Sunset Shimmer - Major Recurring Role

Sunset Shimmer is Princess Celestia’s personal student and one of the most important recurring characters in Are You Watching?.

When Twilight first meets her, Sunset is twelve years old: brilliant, confident, sarcastic, impatient, ambitious, and completely unafraid to challenge Princess Celestia directly. She is one of the first ponies Twilight meets who can genuinely keep up with her intellectually, and their relationship develops from rivalry and fascination into a real friendship.

Sunset is sharp-tongued and often funny, but she should never feel like a one-note “mean girl.” Beneath the confidence is someone who cares very deeply about Celestia’s approval and increasingly struggles with insecurity, frustration, jealousy, and the fear that she may never become what Celestia believes she could be.

As the story progresses, Sunset becomes increasingly obsessed with questions surrounding alicorn ascension and with what Celestia is withholding from her. Her later material becomes much heavier, eventually culminating in a major emotional confrontation with Celestia and her departure through the mirror.

I am looking for a performer who can handle dry humor, arrogance, warmth, vulnerability, resentment, anger, and emotional breakdowns while still making all of those sides feel like the same character.

A canon-inspired Sunset voice is welcome, but an exact Rebecca Shoichet impression is not required. Strong acting and capturing Sunset’s personality are more important than vocal imitation.

Recording quality is very important. Please audition using the microphone and recording environment you would realistically use for production. Audio should be clean, with minimal background noise or room echo, no clipping/distortion, and little to no heavy processing.