voice actor vs. voice talent
I was able to visit the Voice Actor Workshop where my friend, teacher and agent Toni Silveri was up to her wonderful tricks again. As happens on occasion at the end of class sometimes, Toni, myself and another student, Kevin Iuzzini, just started talking and it ended up being 11:00 p.m.
By the way, Kevin is a helluva good voice talent, er, voice actor (as well as a great conversationalist) who you should absolutely check out.
But that above nomenclature was my mind as we all talked about voice training and methods and styles. Toni and Kevin are much more studied in the way of stage acting training and I just tried to shut and listen as I was waaay out of my league. Strassburg, Method Acting and Stanislavsky…plulease. I am a lazy voice over fella who just wants to know what time it is, I don’t need to know how the watch is made.
Their insights did cause me to think about the idea of actors training and whether, at its very root, stage actor training is that much different than voice actor training (stage direction and the much greater focus on physicality and movement for stage acting aside). My decision was it really isn’t and that’s probably is a good thing.
Then my next thought veered towards the name, the descriptions if you will: voice actor vs. voice talent. Why is one performer called a voice actor and another called a voice talent? Certainly both titles are part of the industry’s vernacular with those performers who do character voice work most often called voice actors. I refer to myself as a voice talent but I do lots of character work. Should I be calling myself a voice actor?
Does a voice actor get paid more than a voice talent? I don’t think so. Is there greater prestige having “actor” in the title? Nah, I don’t think so, or is there?
So my question is: which are you and why?
