getting really good. What are you doing? It's more better lately.
I am staying afloat.
That's good. That's good. That's all I got. All it sounds like maybe you're recognizing that you do need to slow down a little bit. Maybe you can't. Yes, that's true.
I am I think No, I yes, I and I have slowed down the last week or so. I think getting sick last week sort of forced me to and then I was like, okay, let me like listen to my body a little more.
So Yeah, I'm listening to my body a little more, more better. That's good. That's good. I like it more better. Okay, So this week's topic, go ahead. Oh no, you you go, No, you go, Mossa, Stephanie, Okay, we have a fun one today. We have a voice note from a listener. Finally, if you need help with something in your life listener and have a suggestion for a future episode, please email us at Morebetter Pod at gmail dot com and include a voice note. This is our first voice note and I'm
really excited. Let's listen to it.
Okay, Hey Stephanie, Hey Melissa. I just wanted to thank you guys for have an ariel on the episode. It was really awesome to hear from like a cool Hollywood stylist type person that wearing sweatpants and a T shirt or jeans and a T shirt is just okay. Especially as an artist myself, I've always felt like I needed to have these sort of oftentimes like uncomfortable but really elevated outfits when really I just want something really clean, simple, practical.
And to hear that from Ariel was just like great. It just made me feel so much more confident and not weird, like in the style that I like. So thank you Ariel. And one more question that I just have is that I know both of you have had voice acting experience, and I was just wondering what that's like because I haven't really seen people talk about that a whole lot. I've seen a lot of voice actor interviews, but I've never seen them actually talk about the actual
like act of doing it. So I was just wondering. Thank you, guys, and I hope you continue the More Better podcast. It's really made me feel more better. Thank you.
That's so cute. Oh my god, I I love it. I'm so I that's adorable and I want to be friends.
Yeah, that was such a good one. Thank you Archie for that voice note. So yeah, we're going to talk about voice acting today today's episode, which we've both done. Uh, you've done a bit more, a lot more than I have. I don't know about that.
We've both done quite a bit. We're very again, we're very lucky, hash.
Very lucky, bless What how how about you? Because I don't know that I know this? What how was your What was your journey with voice acting?
Like?
What was first time you did?
Was it?
During Brooklyn? When I was a kid, I had this Fisher Price. It was brown and it was It had a handle on the top and you could put a blank tape in it and you could press record, could play fast, forward, rewind and stop, obviously, but there was a record option, and I would eat up blank tapes. My dad would buy like a bunch of blank tapes and give them to me, and I would pretend to do like radio shows, like old style radio shows, and
I would do different characters. I would interview myself, I would do commercials like I At one point I remember taping over music that I had bought, or my dad had bought, or somebody had bought music, and I was taping over the music because I'd ran out of blank tapes. But like, I remember wanting to do it from the time that I was a little kid, little kid, so cool.
I don't think I even had like really an awareness about it, which is so weird because it's such a heighten awareness around acting.
Theater and acting lead and TV.
But like for some reason, not radio necessarily, or animation or just voice acting, I think in general, until I was older, I think that's so cool that you did that as a kid.
I mean, I watched so much animation when I was a kid. I watched those animated Disney movies like I can quote them. I can. I mean, it's very annoying to listen or watch those old ones with me, because it is. It's a lot. And I watched a lot of cartoons as a kid, too, like I watched the old like. I mean, I just watched. I consumed a lot of that stuff. And I knew in the way that I didn't really understand acting as was like a job until I was a little bit older, probably like
middle school, kind of understood it more. But because I wasn't I didn't grow up on the East Coast. I didn't see plays, it wasn't, you know, I didn't have access to that world that way. But cartoons I understood there must be somebody doing that voice. I didn't exactly
know like all the parameters around. I didn't know there was Mike's and booths and stuff like that, but I knew and and I think I had seen some kind of special on TV that was like, you know, the Magic of Disney or something, and they showed some of the actors in the booth. So when I remember seeing video of Jodie Benson in the sound booth singing part of your World, and I was like, oh, well, that's
that's for me. That's clearly what I was. I also like remember Mulan, particularly the the who is That Girl? I see what is the song that song called? You know what I'm talking about? Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah Reflection. I would go inside our bathroom, close the door, turn the lights down, and sing reflection to myself in the mirror until I cried, like I was fully having like acting like so I was unbeknownst to myself. I was like training for it from the time that I was
a kid. I would just I just loved it. I loved it. And then what was your first thing? Like how did you break in? You know? I think it was because of Brooklyn nine nine. I think some people saw that show and saw that you're doing the voice well, or that that was the voice that I had, and so I got hired to do stuff with maybe that
in mind. And then when I was in the booth finally like actually doing like first recordings and stuff, I would like, you know, I'd show up and be like hi, so they knew it was very different than Rosa, and then I would sort of try to plant seeds of like, you know, I do a lot of other stuff, like I can do a lot of other stuff, like I
could do this or that or whatever. So they call me whenever you need Mouren Bouchard was actually one of the first people that gave me a break on Bob's Burgers, and I had watched his animated show Home Movies, and I loved, love, loved their stuff. That was the first I think that was the first one of the first things I did, Yeah, was that. And then you know what kind of what it hard about voiceover work is that it's hard to start, Like it's hard to get
ye first one. But then once you have that first one, it's easier to get because people go, oh, it's just like directing, like yeah, once you do it once people are like, oh, you know what you're doing. Yeah, totally, yeah. Agree. What was your first?
