You're listening to Voice Acting Mastery, episode number 216.

Welcome to the Voice Acting Mastery podcast with Crispin Freeman.

Voiceactingmastery.com is your place to learn both the skills and the mindset you need to become a professional voice actor, even if you're just getting started.

In each episode of this podcast, you'll discover valuable tips, tricks and insider information

to help you portray characters in animation, video games, and beyond.

And now here's your host, voice actor Crispin Freeman.

Hi there. My name is Crispin Freeman, and I'll be your guide through the world of voice acting.

If you'd like to know more about me, feel free to check out my personal website at www.crispinfreeman.com.

Welcome to the first part of my interview with a vocal shapeshifter, Mara Juno.

Before we begin, I want to acknowledge here that Mara identifies as non-binary, but accepts both

she and they pronouns. For the purposes of this podcast, I will be using she-her when referring

to Mara so as to avoid pluralization confusion during these episodes.

Now you may be familiar with Mara's work in animation, where she's played Marlene in Curious George,

R&D Baby Simmons in Boss Baby Back in the Crib,

superhero narrator, tiger statue, and Betty Blueprint from Blaze in the Monster Machines, and Shula in the hit show Arcane. In video games, she's played Ikora Ray in Destiny 2, Evelyn in League of Legends, Sindel in Mortal Kombat, and Storm in Marvel Rivals. In anime, she's played Alea the Red Tag in Ishura, Helena in Tezica's

anime Pluto, and Mara and I have the great pleasure of working together on Pokemon Horizons,

where she plays Orla, the chief engineer of our airship, the Brave Oliveine.

In this episode, Mara and I begin our discussion with the question I ask all of my guests,

how did she get started as a voice actor? Mara's path to voice acting is a bit unique, because she

actually began her career on the microphone as a radio DJ. She was living in a town called

Homa in Louisiana, about an hour southwest of New

Orleans, working a corporate job that she hated. She then found an opportunity to audition for her

...