POSTED: 8/18/2006 12:00 PM

Game Informer: Can you give us some background as to how you got into voice acting?
Jennifer Hale: Oh, man. Well, I went to a fine arts high school, and I started singing in rock bands when I was about 15. I got drawn back into acting when I got a job as a PA at a production house that was right next to an audio studio. They asked me to come over and do spot, and I quickly saw the economic potential of the whole thing...and I had a great time! So I made a demo, jumped into getting trained, and that took me to Atlanta where I got my first live-action film job, which took me to LA, and that sent me back to voice acting. I didn't know much about the animation side of it. I just knew about the commercial side of it. And then my first audition was for a cartoon series, Where on Earth is Carmen Sandiego, and I've been working in cartoons and then games ever since.

GI: What is a normal number of lines you'll have for a project?
Hale: I couldn't tell you. It depends on how it’s structured. Like, for Onimusha we did a lot of scenes that we did as ensembles. And in the DaVinci Code, there was some scene work, but a lot of individual work as well. I never really count lines – that's the difficult job of the director and the producer. I just try to jump in and – I know this sounds cheesy – just try to be "in the moment" for every line. If I think about how many lines I have, I'm not thinking about what I'm doing. GI: Do you still do on-camera acting as well?
Hale: I do, but I don't have much time for it anymore. GI: So was it a conscious decision to pursue more voice work instead of live-action work?
Hale: No, it's more like voice acting grabbed me. I was very lucky that way. It pulled me in to a level of success I could never have hoped for, and I'm very grateful for it. And I don't question it. I just go where I'm asked and I have a great time.

GI: What kind of preparation do you do to before portraying your characters? Or do you just walk in and read cold?
Hale: There are jobs where I've done that. They both happen. If it's a game based on a movie, I can watch the movie and get a sense of it that way. Other times, it's very last minute because of pressure on the production, so they don't have any time to give us more room. There are times when I've auditioned last minute, and even done a job, where I've had to make it up and go. But, it's not as hard as it sounds. It's not easy, but I think I have a process by now that I work through. It's a combination of what I see in the writing, you know, "Who is this person? What does the writer have to tell me? What does the director have to tell me? What does the art have to tell me? What's going on around me?" Those questions are the same if you have five minutes to prepare or five months. You can just go deeper if you have a little more time.

GI: When you show up to do a recording, what kind of material do you have available? Are the game directors there? Do you have concept art to use as a reference?
Hale: It varies. The range is anywhere from "I don't know, it's a troll, and I think there's a lot going on" to "Here's what she looks like, here are her three different outfits, here's the scene, here's the background picture, here's who she's talking to, so-and-so is playing this role, you guys are in this big a room, this is what just happened, and this is her childhood." Sometimes we get a lot of really great information and we can really go to town.

GI: What companies are the best with providing that kind of information?
Hale: LucasArts typically does that. Anything of Keiko Ono's. What else... I have such a horrible memory for the work I've done. That's another thing. They used my character from SOCOM to announce the video game awards last year, and I didn't realize it. But I've done over 80 games. I didn't even know that going in to this thing, so I called one of the assistants at the agency and I had to ask "Can you tell me what I've done?" [Laughs] I don't know! I don't track it! That's not what's important to me. The most important thing to me is breathing life into that person on the page in front of me. I will bleed for the writers and directors if that's what they need. I love it.

GI: Do you need to do a lot of dialect and accent training?
Hale: I mentioned that I went to a fine arts high school, and one of the things they taught us that I just couldn't understand at the time was dialects. And also, being a singer, I had an ear for musical rhythms, and every dialect has its own rhythm and musicality. An intonation and a lyrical quality that comes and goes. That's where it started. Listening to real people speaking in the greatest. NPR will have correspondents reporting from all over the world, and you hear the greatest accents from these people. I've actually "been British" many times, Irish, Scottish, you name it.

GI: Have you ever been on a project that required a certain accent that left you thinking "How on Earth am I going to figure that one out?"
Hale: [laughs] Oh, yeah. South African is one of the most difficult things...I couldn't figure that out to save my life. I don't even remember what project it was for. Also, I apologize to anyone from nondescript European areas for insulting your way of speech. One of the great things, actually, is working on a game that takes place nowhere...like an imaginary place, or in the future, a planet that doesn't exist. Then you can create a dialect yourself, and that's really fun. I did one of those for Eragon, actually. Take a little bit from this area and a little bit from that area and sort of mash them all together to create a voice. Keeping track of that can be a problem, though!

GI: I've heard that voice casting for video games and certain anime series can be very specific and meticulous...
Hale: Oh, yeah. You know, one of my favorite jobs that I've ever done was the English voice over on an anime feature.

GI: Which one was that?
Hale: Cowboy Bebop: The Movie. I was Electra. That was one of my favorite, favorite experiences. The director was phenomenal, and I had an awesome time.

GI: Do you have any idea what it is during auditions that the directors are looking for in terms of particular characteristics of a voice?
Hale: You know, if I could answer that, I'd be a billionaire because I'd get every part. The description comes out, and it has certain traits. Sometimes a vocal tonality, or a Kathleen Turner sound – warm, sexy, severe. But how they eventually land on somebody... I always refer to it as kiwis and tangelos. I know it sounds crazy. The voice acting community – most of us who work consistently – everyone is so good. The people that get a job instead of me, there's a fairly small group of us, they're not gonna go wrong no matter who they hire. There are rare cases where I say "Damn it! They should have hired me because I so got that! But, oh, she got it? She's amazing. That's gonna be so good." 90 percent of the time, that's the case. So, I call it kiwis and tangelos because it depends on what you're in the mood for, and you can't really explain why that's what you want – you just know that's it. Unfortunately, there are the rare instances where a studio or giant production company will step in and say "No, we want this," and it's actually not as good as what they should have gotten, but it was a political decision.

