Roger Craig Smith Quotes

It [voicing animation] is very freeing. Nobody in the cast is doing their voice. No one is talking like they normally talk and it's because, all of a sudden, you're freed from the physical limitations of how you look, which is amazing.

As an actor, you try to put a little bit of yourself in everything you do.

You have to show the character is confused or scared or happy through your voice instead of with your face and body.

To me the voice has always been the way to start any character. Once I find that, I'm good to go.

Actors take risks all the time. We put ourselves on the line. It is creative to be able to interpret someone's words and breathe life into them.

You try to work with the director and your fellow actors to get somewhere, but other people are the judge of whether you hit that note right.

The voice is always the starting place for me with a character.

Dubbing is an important part of acting, and I feel complete only when it's my voice that is heard. Having essayed the character, I know the kinds of emotions that are required for each scene.

The character of Brent Spiner. We certainly collaborate on the concept of that, but he basically writes the script, then it's sort of a combination of his voice and my voice.

As an actor, doing animation is definitely on the list of most actors because it is such a freeing, fun, different experience than being on camera. There's just something different about it that's not more fun, but a different sort of fun.

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?"

You basically go in animation and it's all in the imagination. There aren't even pictures to look at. You usually go in there and work with whoever the director is to create this voice and this character.

Voice acting is very different from live-action. You only have one tool to convey emotion. You can't sell a line with a look. It's all about your vocal instrument. Doing voice work is also great because you don't have to get your hair done, which I despise.

[While voicing] you have to create a feeling for what happened before a scene, what's going to happen after a scene, and what you are doing in a scene. You need to use your imagination even more and once your emotions are up, then your voice and expressions will go accordingly.

It used to be embarrassing. In the beginning, because you listen to yourself so much, you think, I must look like an asshole right now - or sound like an asshole. And then, you just get to that point where you've done so many ridiculous, ridiculous things in the booth from screaming, to having orgasms, to whatever your director is asking you to do for this character, you just lose your inhibitions.

Doing the voice for something [cartoon] requires an enormous amount of energy and you really have to use your whole body. It's cool.

There's an infinite amount of possibilities and detours and things that can distract you from actually just performing the song and having whatever emotion that's invested into the song come through in the recording.

I walked around my apartment with food in my mouth asking myself: "How do I come up with this voice?" Then I found the voice. I called the director and said on the phone: "Guess who you're talking to Chris? Sid, that's right Sid!" And that's how I came up with the voice. That's a true story.

Once we become conscious of a feeling and attempt to make a corresponding form, we are engaged in an activity which, far from being sincere, is prepared (as any artist if he is sincere will tell you) to moderate feelings to fit the form. The artist's feeling for form is stronger than a formless feeling.

Being singer is different than being an actor, where you call up sources from your own experience that you can apply to whatever Shakespeare drama you're in. But an actor is pretending to be somebody, a singer isn't. And that's the difference. Singers today have to sing songs where there's very little emotion involved. That and the fact that they have to sing hit records from years gone by doesn't leave a lot of room for any kind of intelligent creativity.

When an artist works today or whenever, it's not about creating immortal masterpieces, because that's the one thing we don't decide ourselves.

If you're doing live-action, you have to learn how to actually do whatever it is that you're doing. If you're doing voice-over, you can fake it.

The actor shouldn't edit themselves or be anxious. And the actors that I admire are always the ones who are inventive and their imaginative life in free-willing. It's a director's job to go, "No here, don't do that, go there."

When I was in acting class, we did a lot of really serious scenes, and we didn't do comedic scenes. I felt like doing those scenes, it didn't come out of my mouth the right way. I don't know if it's because my voice is different, or what it is about me, but it just seemed a little off.

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.