Do you remember my So, my very first was in my early twenties with my first the first agency I was with in New York. They were mostly a commercial agency, but they had a theatrical department, so they did get me for acting, but their commercial side was really big, and so they sort of just it was like automatically, I was, you know, in the commercial thing, and they just like put me in voiceover and sent me out
on auditions like off the Bath. Uh, and I booked a couple I think I wanted to say I booked a commercial. And then I did book an animated show, but it ended up being non union.
Oh.
And so then I got that weird call where they were like, hey, I don't know how this one slipped through, but like you can't do this because it's non union.
And I was like, oh no, oh, no, I got it. I can't do it.
And I was really bummed because I was really yeah, I was like somebody fucked up or something.
I don't know, somebody missed something.
And I was bummed because I was really excited to do an animated show. And then I realized, oh, my god, this is I really like this. Yeah, And then I switched agencies and then I moved to LA and then I couldn't get I would tell them, hey, I was doing voiceover in New York with this other agency and I really liked it, and I booked a couple things, and what kind of at the run around a little bit of like okay, and then like nothing, and I was just like what.
I submit. I don't know. I don't know if it's like maybe it's hard to get us submitted for things when we've never done it before. Maybe I don't know.
But nobody even was like Okay, make a reel or like maybe I had to also just like have more gumption at that time and like take things more into my own hands and like I kind of made a reel. I could have like pursued it more, but I was just sort of like Marry, like I was sort of annoyed by it weirdly. And then I remember when we
did Brooklyn. I actually remember Andy a couple of times being like, do you do voiceover like you should do, because you know I would just mess around, fuck around on set Wallwood, you and I both would we do our stupid voices.
And uh.
And then I think after like the second or third time that he asked me, I was like, you know what, I'm.
Gonna say something to my age. Sometimes you just need that encouragement for your friends. Yeah. That was like when you were like, you better audition for in the Heights, I was like, I'm not a singer, and you like, you better fucking audition for shit. You're so pushy about it.
I really was listener, She's not actually exaggerated, but that's the reason I got it.
I kind of yelled at her. I wouldn't never have auditioned for us. Sometimes you just need that friend. It's like, hey, you're actually good at this, you need to should do it. You should do that. Yeah, and then yeah, that's what Andy did for you, and that that's what Andy did, and it was it was really great. And then the first, I think, I want to say, Modoc was the first I feel like bigger thing that kinda then got me all these other jobs. And that was pat Oswald and Jordan.
That was a big deal. That was a big deal.
Yeah, and they later told me that they sort of like had me in mind for it, But I still like I auditioned I had to send in like a bunch of tapes.
And it was just really fun.
Yeah, that's awesome and so and now I love that it's become Yeah, another thing that I do, and I feel like, but I also feel like I've learned so much. I love my favorite thing, and I want to know if this is one of your favorite things. My favorite thing is when I book something and they have a few of the voice actors in the booth at the same time and there's someone who's done it forever, because
those are the people I learn from the most. They have all these like weird, cool tricks that they do, you know, like like some of them will like make sounds before they say a line, or some of them will like you know, really use their body, which was something I definitely like picked up for myself.
Or like right, like, they have all these kind of things.
Depending on the line, they might do something to like gear up into it that isn't necessarily something you would do for on camera, but for voice acting.
Really helps and I just I love watching those guys.
They're like two masters of that particular craft and it's really cool to watch.
Yeah, I feel like, you know, I haven't gotten the experience to do much in the same room with people. Although the first the first maybe two times that I did Bob's there were people that we were all in the same room together, all on mice, and that was really nice because the improvisation that was happening, we could just overlap a little bit and like it didn't matter.
