Laura Bailey has been a busy woman since 1999 and her resume shows this without fail since her voice-acting has far outstripped her live-action roles, though the fact that she’s been in live-action as well as staying behind the screens and offering up her voice is impressive. It’s very easy to wonder just how many voice actors manage to get the credit they deserve since we don’t often see their faces. It’s one thing for an actor that’s well-known to perform a voice role since often they’re very easy to pick out in a movie, but someone that hasn’t been seen that often but whose voice is very distinctive is typically revered by those that pay close attention to who’s playing each part. In other words, the typical voice actor likely gets paid quite well, but the recognition they deserve isn’t likely to come all the time, largely because they’re not seen quite as often despite conventions and other various appearances. This doesn’t mean that they’re not famous in certain circles obviously, since many of them are quite well known by fans and are revered in ways that might not always be as recognized as other actors. But overall, the point is that they’ve earned the fame they do have, and have done so by making use of the one tool that a lot of people take for granted, their voice.
The number of different projects that Laura has worked on in her twenty-one years in the business is absolutely dizzying since it takes a while to read through them all. But two roles tend to stand out among the rest since she’s played the parts of Black Widow and Chun-Li pretty frequently, indicating that she might actually be a bit enamored of these characters, or is considered to be one of the best voice actors for said characters when it comes down to it. Obviously, both of them are pretty popular so it’s been a boon for Laura to play them since they do get a lot of attention. But the number of other voices she’s played is incredible really since one has to imagine that she has at least a good range that she can utilize when the moment calls for it. When thinking about taking care of the various parts of a person’s body that help them to earn both a living and a reputation, a lot of us might not give a second thought to our voice and what it takes to maintain it. There are several voice actors that would easily claim that taking care of their voice is their top priority since without the ability to emulate the characters that they’re playing it’s not entirely possible to be as reliable as they can be, and studios might go looking for another actor that can produce the voice they need. So keeping themselves in good shape and maintaining the integrity of their voice is beyond important. One really only needs to look at a voice actor’s list of credits to see just who takes the job seriously enough to take good care of their tools, and Laura’s credits, and the number of them, are astounding.
Has anyone ever tried to come up with another voice aside from their own? It’s not the easiest thing in the world to maintain, let alone find, especially some of these voice actors tend to take a great deal of time to first discover the voice and then perfect it so that they can slip into it whenever they want. In a way, creating a voice for a character is kind of like sculpting with words, as the non-essential sounds, pitches, and tones need to be taken out, refined, and then smoothed out as the voice actor continues to develop the sound they need while attempting to affix it to the character they’re playing. What takes shape eventually is the idea that they knew they wanted to begin with, but it does take time and effort to really make it work since simply trying to pull another voice out of thin air is a rare talent that some people have but many others have to work diligently at since matching a voice to a character isn’t as easy as it might sound. Plus, a voice can be ruined quite easily by a common cold, the flu, anything that affects the vocal cords of the voice actor, so staying healthy is one of the top priorities, and the regimen for this can be kind of extreme in some cases. Laura and many others have found ways around the many different pitfalls that can come with this profession though, and have continued to entertain and thrill people with their continued contributions as they move from one character to the next. It’s easy to be impressed when you get the full scope of what they do.
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