GI: Hollywood is described as being cut-throat. Does that apply to voice over as well?
Hale: I would say that is absolutely not true in voice over. It's actually the exact opposite. I've actually recommended friends for jobs that I just knew I wasn't right for. I'm the voice for some Disney characters, and in making the sequels they updated the voice and needed somebody to do one of them differently because they sound too much alike in the updated versions. So, I called a friend of mine and I coached her to help her get the job. That's how it is. We help each other. I'll recommend other people all the time.

GI: How much interaction do you have with other voice actors on a project? Is there a lot of joking around in the studio, or is it all business?
Hale: It depends on the production. My favorite is to get a good balance of the two. I love joking around in the lobby, and I like when the recording room is run really tight. You can stay in the moment, and you can stay in the story and you're not distracted by the clowning around. I love the clowning around as a break, but I'm pretty much in my own world. I prefer to work that way, but some people work the other way. Most of the time – and here's the much shorter answer to your question – we don't get much chance to interact on games. More often, we work one at a time.

GI: You said that sometimes a studio comes in and says who does what voices. We've seen a trend that more celebrities are being used to voice games. Is this a threat to voice over professionals?
Hale: I don't know. The same thing happened in regular animation. The thing is, they'll always need utility players. They'll always need people who can give them many different voices. When I first started in regular animation, I was always the young heroine, but since I saw what was coming, I developed my ability to play more kinds of characters. I think there will always be a need for people like that. Yeah, there'll be a dent here and there. I don't really focus on it, because there's nothing I can do about that. I may as well work on the areas where I know I can be hired and get good at that.

Page 2 GI: There was talk about the possibility of a voice actor strike last year, though it didn't actually end up happening. What did you think of that outcome?
Hale: I was very happy with the resolution. I thought people were ultimately very sensible and really understood where we are in the game process and the evolution of games.

GI: Only in the past few years have voiceovers have become prominent in games. How do you think that is affecting gamers' overall experiences?
Hale: Well, I hope it's making it a better one! I hope it's making it a better-rounded one. I'm not really sure how to say this... it's almost like life in general was sort of cut and dried and black and white, even 10 years ago. Even the games we played, like board games, had a beginning, middle, and end. Entertainment was entertainment. Movies were movies. Games were games. They were all really separate. Now, the games are very ambiguous. There's not always a beginning, middle, or end. There's just the next level, the next place. Games and entertainment and movies are starting to blur into each other, lines across everything are starting to blur. My hope is that the work we do as voice actors can just make the game experience that much more intense, that much more fun, that much more of an escape and a great time.

GI: One of the characters you voiced, Cassidy Sharp from Darkwatch, appeared in Playboy's first Girls of Gaming feature.
Hale: Really?! GI: Yeah. You didn't know?
Hale: I had no idea! Given the way they draw those characters, I guess that doesn't surprise me. That's a credit to the artist!

GI: Well, I was going to ask if you had any problems with that concept, but apparently it's pretty cool.
Hale: Ah, whatever. It's just that if someone likes it, that's a good thing. I hope it sells more games for them. If my voice can contribute to that, then I'm thrilled!

GI: You've done the voice for male characters in the past...
Hale: Yeah, younger boys.

GI: Do you have to approach that any differently?
Hale: Oh, yeah. Boys have a very different take on life. The preparation isn't any different. I just have to get rid of the girly thing. Girls will linger on ideas and concepts. Guys are like "get it done, move on." Boys have a very different approach. And then there's the obvious stuff, like how they sound different. But that's not where I start.

GI: You've worked on some pretty crazy games. Killer7. Metal Gear Solid. Do you have any recollection of the weirdest or craziest things that have made you think "What are the writers thinking?!"
Hale [laughs]: You know, I can't remember specific lines, because if I did, there wouldn't be room for anything else in my head. But, yeah, stuff like that happens all the time. Often you're dealing with alternate worlds, languages, and they make up words! So there are moments like that all the time.

GI: Can you remember one project that was fuller of these moments than others?
Hale: I would say, probably Everquest II. I did 15 different voices for that, and by the end of that I was totally fried. I was like "Okay, who am I now? Who am I fighting? Okay, let's go." That's one of my favorite things too, when you die in a particular scene. "Okay, is it a long death? Quick death? Medium death? Am I shot? Stabbed? To I bleed to death? Slowly? Quickly? Is blood bubbling out of my mouth?" There's like a million questions.

GI: And the more voices you do, the more of those you need to consider?
Hale: Yeah, because it's gotta be real. Those sounds can get really repetitious, and I figure that the thing I can contribute is to make it as honest and specific as possible, because you're going to hear them a million times and I want them to be good.

GI: Gamers definitely notice when there's just one grunt sound effect to cover jumping, punching, and stuff like that.
Hale: You know what the sad thing is? In my real life, I remember turning a corner one time when I was out running with horses in a sand arena, and I tripped over my own two feet and did a complete face-plant in the sand. As I went down, I made the most amazing noise! And as I'm face-planting – experiencing pain, eating sand – I'm also thinking "Oh, I've gotta remember that noise!" That's just pathetic!

GI: What advice would give to someone who is looking to break into this aspect of the gaming industry?
Hale: Acting classes. Develop your ability to do more than one type of voice. Have a really strong work ethic. Remember you’re only a piece of the puzzle. Show up on time. And have a good time! That last one's important.