Source: 大塚明夫｢声優として生き残れない若者の特徴｣
Voice Actor Essays, penned by Ootsuka Akio, a veteran voice actor who has portrayed characters in various masterpieces such as the Ghost in the Shell series’ Batou and Mobile Suit Gundam 0083: Stardust Memory’s Anavel Gato. In this fourth installment, he will explain “what today’s young voice actors are lacking.”
“I didn’t have to do any retakes this time around!”
Sometimes I hear youngsters say this with pride, but I wonder if they’re really supposed to be pleased with that.
Newbies are terrified of having to do retakes. Of course. Their talking has to match the lip-syncing on-screen – this is something they’d never had to do before, so of course they’d be nervous.
But if all you keep thinking is “it sure is good to hear no complaints and say no mistakes; as long as I can talk during my cue, that’s fine,” that’s a problem, too.
You may hear no complaints and do no retakes, but whether or not that means you’ve “passed” is another matter. Maybe what they were really thinking was “this guy can’t do any better than this, so let’s stop here.” People who don’t even consider those situations and simply get happy with doing “no retakes” might not understand how it feels to think on their feet.
It’s not really important if you can’t line up with the lip-syncing perfectly
Things like mistakes or retakes cannot be addressed unless you have the will to figure out the solution alongside the people around you. Directors have their own way of thinking, and so do voice actors. They both bring their own interpretations to the recording session and come up with good output from putting their ideas together.
Of course, it’s essentially important for someone to get their job done smoothly. A voice actor who does nothing but make mistakes in the studio would be a pain. But actually, it’s not really important if you can’t line up with the lip-syncing perfectly. It’s already enough to watch the material three times in advance. It’s more important to be able to know the key traits that give the character you’re portraying their personality, the airs they give off.
In my case, I think about how to express anime characters in a more realistic “human” manner, and think in advance if there’s any way for me to further bring out the charm of actors in Western live-action films. I welcome all the criticism I hear and retakes I have to do for those parts. Of course, I’ve also had times when I’d argued that I wasn’t convinced by what the other guy was telling me, but there are also so many people I’ve worked with who have gained my trust thanks to experiences like that.
For the meantime, when you’re working on unimportant mob roles, you can just aim for having no mistakes first. Even if you don’t get the portrayal you want, you can just think “okay, I’ll just go along with your lip-syncing, I’ll just do better the next time a role like this comes around.” But if you take a step further from that, you can make a stand: “I want to do acting that no voice actor has ever done before.” The first thing that comes to mind when you think that is “Hmm, maybe I’ll try talking a lil’ bit more,” or “Maybe I’ll try acting out different roles?”
The people who think that it’s fine because other people gave them the passing score may be wanting to ask me, then what else should I do? These are people I often sit beside at industry drinking parties. I think what you’re doing is alright if this is the strategy you want to go with. But the reason why I can’t stop working myself is because the people around me are content with just working at that level.
People want to work with me because I’m “Ootsuka Akio,” not because I’m someone who can just “follow along with the lip-syncing perfectly.” There are so many voice actors with much more work than me, but I’ve never felt like my work was in danger, and it won’t ever happen. I actually wish to meet a junior who would make me feel like my work is in danger.
Young voice actors shouldn’t play “the same roles all over again”
Right now, there are so many popular voice actors. But that popularity won’t last forever; one day, their time in the limelight will eventually end. The only thing they’ll have left at that time is their “strength,” and I don’t just mean their “technical strength”.
The quality of our voices is basically the same even when we get older. But when we exceed a certain level, our bodies begin to deteriorate – this is unavoidable. When we’re young, our bodies are flexible and so are our vocal cords, but as we get older, they get stiffer. The longer and more flexible one’s vocal cords are, the lower you can make your voice sound – so the older you get, the harder it is to maintain a lower register.
Actors who rely on simply “making their voices sound good” cannot withstand this. Because no one can stop aging, you have to have the strength to get over the loss, as well as the capability to perform much deeper forms of acting.
We’re in an online society now so as soon as someone’s popularity dips by even a little bit people often say “that guy’s done for,” but I think that maybe it’s just because they’ve been playing the same role over and over since they were young.
Of course, as you grow older, you can’t make the same voices you did before. That’s why originally, actors take on older roles as they grow older. But it seems that people will always be struggling as to how they can keep themselves in exactly the same state as they were when they were younger.
Doing this will tide you over for a little while. But you’ll realize it when another popular voice actor takes the spotlight – people get bored when the same thing keeps on happening.
The staff on-site would also naturally have the urge to want to make something up, do something new. So they’ll take that out on casting and choose actors whose work hasn’t been overdone yet. If that’s the case, they won’t choose actors who’ve lost their sense of freshness, so to speak.
