Interview (Part 1): Tasia Valenza, Voice-Over Artist

From TV series to videogames, voice-over acting to commercials, Tasia Valenza has had a long and successful career in the entertainment business. In that time, there have been many changes, but one thing has remained constant: Movie trailers almost always feature male voice-overs. In fact, Tasia is one of a handful of women to have had her voice used for a movie commercial.

I recently interviewed Tasia about her career, what is involved in her job as a voice over artist, and some of the unique challenges women face in her line of work.

Today in Part 1, Tasia discusses her background as an actress, why she shifted her focus to voice over work, and the wide variety of jobs she has done and continues to do.

Scott Myers: How did you get into acting?

Tasia Valenza: I like to think I was destined to be an actor because both my parents were born and raised actors in New York. My mother went to Music and Art, she studied music and she was a great singer who was on tour all over the country in theater productions. My father went to Performing Arts, and he was on a career track to be a great actor. He had success on Broadway at 15 and was going in career acting path until he met my mother. They got married, had a few kids, and then he decided to get a “real job,” make some money and return to acting.

He and opened up a restaurant, became a successful restaurateur, but never returned to the true passion. So, I was basically born into it, and my parents encouraged my talents, were incredibly supportive and taught me many of their skills. I had no formal training. I did every school and camp play, played the lead. I was kind of a ham rather early on in my life. {laughs} I knew by the time I was eight I was going to be an actress.

Scott: As I understand it, you were discovered by the famous French filmmaker, Louis Malle, when you were about 16 or 17. What do you remember about that experience?

Tasia: Yeah. Actually, I remember I was 15. It was “my discovery story,” I was in New York, going to high school. I had started doing some extra jobs with my mother, who was still getting acting jobs here and there.

Ironically I was cutting a class one day watching All My Children which very foretelling. Before I went off to do my after school job at the famous Seddutos Ice Cream Parlor in New York where I worked after school, my mother was going to an open call in Back Stage calling for a Latin woman for a film. I gave her my headshot, thinking there might be some extra work. It turned out that they didn’t want a mature woman. They wanted an ingénue for Louis Malle’s movie filming here in California called “Crackers.” My mother just had one of those fateful moments as she walked up to casting director Juliet Taylor and put down my picture and said “Someone like this?”

She called me at the store and I left my scooper, went down and auditioned. Juliette Taylor said, “Well, you’re great, we’re going to send you out to LA tomorrow, and pack for six weeks. Either you’ll come home the next day, or you’ll be in a movie.”

It’s kind of one of those exciting Cinderella stories where I was screen tested with Sean Penn, who I’d just seen in High Times at Rigmont High, so that was a trip. (laughs) I was going to act with “Spicoli.”

Louis liked me, and they were in their eleventh hour of casting, so I was in the perfect place at the perfect time and I was in major feature film. One day I was scooping ice cream and the next day I’m working with the likes, of Donald Sutherland, Wallace Shawn and Christina Baranski, just to name a few.

Tasia Valenza, Sean Penn

Unfortunately, the movie was not well received here because he took an Italian film called Big Deal on Madonna Street, which I think got “lost in translation.” It didn’t quite work for the American audience.

Scott: You got a number of acting gigs while you were living in New York, including one on “All My Children,” for several years as the role of Dottie Thorton. I imagine that requires a special skill set, where you’re learning lines of shoot every day. What did you take away from that experience?

Tasia: That was a very great on‑the‑job training, because as I mentioned I wasn’t formally trained. I went from school and camp plays to the movie and then six months later the soap, which was essentially my “Acting School.”

The ability to do a “play” a day was pretty remarkable. I was sixteen and was a huge fan of the show, plus it was the “The was one of hot soaps at the time.” To jump right into it was kind of learning on the job and it was sink or swim. It wasn’t Shakespeare but it was “acting.” I learned how to make exposition sound fresh each time. [chuckles] Which is a necessary evil to be a “Soap Opera”. A soap opera is a special and challenging medium for both actors and writers by virtue of the fact that you can jump in four years after you stopped watching it and pick up pretty much what’s happening within the first two days, if not in a week.

To me the writers are the unsung heroes who deserve a lot of credit. They’re the ones who have to write the same info 20,000 different ways and still get make it sound new.

It was a great way to really hone my skills in a very concentrated, in‑depth, Malcolm Gladwell, “10,000 Hours” kind of a thing. I did it for almost three years. It was a great, gift at a young age to start out with it. I was even nominated for a Daytime Emmy, which was very cool for only acting professionally for two years.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NMZ5_gTPoxA

Scott: You relocated to Los Angeles at some point, and got dozens of roles in TV series, but along the way you segued more into voice‑over acting. How did that transition happen?

Tasia: I was doing the acting thing out here in Los Angeles. I did pretty much every medium in the on-camera world. My mother who helped me get into acting and was my biggest fan, She acted as the catalyst to get me into voice-overs, She kept insisting (aka nagging me) that I should be doing them.

I lamented to her, “It’s hard to get into,” and “I was really into on‑camera acting.” She, as a great mother does, pestered me until I got my first job and then another and so on until I was doing about half voice-overs and half on camera.

I always love to joke about the fact my therapist mentioned that my “metal health” was going up in proportion to the amount of voice-overs I was doing. (Laughs) I started thinking that after doing 13 years of on‑camera acting that indeed I might be temperamentally meant for voice‑overs since it’s “the gentler kinder side of the business.”

As synchronicity would have it, I got a 12‑week stint on “The Bold and the Beautiful,” and thought I might have fun doing soap and voice-overs. But I soon realized after being trapped on the set again for eight hours a day, and saying the same line, fifty different ways, and not getting to my voice-over jobs, that this soap job was a lovely “bookend” to my on‑camera career.

I basically closed the door on the on‑camera career and devoted myself exclusively to voice‑overs since… and have never looked back. I now consider myself a “recovering actress” and a fully functioning voice-over artist. (laughs) I’ve loved every moment of it and still feel blessed after almost twenty years of doing it.

Scott: For people who aren’t familiar with what voice-over acting entails, could you give me a laundry list of the types of things you’ve done?

Tasia: Absolutely. The world of voice acting encompasses a great range of jobs. It’s everything from ADR, where you’re replacing people’s voice in a movie or “acting off camera”.

My most memorable ADR job with I got to work with late great Sydney Pollack in The Interpreter. That was fun since I got “act” with Sean Penn again… sort of. I played his wife, who you only hear on the answering machine.

I worked with Sydney, just as I would have with any director in the past, setting up the context of the scene, the emotions and subtext; just as if I was “in the scene,” but only my voice was recorded. I worked for only one hour, instead of twelve and no makeup and hair! (laughs) That’s one of the best parts of voice acting, time compression.

I also do narration, commercials promos, political ads, radio imaging, industrials, web training, In room hotel sizzle reels, amusement park rides, etc.. My favorite medium is animation, which keeps me connected to my roots.

I love it because it’s acting, except I’m freed from the shackles of my visage. In the “on-camera world” I was relegated to my looks, which makes sense given the medium. In the world of voice‑overs, I’ve gotten to play kids, little old ladies and animals, to aliens and super heroes, and even a blue amino acid who’s a cop! It’s just been a liberating and wonderful experience! And I feel that I’m still an actress. I’m just using my voice to act and not my body.

Tomorrow in Part 2, Tasia talks about how competitive the field of voice over artistry is and how gender issues play a part in that competition.

To honor the recent passing of Maya Angelou, Tasia recorded this quote by the famed poet, author, teacher and civil rights activist:

You may find Tasia’s website here.

You may find Tasia’s YouTube channel here.

Twitter: @TasiaValenza.

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