the fallacy of “big breaks”

What is a big break?

A “big break”, sometimes referred to as a “breakout role” or “breakthrough role”, refers to the first major role an actor plays that gives them some sort of notoriety and “makes” their career, opening the door to other opportunities. The concept is mostly used in relation to on-camera actors—for instance, a previously unknown actor who gets cast in a starring role on a major sitcom and suddenly becomes a celebrity based on that role.

Why the concept is different for voice actors

• While an on-camera actor may spend years filming a specific movie or TV series, voice actors are often working on many different – often short-term – projects at once.
• While a TV or movie actor can often charge based on name recognition, voice actors tend to be paid certain baseline industry rates, and outside of certain notable exceptions + celebrity stunt casting, it can be difficult for a voice actor to command “overscale” payment for a job, even if they are considered well-known.
• On-camera actors are often able to continue earning money from a project even after its completion via residuals, which do not exist for most voiceover work outside very specific genres such as looping, celebrity voice match ADR and original network animations (which are difficult fields to break into even with an agent.)
• “Celebrity factor” tends to be a much bigger deal for on-camera casting, where the actors are used to help sell the show or movie. While some of this creeps into VO occasionally with the likes of stunt casting or marketing teams weighing in on decisions, there are plenty of projects which do feature lesser known voice actors in the main cast. Booking one big role does not necessarily mean you will be approached for other projects, though it can of course be beneficial in making you more visible to casting directors and clients.
• Voice acting is considered more “behind the scenes”, as opposed to the actor’s face being on screen and immediately recognizable. While a movie actor could become a household name by starring in one extremely popular movie, many people do not know the names of specific voice actors outside of conventions and niche online spaces.

Breakout role =/= financial success

While there are some ways that playing the lead in a popular show or game can translate into financial success – such as by selling autographs at conventions – there is no guarantee.

Voice actors for projects like anime and video games – which is often where people use the phrase “big break” in relation to voice acting – normally get paid by hours worked, with a minimum hourly fee per session. These projects generally aren’t subject to royalties or residuals, so you can earn the same amount by recording four hours as a side character for a bargain-bin game that no one ends up playing, as you would recording four hours as a major character for a game that ends up winning Game of the Year. And yes, while leads will statistically probably book more hours in the recording booth therefore leading to a bigger paycheck, making money as a voice actor tends to be more about how much/how often you work as opposed to how “big” each project ends up being.

Many voice actors who have played leads in popular franchises still have/had to work day jobs at the same time. Conversely, there are many voice actors routinely called in for “background work” who are able to make a great living, because they are able to work regularly.

If your goal is to go full-time as a voice actor, having consistent work over time on a variety of projects – even the smaller stuff – is often going to serve you better financially than gambling on one big role but not booking anything else for a long time after.

Breakout role =/= popularity

Even if a project takes off and becomes popular, that doesn’t always directly translate to success for a voice actor’s career. Voice acting is considered a relatively small piece of the puzzle for something like a video game, where the focus is often on the characters, storytelling and gameplay mechanics. There are plenty of beloved games that do not even have voice acting!

For localized work (anime, JRPGs, gacha, etc), remember that people do not always watch or play in English. Plenty of people prefer to watch anime in Japanese with subtitles or experience a gacha game with the original Chinese voice cast. This isn’t to diminish the work English dubbing actors do of course, but it is a reality check that being a voice for a language option on a game or DVD isn’t necessarily going to make you famous.

Finally, it’s important to remember that many people end up loving the character, not necessarily the voice actor behind their favorite character. Of course there are lots of people out there who are fans of specific voice actors, as evidenced by long lines at convention booths or high follower counts on social media, but even if you did book the lead in a popular project tomorrow, it doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll suddenly become popular as a voice actor, and that’s okay!

While it’s often human nature to want recognition for one’s work, pursuing fame is ultimately going to leave you feeling miserable. If you focus too much on things like social media numbers or convention invites, you’ll lose sight of what makes you passionate about being a performer. The acting world is full of rejection and disappointment, so at the core of it, you must love acting for the sake of acting. Otherwise, you will get burned out very quickly when things don’t happen the way you want them to.

Don’t rely on one job to carry your career

Unless you’re fortunate enough to be a series regular on a show like The Simpsons, SpongeBob, or Family Guy, one voiceover job – even a big one – is rarely going to sustain you for your entire career. Even if a voice actor is primarily known for one particular character, chances are they continue to work on many other projects to earn a living.