There’s also the fact that younger staff members find it harder to keep older voice actors in line. For directors in their 20s and 30s are awkward around voice actors in their 50s and 60s. It’s difficult for the directors to say no, that’s no good. Especially when it’s a voice actor whose abilities are high but cannot catch up. If they don’t come to the decision that “it can’t be anyone else but you,” then they can easily replace you with younger voice actors. Working off of that, the type of person who won’t get called upon less as they get older are people like Yama-chan. (Yamadera Kouichi)
Voice actors cannot survive on “technical ability” alone
That being said, it’s hard to stay in this industry using just technical skill. Back in the day when only the same 50 actors could sit in 50 chairs, that would have probably been enough. But right now, when voice actors are getting younger and younger, young people are cast even as older characters for the reasons I mentioned before.
I also feel that I want something about the current state of affairs to change. There are a lot of excellent, great seniors, but they don’t get enough chances to take the spotlight. It’s something I could only be sad about. I want to act alongside people like them more, too…
The reason why veterans don’t normally get to work together is because no matter where you go, casting budget will always be limited. Using one highly-ranked voice actor will put a drastic toll on the budget, so the only thing they can do is have the rest of the cast be from a lower rank. That’s why, save for a few superstar exceptions, over time, the generation that most of the cast belongs to has been changing.
When it comes to Western movie dubs, the generational turnover is fast. In the midst of actors in their 30s and 40s, I may already be part of the category of actors whose time in the limelight has ended.
Additionally, this age-based turnover is even faster for female voice actors than it is for male voice actors. The reason for this is that in the first place, there is an overwhelmingly small amount of female roles – and even fewer roles for older women. Since the creators don’t have enough money, they’ll let young female voice actors – who only require cheaper compensation – play every role, from old to middle-aged women. Under these circumstances, it’s very difficult to survive as a voice actor.
This age competition is even more rampant for female voice actors in general, not just for Western movie dubs. There are even kids in their twenties who can’t get jobs. The tendency is that 16- and 17-year-olds are the girls who can easily find voice acting jobs.
If you leave high school to go to voice acting school and then to a vocational school, you will be around 20 years old when you make your debut. You’d only end up miserable if after all this you end up in the hands of an unscrupulous adult who thinks “I can only use this person when they’re young, and I’ll replace them as soon as they get older.”
This is sad but it’s the truth: there are many adults in this world who think that they can make a profit without having to pull their own weight by making use of other people’s efforts. That’s how it is when you’re not in a genuinely productive society.
To the youngsters who jump into this industry recklessly, without considering details such as whether they’d get thrown out if they can’t sell well, the only thing I can say is “it’s the time to stop being just a voice actor.” If you’re really the kind of person who can really say that that’s not much of a risk compared to the circumstances in which you grew up, then it can’t be helped, but I can’t really tell you “okay, just do your best.”
The sense of discomfort that young voice actors embrace
When dealing with young voice actors, it’s sometimes hard to tell if they really want to portray a character as an actor or not. I don’t see much motivation in them to get out of portraying mob roles and get regular roles, big roles. They may have a lot of things in mind, but if they don’t show them in their actions, the people around them have no way to judge them. Managers won’t go out of their way to offer work to voice actors whose motivation they can’t see.
It is often said in the theater world that “there are big and small actors, but no big and small roles.” But I think roles have sizes. And this depends on whether the part they require in the structural material in the story is large or small.
If an actor with immense talent plays a messenger in Shakespeare’s play, the audience may think, “that messenger may mean a lot in this story.” If a normal actor does it, then that won’t happen. In that sense, the size of the actor may definitely exceed the size of the role. But I think that of course there are big and small roles, like Macbeth and King Lear, which would obviously be big roles.
Also, I think that it’s easier to understand how fun it is to act when you play a bigger part. If you keep playing roles where you can only say one or two lines, you won’t have a chance to experience and enjoy the full depth of a play, will you?
Personally, I think that all youngster should think stuff like “I wanna try leading roles” and “I wanna try bigger roles” more. They should fight not just for more roles, but for bigger roles. As they struggle through these goals, their attitude will catch the attention of directors or producers who may think “let’s give that person a bigger role.”
In order for this to happen, you should follow your seniors and apply those experiences. The managers at my agency often encourage newbies to “ask your seniors to take you out to the field,” but in reality it seems that very few newbies actually do that. There aren’t any kids asking me for advice.
If you go into the field, there are directors who would call out to you saying “come talk a little.” Even if all you get are a few lines as a mob character, if you don’t put yourself forward in these situations, you won’t get any more chances. Actually, there is a voice actor who got a regular role in a famous foreign drama by tagging along in the field like this. It’s been a long time ago for me, but when I was a newbie I used to follow my dad to various recordings and they let me record a line or two too.
When you’re an understudy, you’re fighting
“Akio-san, it’s fun to get to talk a lot, isn’t it?”
There’s a youngster who once told me that. And that’s right. It’s fun to talk a lot and act a lot.
As a newbie, there are days when you say a few lines in the morning and a few lines at night. You would get to say a few lines and then spend the rest of the time watching other actors perform. Which is a great way to learn, but it’s always more fun to do the acting yourself.
If you came into this world because you love performing, then of course you’ll get to enjoy it more as long as you keep working. When you’re an understudy, you’re fighting to earn your place in this world. Those who don’t start that fight themselves, don’t devote themselves, and just think their manager will bring them work, should get out of the voice acting industry as soon as they can.
🍀 