Suzie Yeung talks voice acting in anime and video games

Is this the golden age of English dubbing? Many might think so, given the quality of work we’ve seen over the past few years. Suzie Yeung, a voice actor who voiced Yuffie in Final Fantasy VII Remake chainsaw manMakima is an outstanding player in the professional world. We recently caught up with Yang, who has been busy charting her own path in the booming industry, to find out how she got started and what keeps her going.

her origin story

The only child of American immigrant parents, Yang often watched cartoons and played video games alone. It became a hobby for her to imitate the voices she heard on her favorite TV series, but her family encouraged her to focus on “real life.” As an adult, Young found herself working a full-time job that had nothing to do with voice acting, until, she tells us, the opportunity came: “I was recommended to audition for a program a friend helped run because they knew I was interested in voice acting. In the past ,” Yang said.

This audition led to Yang booking her first role, voicing the main character Kaban in the media series Kemono Friends. The timing couldn’t have been better. After the project was completed, Yang faced an unexpected turn of events – her department was dissolved by the company and her position no longer existed. However, instead of chasing the next 9-to-5, Young turned this apparent setback into an opportunity to pursue voice acting professionally.

Speed ​​bumps and success

While her achievements may not seem it, everything hasn’t been easy for Yang. Just as she was starting to find her footing in her new career, the pandemic struck. She gave herself an ultimatum: Make some kind of progress in her voice-over acting career while living in Los Angeles for six months, or give up on her dream and go home. But the day after she settled in Los Angeles, she received an audition for Final Fantasy VII Remake, Intergrade. Her portrayal of Yuffie Kisaragi proved to be her breakthrough role in the industry.

From that point on, it felt like I was getting hit over and over again. Yeung’s IMDB has over 150 characters. These include global hits such as Genshin Impact, Persona 3 Reload and Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth. In animation, she voices Makima chainsaw manthe building blocks are in Jujutsu Kaisen and Tachikawa Mimi Digimon Adventure: (2020). To have her name attached to a project of this caliber is an incredible feat. However, she notes that there are often pressures hidden behind these celebrations that are invisible to the public.

“This job is a job you’ll get rejected 90% of the time, and not being able to do the job can put you in trouble financially and hurt your self-esteem. All the ‘successful voice actors’ you see are just a few of the many in this industry A few, their careers are just scratching the surface,” Young said. “Even among these guys, you only see their highlights and not the work they do or what they go through behind the scenes.”

improve her craft

Voicing characters is hard work, and Yang has never taken a formal voice-over course. Instead, she spent her life absorbing media, starting by imitating the styles she heard while watching cartoons or playing games. Over time, she continued to refine her methods. “I challenged myself to connect more with this character,” she said, “and bring a more authentic, dynamic and nuanced reading.”

Another way she honed her skills was by constantly auditioning. She explains that trying out different characters helps her expand her range, experiment, and inject more of herself into each subsequent performance.

The most challenging roles for Young are often those with deep voices. The diaphragmatic control required, coupled with the focus on the pronunciation of words, requires a high degree of concentration. In contrast, Young said the role she felt most natural for was Yuffie because of her snarky and playful side.

Yang admires many of her peers in the English dubbing world. She respects Zeno Robinson (my hero academia) and Alejandro Saab (Horimiya) recognizes their talent, positive attitude and contagious enthusiasm for the industry. She also likes the works of Elizabeth Maxwell (“Persona 5”) and Erica Linbeck (“Persona”).Barbie) and Abby Trotter (demon slayer).

Things dubbing fans should know

All the recent outrage against the voiceover industry has drawn interest and scrutiny from the wider community. One thing Young wants fans to better understand is that voice acting is only part of it. “We worked with directors, engineers, writers and production teams to create a cohesive product,” she explains. “Especially in dubbing, we are the last link in the chain and usually don’t get to see the script in advance. We don’t have much say in how things go because animation is locked and scripts are usually predetermined and the director may have a certain vision and more.”

She continued: “Our job is to make all the pieces fit together in the most believable way possible, but sometimes, what we get can be very difficult. This can result in a stilted or unnatural read. [T]His symptoms outweigh anything else that might be going on, such as physical or mental fatigue, stress, or illness. “

Another point of comparison that often comes up in the community is how the English dub sounds compared to the Japanese dub. For Yang, English and Japanese don’t necessarily need to sound identical to achieve character accuracy. It comes down to interpretation, which differs between cultures and languages.

“For example, something that might be considered cool or glamorous in a piece [culture’s] Depiction, may not be presented in this way to a different audience. Adapting a character in context is much more complex than just making a voice ‘sound the same,'” she explains.

Advice for aspiring voice actors

For those interested in pursuing a similar path, she warns that the decision to enter the voice-over field shouldn’t be taken lightly: “There will be dry periods, sometimes for reasons completely beyond your control, that make you question whether to continue or Not continuing is a possibility. I wouldn’t dare do it if I didn’t have some savings and was convinced that this wasn’t the only thing I could rely on in life. Be realistic about it and build up your self-awareness so you don’t. Losing it along the way.”

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