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VOICE ACTING The 'Mature Voice' Has A Richer Bank Account Of Knowledge And Experience January 20, 2015  By Elaine SingerVoice Actor When I was in my 40s my hairdresser announced he had found a few gray hairs and then immediately reassured me that he could take care of it. I warned him that if he dared touch one gray hair on my head he would lose his fingers. After all, I earned every one of them. Why would I want to disguise them? "They’re not gray hairs. They’re wisdom highlights.”Well, now I’m older than 40 and have quite a few more gray hairs and I’m fine with that. But what I’m not particularly fine with are the assumptions associated with aging. I am a voice actor with what is known as a ‘mature’ voice. MATURE AT 30? I have to admit I do get a bit of a chuckle when I see a script asking for a ‘mature’ voice, around 30 years old. No wonder when you get a script asking for a 60 year old they are expecting a frail, breaking voice. Now, I’m not going to argue with the producer or director; but have you talked to your grandmother or older neighbor recently? (If you haven’t you should, you don’t know what you’re missing.) I am particularly bemused when they give the age I am supposed to be portraying as my actual age or younger and expect this type of sound. But I don’t talk like that, none of my friends and relatives my age or older talk like that - so why portray us that way? It’s called ‘stereotyping’ (an oversimplified generalization about a person or group of people without regard for individual differences, which leads to prejudicial thinking and discriminatory acts) and it is alienating - and discriminatory - in so many ways. And it contributes to this incredible fear people have of getting older. Folks, really, think of what the alternative is!!! THE MATURE VIEW ... I love this Doris Lessing quote: "The great secret that all old people share is that you really haven’t changed in 70 or 80 years. Your body changes, but you don’t change at all.”And this one from Betty Friedan: "Aging is not lost youth but a new stage of opportunity and strength.”And Melissa Etheridge (at the ripe ‘old’ age of 53!): "The reason that they make us all youth-oriented and vain and try to think that if we get old we are of no use anymore is because we get wiser, and they know that. And when I say ‘they’ I mean those who are fearful of change. We are getting older, and we are getting wiser, and we are getting freer. And when you get the wisdom and the truth, then you get the freedom and you get power, and then look out. Look out.”Most of the quotes I found on aging are from women. Probably because this stereotyping applies more to aging women than to men. But here’s a wonderful quote from William Holden: "Aging is an inevitable process. I surely wouldn’t want to grow younger. The older you become, the more you know; your bank account of knowledge is much richer.”Yes indeed, our bank account of knowledge, and experience, is much, much richer. ---------------------- ABOUT ELAINE Elaine Singer is a voice actor with 10 years of experience. Her voice evokes maturity, warmth, authenticity and ... quirkiness. Or, from Nurture to Nutty! She has gone from being that 'warm older woman grateful for her new hearing aids,' to the spunky grandma telling it like it is, to the grocery store clerk rapping over the store PA system. Email: elaine@elainesinger.com Web: www.elainesinger.com |
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Your insight and experience are spot on and is offered with not a trace of anger or indignation but humor and goodwill. As we all live longer (hopefully) casting directors and marketers MUST reconsider how they cast older people and (as regards VO) how older people sound. I think it's a reasonable topic for discussion that's well presented here. Thanks pal.
Best always,
- Peter