Voice acting in the United States
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Voice acting makes an important contribution to many films, television productions and advertisements in the United States. Voice acting is needed when making animated films; when the character represented does not appear visually in the action; when the actor playing the part is unable or unwilling to speak in it; or when a character breaks into song, with a singer's voice substituted.
Formerly, promotion of films did not usually feature their voice actors. However, since the prominently billed voice role of Robin Williams in the 1992 film Aladdin, films have frequently been marketed with well-known names as voice actors, billed as stars in their own right, and often receiving coaching by specialist voice actors.
In television and radio commercials and movie trailers, voice actors are often recruited through voice acting agencies.
Female voice actors in male roles
For live action production, voice acting often involves reading the parts of computer programs, radio dispatchers, or characters who never appear on screen but are heard during a telephone call or recording or from an offscreen location. "Stunt double" voice actors are sometimes employed; if a voice actor loses their voice, someone who sounds similar can step in.[citation needed]
It is not unusual to find among the ranks of voice actors people who also act in live-action film or television, or on the stage. For those actors, voice acting has the advantage of offering acting work without having to bother with makeup, costuming, lighting, and so on. An occasional advantage is the fact that through voice acting, an actor can reprise a role that he has played in live action but would be otherwise too aged to portray.
A common practice in animation and dubbing is to cast a woman to play the role of a young boy.[citation needed] Casting adult women for these parts can be especially useful if an ad campaign or a developed series is expected to run for several years, for while the vocal characteristics of a male child actor would change over time, the voice of an adult female will not. On the downside, a woman would require a higher wage than a child actor.
Notable exceptions to using women to voice young boy characters are the Peanuts animated specials and films, in which actual boys have traditionally been cast to voice the male characters, and sometimes even female characters (ex. Peppermint Patty).[1] Pixar Animation Studios also casts boys instead of women to voice young male characters. As of 2018, all male roles in their full-length films have been played by male voice actors.[citation needed]
