FEATURING ELIAH
IS THERE ANY PROJECT OR PEOPLE THAT YOU WOULD LIKE TO WORK WITH OR COLLABO- RATE WITH?
I would love to get into the dubbing scene for anime. I love watching anime, and the voice acting for shonen anime specifi- cally, especially in recent years, has been so raw and emotional across every genre that it keeps me hooked. I'm currently watch- ing shows like DanDaDan, Jujutsu Kaisen and Demon Slayer, and beyond the animation, I'd love to work with the Voiceover Actors for some of the main characters in each series.
PLEASE TALK ABOUT WHAT TYPE OF WORK YOU ARE CUR- RENTLY FOCUSED ON.
Right now, I'm focused more so on the television side of voice over and on-camera. I like epi- sodic voice over in the sense that I have a longer time to portray my character's arc. I did some work recently as Feather in The Wild
Robot for a couple days at Dream- works, and that was a really fun experience! It's the first time I've worked on an animated feature before, and it was a great way to dip my feet into that new avenue. I'd love to delve into both and work on both sides simultane- ously. I think I'm ready for it now that I've warmed up!
WHAT VOICE OVERS DO YOU ADMIRE THE MOST FROM HOL- LYWOOD?
As far as actors, Frank Welker, Keith David, Tara Strong and Steve Blum are my biggest highlights. The voices they have done are absolutely iconic and ones that I've grown up on. Their range alone gives me chills, and I aspire to be just like them soon. I've been blessed to be able to meet all of them over these past years, and they are all just as down to earth and friendly as you'd expect. That's voice actors for you!
FOR ALL THE VIEWERS READ- ING, PLEASE KINDLY INTRODUCE YOURSELF.
Hey, everyone! I'm Paul-Mikél Wil- liams. You may have heard my voice as Darius Bowman in Jurassic World: Camp Cretaceous and Jurassic World: Chaos Theory, or Feather in The Wild Robot, just to name a couple. On the on-camera side, I've worked on The Upshaws, Sydney To The Max, Ra- ven's Home, and Westworld to name a few more.
PLEASE TALK ABOUT HOW YOU GOT STARTED IN THE VOICE OVER INDUSTRY.
This is honestly the best question of all. It's a bit of a long story, but my mom is amazing, and so are her instincts and for the industry. Her passion and relentless ambition have gone a long way toward getting me here. Back in 2015, when I started getting into on-camera commercial work, she took me along with her to several acting/casting industry workshops after someone suggested she become a voice actor. One of them was hosted by SAG/AFTRA at their Wilshire location, and the one and only Michael Bell was heading the class! After he finished greet- ing everyone, my mom approached him on his way out and asked what he thought about her doing audio books. I remember he paused, gave a thoughtful look and a brief explanation. Afterward, he turned his attention to me, and gently asked who I was and if I was interested in voiceover.
"Yeah, but he's not ready for VO yet", my mom replied. He invited us to walk with him to the parking lot, and continued to share his experi- ence and wisdom for at least 30 minutes. I was only about 9 years old at the time and didn't know who he was by name, but once I learned that he voiced my brother's favorite character in Metal Gear Solid 3 - "The Fear", a character I'd also heard by watching my brother's playthrough of the game - I started fanboying and instantly got my brother on the phone with him. My brother was more starstruck than I was! The rest is pretty much history.
My mom followed his recommenda- tion to the letter, focusing on helping me with voiceover first because the industry was shifting its focus toward casting real youth instead of "adults playing younger." My first stop on the new journey was "Lynnanne Zager's ADR Looping level 1." That was back in 2018, and to this day, I still take classes with voice over greats when- ever I'm able, and after all these years of nurturing my dream, my mom fi- nally had the chance to begin her VO career not too long ago as well! I've heard recordings of her classes and auditions, and she's amazing at it.
PLEASE SHARE A MOMENT WHERE YOU FELT YOU WANTED TO BE INSPIRED TO BE A PART OF THE VOICE OVER INDUSTRY.
I think there have been moments across my whole life that have inspired me to do voice acting. When I was younger, before my teens, I would love to play pretend and act like Cartoon Network characters like Mordecai from Regular Show or Gumball from The Amazing World Of Gumball. From then on, I always wanted to have some part in the process, whether it was writing, drawing, or voice acting. As I got older, those dreams became clear to me, and I had no idea how attainable they truly were if I just committed to them. Sometimes I would stay up on weekends a little later to watch Dragon Ball Z Kai on Toonami, and my brother was a huge fan of Dragon Ball too, so he kind of instantly got me hooked on it.
PLEASE TALK ABOUT THE CHAL- LENGES YOU FACE IN THIS INDUS- TRY AND HOW YOU OVERCOME THE CHALLENGES.
I think a big challenge in the voice over world is patience and consisten- cy. There's never a lack of jobs that you can submit yourself for, and that can create feelings of both intimida- tion and restlessness. You may feel like you go out for dozens or even hundreds of jobs a month and not one of them follows up, or you'll see auditions that you don't think you have the skill for or you simply don't want to do. What I do is remind myself that I'm a voice over actor because it's my dream, and I'm good at it. I'm not afraid to say I'm good at voice acting. Voice acting isn't just making character voices, either. It's embodying that character when the rest of your body can't, and being a storyteller in a medium that even some on-camera actors can't master.