You weren't just alone sort of, you know, most of the time, if you don't know anything about voice over acting, most of the time you are by yourself in a booth. It could be very small, but it's you and a music stand with your script and a microphone and headphones, and then everybody else is in another room that's like across from you through a window, and you're kind of
isolated in there. So it's really lucky when, like you're saying, there are other actors in the same space with you, because you can visually learn from them and see what they're doing, and you can like play off their performance and you can, you know, like you said, learn from them. I have spent more time, I think alone in the booth. But because I'm alone, my child like and I say childlike because like I think childlike, child pretend is so free.
It's ultimately way freer than any pretend that we will ever be able to do as adults, because we're just looking at it through the mesh of adulthood and our insecurities and our vulnerabilities, and people are watching me and
they're listening to me. And so when you're alone in the booth, and maybe you're lucky enough to have, you know, a booth that isolates you in a way that you can still obviously you can still hear everybody through your headphones, but you really are alone in the space, then I mean, I think I recorded most of a Gunho with my eyes closed, because I saw so many of the images they would show me, you know, like this is the part we're recording today, and then they would show me
the storyboards, and so I could see it in my mind, and I would close my eyes and I could see the characters, and I could see the world, and I could see everybody that was talking to me. And so I inhabited it physically in a way that helped me free my voice into that character, into that fifteen year old girl, you know. Yeah, And there was this camera what they call it, but like there's this big bar that it looked like an upside down you okay, And
it had these like it was very heavy. I think at one point they might have bolted into the floor, but it was the poll like a pull bar, and so like for all of the the stuff you know, like where you're like, oh like that, like I would actually pull up on the bar or like yank on the bar. It was so helpful. Oh my god, yeah, that's so helpful. It was incredible, Like and now it's
easier for me to do that stuff. But like it definitely sounds more real when you're actually when you're trying to yank something right, and then like you know, stuff like you just feel so free to do stuff like when you're running, you know, running in place and not feeling dumb about being like you know, like breathing into the you know, like it you just go for it in a way that I think at least I try to pull some of that into my work on film sets,
TV sets and stuff. But sometimes you really do need to look you know, elegant or put together or you know whatever in the moment, and you you maybe the physical thing doesn't really match like what you need to look like on screen. So like does that make sense? You know what I mean.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yah yeah it does because I think in voice acting everything is like a tiny bit heightened because trying to convey so much more through your voice, and so you will do something. Sometimes it is something physical that you have to do that doesn't necessarily match what you're saying or the intention, but like that's what you need to do to get the right sound or emotion through and on set you would just feel really
fucking dumb doing it. Kind of yeah, that's there is something about when you're in the booth by yourself.
You know, and sometimes it is about sound, right, Like sometimes it's like, yeah, I remember one of our directors from Angantha was trying to get me to make this sound and he was like, you know, like like make He was specifically trying to get me go like that, and I was like, oh, in my mind, I thought like, oh, okay, so make a sound sort of like that, make a make the expression of like exhaustion or like frustration kind
of like tired of it, over it. And I tried all these things and he was like, literally, I just want you to put your lips together and then like like let the breath out, right, because in his mind, he had something very specific that he wanted and you can see it. It's that take in the film where she sits down in her bed and like leans back and goes like, it's that take that he wanted. And I tried like a million things. Sometimes it's just the sound that they have in their mind matched to an
image that they've been working on. You know, they know more.
A little more intimately than they do sometimes because they've been working on it for five years and you have to trust them that.
Yeah.
Thing is like I find this a lot with like sound effects, like sounds like you just described where it gets very technical and.
It's very technical.
Yeah, even if you do one that in your mind feels right right intention it doesn't sound right. It doesn't write to them like the thing to them, and you have to like just figure out the technicality of that specific sound.
And it's interesting. Lynn said something similar. Linn Manuel Miranda said something similar about Welcome to the Family. Madriuel. He was like I kept doing like let's go, you know, Like I was like, let's go. He was like no, No,
like let's go. Like, yeah, you really wanted a very specific thing, and it becomes your job as a voice over actor, and you get hired more and more if you can give the thing that they want, right, Like, if they have a very specific thing in mind, it's your job to go, how can I give them that very specific thing while still remaining like feeling honest about it. Yeah, yeah, And so like that becomes your job. Is like marrying those two things and kind of trying to find you know,
and also it's your job. On the other the flip side of that is also to bring things that maybe they hadn't even thought about, you know, like to bring your own creativity and to bring stuff that they would never have done until you were in the room you specifically, that's yeah, that's the other thing about voice overacting. It's really fun because like people can sound like each other for sure, But I do think it's like a combination of the fingerprint of your individual personality and the voice
that you're doing and the script. It's like all those things combined makes them for a very like specific performance.
