Talking to voice actors at Edmonton Expo 2019

Sometimes the path to your dream job can be long and winding. Sometimes you have to keep pushing yourself until you finally get to where you want to be. This is the lesson I learned after talking to some of the voice actors at the Edmonton Expo, a comic book and entertainment convention. 

This year, the voice actor guests included Justin Briner and Leah Clark, who respectfully play Izuku Midoriya and Himiko Toga from the anime My Hero Academia, and Veronica Taylor who is best known for playing Ash Ketchum from Pokemon. They talked to me about these characters, the similarities that they shared, and what they admired most about them. They also shared some advice for aspiring voice actors and actresses. 

Justin Briner:

“Start acting right now. Find any opportunity to perform, whether it’s local theatre, local acting classes, improv courses, vocal classes, even online is a great opportunity to connect with folks and start spreading your wings and working on your range. Eventually, if you keep at it and find that you have a joy for acting, you will run into folks who are also doing that sort of thing and establish a network with them. Inevitably one day, someone will say, hey, I’m working on so and so project, would you like to come read for it? And so that’s officially a door open for you.”

Leah Clark:

“Don’t stop, Just don’t stop. Be consistent. I know that everyone says that, but I feel like if it’s what you want to do, you’re going to do it anyway. Just fail until you don’t fail anymore because, eventually, it’s going to work out when it’s supposed to.”

Veronica Taylor:

“Follow your dreams sounds cliche, but I really do believe that. It’s really important to be clear about what you want to do, but be open to the possibilities that comes with that. For instance, I’ve always wanted to be an actor, but to be an actor, there’s many different jobs I’ve had to do. You have to be able to just learn as much as you can and keep going and don’t give up because there’s so much failure involved where you don’t get where you want to be, but you don’t realize that path is just winding around. You just have to keep working hard and don’t give up.”