One big role may carry someone in the short-term particularly if they have a number of ongoing recording sessions AND are doing promotional appearances for that project at the same time, but it’s still important to stay relevant and consider your career in the long-term. While “legacy projects” remain popular at conventions and certain shows or games will always have longevity to a degree, do you still hope to be banking on that one role 20 years from now, or would you rather your career span a rich variety of stories and characters over the years? There’s nothing necessarily wrong with only being known for “one thing”, but would that ultimately make you fulfilled as an actor?

Auditioning is still the basis for the majority of jobs

To be realistic, booking a prominent role CAN lead to other opportunities. If a client or a casting director hears and likes your work in a specific project, it’s entirely possible that they could send you a “requested audition” for a similar character they have you in mind for. Occasionally, casting directors or clients may look up a voice actor’s IMDB page to see if they’ve had any major credits, particularly when narrowing down multiple choices for a role.

However, the good news is that many projects DO hold auditions, and these auditions are often evaluated far more on how fitting a submission was for that particular part as opposed to judged solely on the actor’s past experience. There are numerous occasions where a client DID take a chance on someone relatively new because after hearing the audition, they felt that actor would be the perfect fit for the role. Similarly, there are occasions where a very prominent actor auditioned but the casting director simply felt someone else was better suited.

Even voice actors who have booked major roles are unlikely to be “offer-only”, as the simple nature of the industry means most people must continue auditioning if they wish to continue booking new work.

don’t wait to “get discovered”

The idea behind “getting discovered” is that someone receives a random opportunity that leads to them having a career. Decades ago, you would hear stories about how people in the office would be pulled in to do voices on a game, or someone would get randomly noticed by a talent agent for having a “great voice“. But these days, the chance of a random person off the street getting pulled in to do voiceover are astronomically small. There are thousands of people already working as professional voice actors, and thousands more who are actively trying to break into the field. And with advances in remote recording and a global market of voice talent available online, even casting for something highly specific can be done relatively easily.

While you will still hear some actors talk in interviews and on panels about how they “fell into” voiceover, many of them came from some sort of performance-adjacent field. For instance, theatre and on-camera actors end up crossing into voiceover fairly frequently, as having an acting background is obviously a huge bonus. Others may have started as singers, radio DJs, sound engineers, news anchors…you name it. The bottom line is that these days, it is increasingly rare to see someone suddenly succeed in voiceover who had no training or experience in the audio or performing arts industries. Plenty of people do come from completely different career fields, but they often have to work long and hard at becoming voice actors before seeing “success”.

The problem with relying on luck

One of the problems with the idea of being “discovered” is that it implies passively relying on luck to achieve one’s goals. While there’s no denying that luck is a factor in VO just as it is in many other facets of life, there is a saying that “luck is when preparation meets opportunity.” By focusing mostly on the opportunity factor (outside of your control) rather than the preparation factor (inside your control), it takes the onus off of you to be responsible for taking active steps towards your goal.

Without the necessary preparation (such as training, practice, and experience), it becomes harder for opportunity to come your way—and to take advantage of it even if it does come. As an example, there are loads of anime fans who like the idea of being an anime voice actor and think they would be pretty good at it, but they have not seriously pursued acting in any capacity or learned what it takes to give a compelling performance. Nevertheless, it does not stop a few bold ones from going up to actors’ convention tables and asking how to get into an anime studio. But even if, by some miracle, one of those people randomly got an audition opportunity from a major anime dubbing studio the very next day, could they realistically compete with all the currently working professional dub actors auditioning for that same role? Would they be able to break down a script, decipher intent and make nuanced acting choices, or would they rely on “doing voices”? In this case, you can see that opportunity may not actually help you much if you have not yet seriously put in the groundwork.

The role of an agent in the “getting discovered” fallacy

A talent agent is sometimes seen as a mythical gatekeeper to all sorts of audition opportunities. “If I could just get discovered by an agent,” one might think, “then surely I would become successful!”

While many higher-profile voiceover jobs do indeed go through agencies, getting representation can be quite difficult, as talent agents are indundated with submissions from countless hopeful voice actors. Even highly successful working pros sometimes get turned away from agencies if they already have too many people on their roster in their category or if for whatever reason the agent doesn’t think they will make them much money. Some actors are taken on a conditional basis but then dropped from the roster if they don’t book enough with the agency during the trial period.

