Rachael MacFarlane Quotes

I was kind of scared at first to do that [vice-over] because when you're on set, a lot of the things going on around you - the environment and playing off other actors - and that's what makes it easier and helps you to be in your character. So, realizing you're not going to have that and you're going to be secluded in this booth, it's like, "How am I going to be a character when I'm just in these walls?"

I think a lot of acting is about the removal of self-consciousness. The actor is going to be in front of a lot of people, and will naturally feel self-conscious. So a lot of the preparation for that is the removal of that idea. Like you embody or are connected to this character, therefore you can present this character in a way that eventually, when you come back to see it, you feel not exactly ashamed of.

I think when you're just counting on your voice, you actually need double the energy. I find myself acting out the scenes and being very physical while I'm recording because I think you can tell when someone is just sitting on a stool.

I love playing characters with different accents. It's a lot of fun.

I never noticed my voice. I did become aware as a little kid at camp that I liked doing accents. We'd do plays and skits, and I realized I loved speaking in voices that weren't my own.

Doing voices is like singing and remembering songs.

I'm happy to do voice-overs. I always have a good time doing them. I like to explore vocal nuance and accents and different people, different personalities. In a way, it is a lot more freeing than having your face up there.

I don't know, I feel desperate when I sing. And I look desperate - it feels like I'm singing for my life, which makes me twitch, if that makes sense.

I worked with some of the best actors I've ever worked with: Mel Blanc and Don Messick. They could play a scene against themselves. Think of the characters that Mel created, and they're as good or better than any performance anyone has ever given. I mean: Daffy Duck! Think of the specific voice Mel gave Daffy Duck or Bugs Bunny or Porky Pig... It's just astonishing.

There were two things that became apparent, pretty quickly into the process. One was that the muscles didn't take as much reconditioning as I thought they would. It was more like voice acting than I thought it would be. You're using your whole body and there are things that are different, but when you are doing a character, even in the booth, nobody is watching but my face will do different things when I do different characters.

I don't like watching myself. That's kind of weird but you know it's not me really, it's this character, which I think might make it a little easier.

I've always wanted to be a voice actor. Well I think at first I wanted to be a singer. Then in middle school I auditioned for a musical and I only really cared because I wanted to sing in it. I had to act as well as part of the audition and that was the first time I ever really acted, and I was like 'Oh hey, this is fun, I like doing this.'

I'm thinking like the character in order to be as authentic as I can. But after a while, how would I be able to cleanse myself from this unless I do something that's a different medium but also creative. That's what I do. It's my little ritual. After every filming, I just write a poem about it and my character specifically and I can let her go.

I really love hanging out on the set, and I love the life, and all of that. But I don't think I could stick with this profession if it weren't for those 15 minutes a day when I get to act. That's the part I love. For some strange reason, it's the time that I'm the least self-conscious in my whole life.

It's an absolute blast to be a voice actor, but also kinda scary that the vocal baby you just birthed out at a mic is then taken by other folks and becomes something else.

[Voicing a cartoon] feels like going down a mysterious but joyful black hole. Once you relax for 15 or 20 minutes, and really go, "I don't care if I look like an ass," it's really fun to see what happens. You know that nothing is being visually judged.

When I went to do my big audition with actors for Mr. Blonde, the thing that was very interesting was the first person to actually do the audition with the song, and they kind of actually acted out the whole scene, they weren't so great. It wasn't that they were magnificent, but the song, it was the first -it was all - been in my head.

I deal in a very artistic way of what interests me and marks my passion, and I try to - whether its good or not - am in love with acting and the stage and characters and the ability to reach and to touch people, so that's where, I guess, that's where my heart will reside, by and large.

It's weird, not to sound too actor but I think that any time you do a performance, you kind of take a little piece of that character, cause it's a part of you you're using.

I've gotten to play some pretty intense characters and I tend to think it's therapeutic for me.

What draws me to roles, I think, are moments - moments that define character, where so much more of the story is told in just a moment - a look, a line, a short scene, but something that speaks a volume, something that speaks to me.

I don't think there's a certain part of a character I take with me. There's a certain part of me I leave with each character, though.

You have the script in front of you. It doesn't involve your body. It's all about your voice. And its fast work. Its also very lonely work. You are by yourself. Very rarely are you in a group. You act with yourself, and someone else mumbles the lines back at you. If at all.

I actually think it's helped me as a writer to have to act. It's only when you actually start putting yourself out that you appreciate the anxiety that comes with having to try to sell a line, or with trying to own a character.

Every actor, I don't care what they say, their roles are a lot more interesting than we are, and at the end of the day, it's still entertainment or fantasy. I think we can learn a lot from the characters we play and I find that the characters are even more noble than myself.