My Journey into Voiceover Acting

Voice acting has always fascinated me. In my teen years I began mimicking voices of celebrities and imitating accents that I heard.  I have often thought about becoming a voice actor, but never knew how to start or where to seek work. How does someone break into voicing animated characters? Do I move to Hollywood and start sending out demos to studios? Where do I record a demo? Am I even good enough to record a demo? All of these thoughts and more raced around my brain as I transitioned from high school to college. Not knowing anything about acting, and even having stage fright, I never followed my ambition or developed my natural talent for character voices and celebrity impressions.

30 years have passed since I graduated high school and I look back on my life and realize that I was never truly happy in my work, because I never honored that part of me that wanted to perform. One year ago, I left a well-paying corporate job and began pursuing my lifelong ambition in voice over work. Frustrated and feeling unfulfilled with my employment, I followed a strong inspiration to resign, but I had no idea what I was going to do to support myself. I only knew I had to change my work environment before it completely crushed my spirit. Then the answer came for an unexpected source….

I was attending a U2 concert where Bono started telling the story of how he became an artist. He talked about his mother, who always encouraged him to follow his dream of becoming a musician. He profoundly stated, “Free yourself to be yourself, only you can see yourself.” Then he went on to say that you can do anything you dream of doing and he would not be who he is today with the support of his mother who died when he was 14. I left the concert inspired to follow my boyhood dream of voicing characters with accents and impressions.

One week after hearing the message Bono gave me, I was sitting in a workshop, learning about the voice over industry and finding out if I had what it takes to be a voice actor. From that introduction I found a voice coach and began training as a voice over talent. My coach told me, “You are a natural” when it comes to reading and analyzing scripts. He also said I am one of only a handful of people who has the talent to be the voice of television and movie trailers. My coach believes in me, which inspired me to work harder to develop my talents. I recorded my first demos in October 2015 and began auditioning immediately after receiving the finished tracks.

One year has passed since I began my journey as a voice actor. I formed an LLC, licensed my business with local, state, and federal regulatory agencies and am establishing myself as a voice over talent. I have been working full time doing voice over for six months now and I continue to learn all I can about recording quality and sound engineering. My career in voice over is still in its infancy and I have a long way to go before I reach my goal of providing character voices for film and television. I am excited to be on the path toward that goal and to include you on my journey.

My name is Paul Cuthbert and I am a voice over talent.