So, I'm AK. I'm 39, and I have absolutely zero professional experience in voice acting.
I have no idea what I'm doing.
I don't know how the industry works, how auditions work, what I'm supposed to put in a demo reel, what equipment I actually need (Though I am a streamer so I have a decent mic), where people find voice actors, or even what the hell I'm supposed to call myself at this stage.
However...
For years, pretty much everyone I speak to on a regular basis has told me that I should seriously consider giving voice acting a go, or Radio, anything voice related really..
The reason is that I apparently have a slightly ridiculous ability to change my voice.
I can do a fairly wide range of character voices and impressions, including things like Rick & Morty, Donald Trump, Solid Snake, Mickey Mouse and Mark Hamill's Joker, amongst others.
I can also do quite a few regional British accents — Scouse, Cockney, Scottish, Irish, various London accents, more traditionally "well-spoken" British voices, etc. — as well as American accents, including Southern, Valley Girl, radio/DJ-style voices and various other flavours of American English.
I can also do German, French, Russian and other accents to varying degrees.
And one thing I've noticed over the years is that I can generally learn a new accent relatively quickly.
If you give me a specific accent to listen to and enough examples of someone actually speaking it, I can usually pick up the speech patterns, pronunciation, rhythm and general sound surprisingly quickly.
I'm not claiming I can instantly reproduce every accent perfectly, because obviously there's a difference between "sounds convincing to me" and actually being accurate. But learning and mimicking speech patterns has always come fairly naturally to me.
I'm also autistic, which probably explains at least part of why I tend to hyperfocus on things like speech patterns, sounds, mannerisms and tiny differences in how people talk.
And, somewhat importantly for voice work, I actually take direction pretty well.
If someone tells me why they want a particular delivery — what the character is feeling, what the situation is, who they're talking to, what the scene is supposed to communicate, etc. — I'm generally quite happy to adjust what I'm doing and try something different.
"Say it more angrily" is useful. But "Say it more angrily because your character has just realised that the person they've trusted for ten years has betrayed them, but they're trying not to let the other person know they're hurt" is considerably more useful to my brain.
Give me the context and I can work with it.
Which got me thinking...
Maybe I should actually try this.
I'm not under any illusion that being able to do impressions means I'm automatically a good voice actor. I know there is a LOT more to it than simply being able to make funny noises.
There's acting, emotional delivery, characterisation, consistency, timing, microphone technique, taking direction, pronunciation, learning scripts, maintaining a voice throughout an entire scene, and being able to create an original character rather than simply copying somebody else's.
I haven't properly learned any of that yet.
So I'm basically starting from absolute zero.
And that's actually the point of this post.
I'm not currently looking for someone to throw money at me to record a professional voice-over. I don't have a portfolio, credits or a professional demo reel, and I wouldn't expect anyone to hire me professionally based solely on "trust me, I can do voices."
What I would like to do initially is learn.
I'd like to figure out whether this is something I'm genuinely capable of doing, learn how the industry works, improve the actual acting side of it, learn proper recording and microphone technique, put together some decent recordings, and eventually build a small portfolio.
I'd be perfectly happy starting with unpaid or low-stakes projects where I can gain experience — indie games, animations, mods, fan projects, short films, silly YouTube projects, whatever.
Basically, I'd rather spend some time proving that I can actually do the job before worrying about getting paid for it.
If I eventually reach the point where people actually want to hire me, brilliant.
If I discover that I'm terrible at it and everyone has been lying to me for the last decade, that's also useful information. 😂
At the moment, though, I'm genuinely curious to see where this could go.
So, hi.
I'm AK.
39 years old.
Completely inexperienced voice actor.
Autistic.
Apparently capable of an unreasonable number of accents and character voices.
Able to learn new accents relatively quickly.
And apparently quite receptive to direction when I understand the context behind it.
I currently have absolutely no idea what I'm supposed to do with any of that.
So I figured I'd start by saying hello.
Toodles.
Voice Actor
