It’s amusing to note that Colleen Clinkenbeard was actually a stage actress before she was a voice actress. She was introduced to this profession by a fellow voice-actress and began her career in 2004. Since then she’s been kept very busy with the many different voice roles that she’s taken on, a great number of them being for anime throughout her career. She’s even been a big part of the Dragon Ball saga for a number of years. It’s interesting to think that some folks don’t tend to think much of voice actors since quite honestly they’re not in front of the camera and they don’t make a whole lot of appearances that people tend to know about like traditional actors. But the error in this thinking is that in truth voice actors tend to have a lot more roles under their belt than the traditional actors sometimes and have a great deal more to remember when it comes time to recall one voice or another for a certain character. Plus, their voice is their paycheck for the most part and taking care of it and learning what kind of range it has is every bit as difficult as any acting class on the planet. Having to figure out just how far you can push your voice until it cracks or gives out isn’t always recommended, but learning how to bend around those limits and create new sounds for different voices is something that any good voice actor learns how to do at one point or another in their career.
Colleen is, as she states, not a method actor. She doesn’t always enjoy thinking about the character too much in an attempt to slip into the role. Instead she enjoys the process of simply coming up with the voice for a particular character and staying out of her head as much as possible. For those that might not understand this statement it typically means that the more you think about something the more complicated it can become since your mind will actively come up with many different alternate ways to do something and unless you’re willing to look through and pore over every last option until you drive yourself crazy then you’ll want to stay out of your head when you need to concentrate as much as possible. A lot of performers use this as common practice since overthinking tends to ruin a lot of different ideas and can even lead to someone bowing out of a role simply because they can’t get out of their own way. Thankfully Colleen does her very best to stay out of her own head when she’s working and it shows since she’s managed to create a very successful career based on what she can do with her voice.
This kind of acting is, in some ways, preferable to people that don’t want to be in front of the camera or are simply not confident enough to be in front of others. Given that she was a stage actor before becoming a voice actor it seems more that Colleen just found a calling that was more to her liking and went for it, which is a great way to go at life when you really think about it. Getting to do something you’re passionate about is great, but getting paid to do it is even better. So far she’s made quite the life for herself and her family by voicing one role after another as she continues to be featured in TV, movies, and video games wherever she’s needed. The promise of work for a voice actor is about as solid as it is for any other actor since animated shows, films, games, and other media are so prevalent in our society today. So it would seem that Colleen has about as much job security as anyone since there’s a good chance that she’ll always be able to find work somewhere.
The number of voices she’s done is simply amazing. Whether one is an anime fan or not she’s managed to become impressive to just about anyone that takes a look at her resume since there are enough roles on there to really think that she took to voice acting like a fish to water. She’s been interviewed more than a few times and even shown up in fan forums during her career and it would appear that she’s still going strong to this day which is great for those that recognize and happen to love the characters she voices. What the future holds for her is still uncertain but at this point it really seems that she’ll continue doing what she’s doing simply because to try and start over doing anything else might be kind of hard to fathom, not to mention it would deprive fans of one of their favorite voice actors.
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