There are voice actors out there that make an entire living on providing all that background, nigh incomprehensible chatter we hear in all media, otherwise known as Walla. But an even rarer subspace of voice acting is that of the Creature voice actor. They who are able to evoke the horrifying and soulfully disconcerting sounds that keep us up at night (thank you The Last of Us for Clickers). They who are able to bring forth the cutest gosh darn animal sounds you have ever heard (thank you Dee Bradley Baker for Momo, Appa, and Wrecking Ball…as well as nigh every other animal and creature you’ve ever heard). Lets explore creature voice acting together.
What Is Creature Voice Acting
Creature voice acting is as much an innate talent as it is a honed one. It is NOT for everyone, in fact it is for very few people given how demanding it is on the voice. All this to say that I am a mixture of the two – I have innate talent of an extremely wide singing/speaking vocal range and, without getting too technical, the ability to engage my false folds; but, knowing this type of storytelling is deeply fascinating to me, I have spent years and years honing that innate talent into something marketable.
The Truth About Creatures
Creature voice acting is NOT just making weird and whacky sounds. I would argue most anyone can do that. But almost no one can convey the truth of these creatures’ lives and circumstances through those sounds AND do it consistently and sustainably (a voice actor who loses their voice 30 minutes into a 2-hour session is a liability). It is easy to think of ‘sounds’ (roars, grunts, snarls, etc…) as just sounds, but they are how creatures communicate. The art of creature voice acting is, yes, being able to make delightfully cute to downright horrifying sounds, but it is even more so communicating a truthful life of a being, just the same as any ‘speaking’ person.
I could speak on this for days, but I’ll just say that this genre of acting, more than any other, is one that is honed by being cosmopolitan and taking in everything around you – cows mooing in a pasture, creaky doors, children ragefully crying, everything makes sound to communicate its story, it’s our job and privilege to evoke them all.
Creature Voice Acting Wrapped
Establishing oneself as a creature voice actor is, perhaps, the most difficult genre of acting to establish oneself in given how niche it is. You have to be really good. There are a select few well known and reliable voice actors in the business that can do this type of work. It is only through a remarkable dedication to the craft and towards cultivating and seeking out everything you can possibly do with your own voice (which takes a life time) that one can ‘make it’ in this genre, but believe you me, it is a truly wonderful and fun world to be a part of and I look forward to spending the rest of my life working in this space (and hopefully I’ll see a few of you there too)!
Written and contributed to The Voice Actor College by Troy Allan – Voice Actor