🎧 Listen to the podcast episode above. 🎉 Paid Subscribers get bonus content. 👀 The accompanying article is below.
The Voice Is the Instrument - Not the Age
Yesterday, something extraordinary happened.
I’d been hired to voice an ad for a care home and the client had complained I sounded too young.
I’d been hired to sound like the daughter of a person who was about to go into a care home. But the client wasn’t happy, and told MY client that I sounded too youthful.
“Oh no, it’s fine,” said my client, apparently. “Because she’s actually quite old.” (He emailed me to tell me this. He is, as you can imagine, a charmer).
“How old actually are you?” he asked me.
“How old do you think I sound?” I said.
“I have no idea. It changes,” he said, “depending on what you’re voicing.”
“Precisely,” I said. “I’m a voice actor. I change my voice according to the brief.”
“But that’s very confusing,” he said. “And anyway, I want to know how old you are.”
“Why?” I said.
“For future reference,” he said.
Reader, I prevaricated. Why should I have to tell some guy my age, only to have him put me in a pigeonhole of his making, or satisfy his piqued curiosity?
Normally, I’m hired for my reputation, my CV, the sound and flexibility of my voice, and my broadcast-ready setup. But none of that seemed to matter. “Go on, be honest - how OLD are you?” he kept asking. I left him guessing.
A trained voice actor’s range can transcend any traditional expectation.
We are taught - and constantly practice - the art of adapting: sounding older, younger, sicker, healthier, brighter, darker, cooler, nerdier, sexier, more authoritative, more vulnerable.
Whatever the story demands, the voice can go there.
When casting decisions are based purely on numbers, something vital is lost.
Performance, nuance, emotional authenticity - the very things that make a voice memorable - can't be measured by age.
The best results come from casting by quality, character, and storytelling ability.
Not by personal data.
🎙️ Hire the voice that fits the story. Not the stereotype.
👄 You can find out more about my voice work here. 👄
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