Why Your Voice Can Make or Break a Story

I’m rehearsing with my Improv team for a big upcoming show when our coach John says to me, “All your characters sound… like Kymberlee.” I’m thinking, “Well, of course, they do! I’m the one creating them.”

I must’ve said what I was thinking out loud because he responds back, “Actually Kymberlee, we want to meet these characters as themselves.” So he gives me an exercise to do. I’ve got to stand in the center of the stage and do a completely different voice whenever one of my fellow performers approaches me to start a new scene.

PANIC! I had all of maybe three different characters prepared in my head, so I had no idea what I was gonna do. But after doing scene after scene, I managed to find all these new characters--just by changing my voice.

That exercise helped change my point of view in scenes, my physicality, and even my emotions. And it all came from simply speaking differently each time. My guest today, Steve French, literally does this for a living as a full-time, in-demand voice actor. In this episode, he and I discuss storytelling through voice acting, and he answers questions such as:

What's a process you can use to prepare for incorporating stories in your business? How can you transform mere lines in a script into a compelling audible story? And what can you do if you struggle with your storytelling skills in an event, such as an audition or speech?

• How to stand out as a storyteller using your individual voice
• How you can prepare yourself for a vocal storytelling project
• Why an audience falls in love with effective story hooks

Steve French is a voice actor based in New York who graduated from The Hartt School Theatre Division in West Hartford, Connecticut. He was an award-winning stage actor and singer before becoming a full-time voice actor. You might recognize him as the promo voice of The Book of Boba Fett and The Mandalorian on Disney+.

Steve’s voice has been featured in various projects, from nature documentaries on National Geographic to spooky movie trailers and funny commercials. You can hear him on recent episodes of STARZ’s P-Valley and Peacock’s Girls5Eva. His voiceover work also appears nationwide for Toyota, and he hosts the official Unsolved Mysteries Podcast every week.