Cool Career: Joanna Rubiner, Voiceover Artist

MM: Yeah, about that, what do you do? What do you actually do?
JR: Well, as a voiceover artist you do the bulk of your auditioning at your agent's. An ad agency pretty much has two options. They can fax their copy and specs to as many talent agencies as they like. The talent agencies then call in, I guess like six of so of their clients who fit the description on the copy. They record them in booths in their office and then send the tape back to the ad agency. This is done for free, but the ad agency has to wade through a lot of stuff. Or they can use a voice casting agency. There are three big ones in LA, and then a bunch that work less often. The ad agency tells them to get, say, 20 people who fit their description. The casting agency calls in the folks they know are good, records them, and sends the tape back. That's another nice thing. I work with the same people all the time. I'm not auditioning in front of different scary powerful people every day. It's always the nice folks I know and really like.

MM: Yeah, okay, whatever, but what do you do?
JR: Okay, well, first of all the business sort of works with about 24 hours notice. I'll get a page from my agent and she'll say, "Can you make a 12:30 at the Voicecaster tomorrow?" So I go there at 12:30. I walk in, I look for my name on the wall to see what I'm reading for. I grab the copy, read the description of the character and then read the copy over a few times. Then the agent calls me into the booth and I record it. And you have to get it right first off, because you don't get a bunch of retries. They're cranking people in and out of there and you can't go fumbling through the copy. I drive around town all day to auditions. Forty minutes to my agent, and I might be in and out of there in ten minutes. Although, usually at your agent's you're reading for several spots at once. And then I get jobs. I go to the recording studio. Usually the client is in another place so I'm just there with the engineer and headphones on, hearing the client over a phone patch. They tell me what they want (if they know) and I give them what they want until they get it from me. I'm really eager to please, so I quietly freak out a little if I'm not sure I'm giving them what they need. And it's all about timing. "That was great, but can you shave a half second off of it?" It's amazing how good you can get at doing something in exactly 8.6 seconds.

MM: You're only talking about commercials, don't you do any funny voices or anything?
JR: Voiceovers are really hard to get into - a small circle of people are the ones doing all the work. The animation circle is even smaller. I've done some. I'd like to do more, but I've only recently made my first animation demo, so hopefully that will help me get more auditions. I did an episode of "The Rugrats." I played Big Binky, the oldest kid to still be sucking his pacifier. I want to beat up Chuckie because I'm very over protective when it comes to my sister Emma - Emma and Chuckie are playing together. The episode is called "He Saw, She Saw." I've done a bunch of CD-ROMs. I'm a rebel pilot in one of the Star Wars games, "X-Wing Alliance," I think. And I'm the voice of the Australian Barbie. Well, she only talks on their "Generation Girls Gotta Groove" CD, but that's me. Her name is Tori Burns. The coolest thing I've done is a talking doll for Mattel. It's the most interactive doll they've ever made. She comes out at Christmas. Her name's Nikki and she's one of the Diva Starz. It's the hardest Voiceover work I've done, the most physically demanding in ways that would be hard to explain. But it's fun getting to say that I'm a doll. I hope she does well. I won't make any money off of it or anything, but it would just be fun to say that's me and it would be great exposure.

Joanna's character Jenna is the one with the mic in her hand. She's an unctuous reporter type.

MM: How did you even know this career existed?
JR: People always used to tell me I should do cartoons because I tend to talk in stupid and irritating voices. I'd always wanted to be an actor, but not enough to move to New York or L.A. and put myself through that hell. I was living in Ann Arbor, MI, at the time. I decided I'd look into it. I didn't even know what it was called. The Detroit area has a lot of advertising so I called a bunch of people and pumped them for information. Basically, what you do is make a demo tape and get an agent. Of course that's much easier said than done. But I did it eventually. I've been doing it for about four years I guess. This last year is the first in which I haven't felt that going out for lunch would be a huge extravagance. It takes a long time to make a living at voiceovers and I'm really thankful because I'm not sure that most people ever do make a living at it. It's been a long time since I had a day job that I hate, thank god.

MM: Anything you want to say to the folks at home?
JR: Yeah. MASH is all about figuring out what your dream is and then following it. I mean, you might be screwed if you wanna be President, but I generally think you can do anything you want, queer as that may sound. And I feel like I'm proof that that's true.