The Versatile Character Voice Actor

By Eric Hunt

Stage actors, as well as many television and film actors, view their voice and body as one instrument.  Many acting schools focus on either the voice or the body as the root to good acting.  

Kristen Linklater (author, “Freeing the Natural Voice”) delves deeply into the details of how the voice functions.  How free our voice is to express emotion is a direct reflection on how connected we are to our own emotional experience, she says.  When we come to understand and experience how our voice is affected by the range of human emotions we all feel, we can connect to any emotion and become more effective actors.  

The Alexander Technique, on the other hand, expounds on Constantine Stanislavski’s view that physical tension will inevitably inhibit the actor’s ability to portray the “spiritual life” of their character.  Alexander Technique goes beyond the physical aspects of character development to include the impact physical tension and bad habits have on breathing and vocal production.  

Simply put, an effective and versatile character voice actor should cultivate an elastic instrument.  This includes both the body and the voice. 

You may think that we as voice actors have no need to increase our physical awareness and control because we are not seen.  It is true that our physical characterizations can not be relied upon to help us convey our message, but physical characterizations can become invaluable as we begin to create characters.  An old man with painful sciatica doesn’t stand like a cheerleader, for example.  

Creating an elastic instrument doesn’t happen overnight and maintaining it is an ongoing process.