Meet Kester Lovelace, a seasoned voice actor with over three decades of experience. In this interview, Kester reflects on his journey, from his early days in Paris to voicing memorable characters in various mediums. He shares insights on training, the evolution of the industry, and how voice actors can adapt in the age of AI.
What advice do you have for someone looking to start a voice acting career?
Training as an actor is a must. Knowing how to use your voice—projection, breathing—as well as how to portray an emotional state are invaluable for when you’re in the sound booth, whatever the project might be. Being prepared to deliver countless versions of the same line of text, changing the slightest movement of the lips, the pace, the rhythm, the volume, are all things you should learn as an actor.
I would also encourage actors to stand up in front of the mic, and not sit down. Engage the whole body, as this will influence what comes out of your mouth. This might seem obvious for dubbing action scenes and video game characters, but even for dry corporate explainers or long narrations, use your body to pace and shape your work. If you do this, you can maintain the illusion that you’re not actually reading, but truly acting.
In addition to voice and acting talent, which qualities do you think are important to succeed in this industry?
Having a love for language and being able to sight-read well. Being open to direction, but also having the confidence to propose ideas. A sense of humour to dissolve some of the tension involved when it comes to putting the final touch (the voice) to a luxury brand commercial that will be shown worldwide. For some reason, the French still love the British sense of humour…
What types of projects are your favorites? Why? (ie video games, dubbing, animation, TV, films, etc.).
I really enjoy working with ‘binaural’ sound… that is, with a microphone that creates a 3D surround sound, as if the listener is in the space with the performers. The microphones are fitted into a dummy human head, and as an actor, you can move around the head to create different effects. So, it’s like screen acting, but without cameras, costumes, or make-up. You can really make your characters come alive.
Tell us about one of your favorite roles.
Around 2004, a whole group of us gathered in a big sound studio to provide background voices for the French World War 1 film, Joyeux Noël. It told the story of the ‘Christmas Truce’ in 1914 on the front line. There were British, French, and German actors, and we had to recreate the various scenes imagined by the director. The famous football match was one, but also card-playing, the exchange of food and drink, and hymn singing. None of it was scripted, and we had to be careful not to use any anachronistic language (the notion of ‘offside’ in football didn’t exist back then!). We also had individual moments, and I was chosen to be the English soldier who was allowed to go into no-man’s-land, where his brother had been killed, and scrape away at the frozen ground to try and pull the corpse out. It was two or three minutes of effort and breathing. It was quite emotional. The film was nominated in the Best Foreign Film category at the Oscars. I think the three sets of actors did a great job. I was later asked to read authentic soldiers’ letters from the front (in French) for the extras on the DVD version.
What was your funniest dubbing/voiceover project?
My favourite moment was for a car commercial in English, when I pretended to say the slogan with a heavy French accent: “More room for happiness.” The creative team didn’t quite see the joke at first. Of course, it’s difficult on paper to convey what it sounded like, but try it out loud, and you’ll work it out. Silly, but good for lightening the mood…
Can you name a few of your favorite producers and/or voice directors you've worked with, and tell us why did you love them ?
Too many to mention, and I’ve learnt so much from all of them over the years. There are lots of great studios in Paris (often independent), with some passionate and hard-working producers and sound engineers. Thank you for making me sound so good, for so long!
I’m particularly grateful to producers at Radio France, such as Pascal Deux, Cédric Aussir, and Laurence Courtois, who have asked me to work for them in French, which is another challenge altogether. I also worked at Eurosport for over 10 years, and I enjoyed being part of that family of producers. We had some fun times. A shout-out, too, to my fantastic American voice-director colleagues: Barbara Weber, Doug Rand, Chris Mack, and David Gasman. It’s amazing how we manage to understand each other and get good work done, despite the sometimes crazy differences in UK and US English!
Do you have any upcoming projects you would like to tell us about?
I’ve recently released my first podcast fiction, called My Lunch with Frank. It’s based on events that happened to me in the theatre world, but I had great fun turning it into a 5-part ‘radio’ drama. And I was thrilled to ask some of my English voice-acting colleagues to feature in it. We had great fun recording it, and a shout-out to my amazing producer, Joanna Szybist. Obviously, you can find the podcast on all the platforms, and who knows… a second season might be on its way 😉
How do you see AI impacting the voice industry, and how can actors stay relevant?
The voice industry is going through some choppy waters, with the AI onslaught. If we can continue to show, day in, day out, our skills in portraying characters, injecting human emotion—warmth, humour, sensibility, pathos—into voice work, then we have a good chance of keeping our sector going. We will inevitably have to work alongside the AI tools, but we need our collective intelligence to come up with the right conditions and usages. In all senses, we have a voice in the matter.