Voice acting challenges are short drills that stretch your range, and they're a great way to practice between auditions. Record each one, listen back the next day, and keep the best bits for your demo. Here are twenty to start with.

Emotion challenges

1. One line, ten feelings. Say "I can't believe you did that" happy, furious, heartbroken, terrified, bored, sarcastic, proud, confused, flirty and exhausted.
2. The slow build. Start a line calm and end it in a full rage, without a jump in the middle.
3. Laugh to cry. Go from real laughter to real tears in one take.
4. Hide the feeling. Say "I'm fine, really" so the listener can tell you aren't.
5. The alphabet argument. Have a full fight using only the letters A to Z.

Character challenges

6. Same line, five characters. A knight, a toddler, a villain, a robot and a nervous intern all say "Follow me."
7. Age it up, age it down. Read a paragraph as a 7-year-old, then as an 80-year-old, without just going higher and lower.
8. The creature. Invent a monster and give it three lines, a growl and a death sound, without hurting your throat.
9. The narrator switch. Read a short story, switching between a calm narrator and two characters with clear voices.
10. The accent check. Pick one accent and read the same passage every day for a week. Compare day one with day seven.

Technique challenges

11. Tongue twisters at speed. Say "Red leather, yellow leather" ten times, then faster.
12. Whisper and shout. Do one line as a whisper the mic can still hear, then a yell that doesn't clip.
13. Lip sync. Mute a short anime or cartoon clip and dub it so your lines fit the mouth movements.
14. Cold read. Open a random page of a book and read it well on the first try.
15. The one-breath line. Read a long, rambling sentence in one breath without it sounding rushed.

Real-world challenges

16. The 30-second ad. Write a fake commercial for something silly and read it like it's for TV.
17. Movie trailer guy. Start with "In a world..." and go big.
18. Audiobook page. Narrate one full page with even pacing and clean audio.
19. Game barks. Record ten short combat lines: hits, cheers, warnings and a defeat.
20. The real audition. Pick an open role and send it. The best practice is the real thing.

Need lines to work with? Try the free voice acting scripts. For number 20, here are open voice acting roles. Fan dubs are a great place to practice lip sync for real.