Have you had because this has happened to me a lot, and it's always embarrassing every time, and it's hilarious to me. Uh, where you like come in for something and usually I mean usually this is like an offer situation, so a very nice offer situation where like you did an audition and so you just kind of like go in.
You're like, oh my god, it's so nice.
They want me to be here, and you like get your your audition, your sides or whatever, and you get an idea and like I've gone in and like done a voice and they go, oh no, no, no, no, we just we just want your voice.
Most of the time. Actually, no, I get your answer. Was I honestly get like, oh, can you do like a more like a gravelly or like like a tougher you know, like oh.
Like closing, yeah, like that's so funny, like grittier or like I think honestly could show.
Those kind of lower voices a lot in your stuff. I think the first time that somebody was like I think it was in Ganto where they were like, you know, you know, like sometimes it would have to tell me like don't let it go into your lower register, like try not to let it go there, but like mostly do your own voice, like do you do you don't try to get it up higher or anything like that, Like just sit in the place that's normal for you.
And I was like, really show my reaction? Really sure that because I've heard it and it's pretty nasal.
Is there anything about voice acting that you want that you think you like, specifically want to get better at more better?
Oh my god, Yeah, I want to get better at having a more Like I think I want to get better at having a bigger library of voices to choose from, you know what I mean, Like like lately I'm doing like you see me do it. I used to do it on set all the time. I'd like pretend that I would like and I'd like do a cigarette out
of my I'm like, yeah, that's show business kits. Like I want more like in my repertoire, Like yeah, and I probably just need a little time by myself with my voice note recorder on my phone to like dick around. But I don't have time, you know. Yeah, but I wish I had more of a repertoire. What about you?
Yeah, I think similarly. I think, Yeah, I think I just want to do more of it, And yeah, I have have more of a range. I feel like there's right now just kind of like a few voices that have been go tos.
You know, it helps a lot weirdly reading books to my kid. Yes, you know what I mean, Like you do, you do a lot of I do a lot of accents, shitty accents. She doesn't know. You know that it's a shitty accent. And then they want it every fucking, every fucking time, and then that sometimes I'm like, I don't want to read the books tonight because it's like a one woman show for an hour and a half of reading books. Same.
I always wonder if other actors feel like this. I'm not getting pale. Sometimes I delay this all day today. I don't want to do it to perform for you.
I'm just so tired right now. I'm so sorry. Yeah. I think most parents feel that way, but the actors specifically have a like we feel the need to like do the voices or do the you know, before the sudden sets. On her sixteenth, we're reading Sleeping Beauty and I did the whole poison. Now ros is like, do it again. I'm like, my god, okay, but I mean, like that's the stuff that like stuck in my mind
as a kid. Though it really affected me, those like those voices that were like whoa, that is a scary bitch, like she's scary. Yeah, yeah, I love that.
More Better.
This was fun to talk about. This was fun to talk about.
Thanks for the suggestion, Archie, Oh, Archie, we hope this helped make a bunch of voice notes.
Archie. Just fuck around.
Yeah, just get creative, find your voice. You can always make there's places you can go. I mean, I think you have to pay money, but also if you're tech savvy, you can make your own real a voice stuff. Yeah, if you're trying to break in, most.
Laptops come with the garage band already in them, and you can just stick on a little mic that you get from Amazon and start to dick around and see what you come up with. Yeah.
So we hope you enjoyed it. Yeah, we'll see y'all next time.
Yeah, bye bye, More Better. Do you have something you'd like to be more better at that you want us to talk about in a future episode.
Can you relate to our struggles or have you tried one of our tips and tricks?
Shoot us your thoughts and ideas at Morebetter pod at gmail dot com and include a voice note if you want to be featured on the pod. Ooh, More Better with Stephanie Melissa is a production from Wvsound and iHeartMedia's Mikultura podcast network, hosted by Me, Stephanie Beatriz, and Melissa KUMERA More Better is produced by Isis Madrid, Leo Clem, and Sophie Spencer Zabos. Our executive producers are Wilmer Valderrama
and Leo Clem at wvsound. This episode was edited by Isis Madrid and engineered by Sean Tracy and features original music by Madison Davenport and Hey Loo Boy.
Our cover art is by Vincent Remis and photography by David Avalos. For more podcasts from iHeart, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
See you next week. Saga Bye, Allan Tokitomas Mayhor