I started my VO career in 2016 with the non-paid Casting Call Club gigs and I didn’t quite have the patience for an audiobook job yet. I was getting credits though not making a liveable wage from what I loved, but I was a Performing Arts student who was getting roles outside of college so I was pretty much surviving on adrenaline and euphoria.
I left college just before I turned 20 and, for the longest time, it felt like my career was going nowhere. I spent so much time on finding a day job to support myself that I forgot my passion. I didn’t really know where to look and there was something about finding paid VO work that intimidated me at the time. I was also dealing with a significant amount of animosity towards me around this time. I experienced a lot of transphobic heckling from people in my local area – nothing too serious but this is, unfortunately, something we trans people have to deal with on a daily basis, and I was just coming to terms with that.
“I spent so much time on finding a day job to support myself that I forgot my passion. I didn’t really know where to look and there was something about finding paid VO work that intimidated me at the time.”
I went through a bit of a transformation though, I decided to pick myself up, start investing in workshops and equipment, and began to knuckle down on my VO career. I went to my first VON event, GET YOUR GAME ON, in May 2019 where I was introduced to PCAP, which sewed the seeds for my later pursuits and gave me a taste of what it felt like to be welcomed into the VO community for the first time. Whilst I still felt a bit like a stranger to the community, I never felt judgment and was made to feel like an equal.
I attended my second VON event the following February, just before lockdown: a small workshop with Neil Kaplan. This workshop opened my eyes to what I was missing all this time and gave me the drive to do even better (and this even led me to becoming a member of the Voiceover Network).
During the pandemic, I tried doing as many workshops as possible, buying as many upgrades as I could to really renew my mindset and get my career to where I wanted it. I started reaching out to independent animators and I actually got a role from my pursuits!
In 2020, I was cast as Moonstrike in the YouTube series, My Pride. Moonstrike was publicly announced as the series’s first trans character, and both the character and myself were embraced with love and support from the fanbase. I was finally being admired for my identity and my art, and it became an addictive feeling. I loved seeing the fan art and animations on YouTube. We were both brought into conversations about transgender identities within the My Pride fanbase, sometimes with a pinch of transphobia here and there but I knew that as a trans or disenfranchised public figure (which I kind of was from that point), you are indirectly opening yourself up to be politicized in some way, even if it’s in regards to an animated fantasy series about talking LGBTQ+ lions!
Nonetheless, things started looking up for me. After the end of My Pride, I started seeing the warm embrace the VO community had towards trans characters and voice actors, and it started to feel like I’ve finally found my niche.
“How far will my career as a trans voice actor go? Only time will tell what’s in store for me but the future is looking exciting!”
I began to stop getting so bogged down in anti-trans rhetoric online and started to really love my assets, showing off my masculine to feminine range, which I feel is my key weapon as a voice actor and nothing to be ashamed of. I started seeing how much the VO industry loves this kind of flexibility and how trans artists are opening up a new market for audiences, consumers and clients alike and that’s humbling to see.
As for me, I’ve currently got 2 video game projects under NDA and my next big goal is to revolutionize the PCAP industry and bring representation to trans actors in this new frontier. How far will my career as a trans voice actor go? Only time will tell what’s in store for me but the future is looking exciting!
By Zee Andrews
Voice Actor