Most modern-day talent agents do not go out actively seeking new talent unless they are looking for something highly specific, and it is quite rare for them to take on someone with zero acting training or experience (while surely there is some “unicorn story”, it is definitely uncommon!) Before trying to get an agent, actors often invest in professionally produced marketing materials (such as demos), make sure their resume reflects their experience as impressively as possible, and perhaps even pay for a “showcase” or workshop with an agent in hopes of getting seen by them. In other words, “getting discovered” by an agency is probably not going to happen—you must actively make the effort and find the opportunity to get in front of them.

While having agency rep can most certainly increase one’s chances at finding gigs, getting represented is only the beginning of a journey. Agents can provide you with audition opportunities, but they’re not going to guarantee you career success or longevity. That’s your job.

Can’t someone just walk me in to a studio or agency they work with?

Recommendations do go a long way in the industry, but they tend to be given out cautiously—and rightfully so. This is because any time someone recommends someone else for an audition or a job, that person’s skills – as well as behavior – are initially seen as a reflection of whoever recommended them. Imagine this scenario. An already-working actor has a friend who has been trying to get into VO for a while and just “really needs a break”, but whose skills honestly aren’t yet competitive on a professional level. The actor tries to do a favor for their friend by recommending them to a casting director they work with, who brings them in on a one-off side character to try them out. However, it turns out the friend is unable to take direction properly, wastes time in the booth with constant chit-chatting, and is ultimately unable to match the nuances of the character in the way the director and client are looking for. They end up deciding to recast, which costs the studio a good amount of time and money on a project where deadlines and budget are already tight. Do you think the casting director would think particularly highly of the original actor for their recommendation, or take their recommendations seriously in the future?

Recommendations tend to be reserved for those who have seriously put in the work and are already great at what they do. There is an idea that you shouldn’t have to ask your friends to refer you—if you’re a great fit for something, they’ll think of you and want to refer you on their own accord. It doesn’t mean you can’t ever ask for help, but it does mean you should be careful about “calling in a favor”, because it can put someone in an awkward position (plus, nobody likes feeling used.) And if someone does offer to vouch for you, do your best to make them proud!

It’s also important to note that other actors don’t always have the power to refer someone to a studio, agency, or casting director, even if they wanted to. Client and director referrals tend to be taken far more seriously…as people know that actors tend to refer their friends, whether or not said friends are yet professionally competent!

The importance of being proactive

No one outside of perhaps already extremely established “A-list level” industry veterans has the luxury of sitting around and waiting for work to come to them. Even some of the most established professionals in the business will tell you they are still constantly auditioning, updating their materials, taking workshops…and they too sometimes worry about where their next job will come from.

Having doors open for you in the business is great, and if you’re good at what you do, more and more of those doors will eventually open. But having that door opened, getting that email or that referral or that gig, is just that. Actors are freelance contractors who need to constantly seeking new opportunities for when the current projects – no matter how big – eventually end. Getting in the room at one studio doesn’t necessarily guarantee they will continue bringing you back, or even that they will have much work for you in the near future. Think of your career as an ongoing journey, not a destination.

why “overnight success” isn’t overnight

Part of the problem with the idea of “getting one’s big break” or “getting discovered” is that it assumes that if you can find someone willing to give you a shot, your career is made. But the fact is, getting on a studio’s casting roster or getting represented by an agency is only the beginning of a journey.

The idea of overnight success dismisses the concept of the actor’s journey entirely. It implies that someone suddenly “made it” by randomly receiving a big opportunity, rather than acknowledging the complex steps and calculated decisions that actor likely made behind the scenes to be able to even receive such opportunities in the first place.

What fans see as immediate success likely isn’t

The idea of overnight success is thrown around regularly in anime fandom spaces on social media and at conventions. Fans will often refer to a voice actor as “someone who just popped up out of nowhere and suddenly started booking everything!”

The thing is, most of those actors were working long and hard at their craft prior to booking that one show you happened to notice them for—you just hadn’t heard of them yet! Some of the people labeled “overnight successes” had been taking acting classes since they were children, participated in lots of stage plays or musicals, voice acted as a hobby for years online, and/or perhaps even did extensive voiceover work before such as years of audiobook narration, commercials, utility work in video games, or other projects that didn’t garner fan attention but certainly counted as working. It does not matter how accomplished these professionals already were; none of that mattered because “nobody had heard of them until they booked their first lead in an anime dub.”

While perhaps the above comes across as critical, it’s important to note that in the grand majority of cases, people’s intentions aren’t bad when they say things like this. But just be aware that when you claim “this actor came up out of nowhere and now suddenly they’re in all these projects”, chances are you do not know that actor’s background or journey, and it can come off as dismissive of everything they’ve worked for prior to achieving that one specific and relatively arbitrary marker of success.

The exceptions

Sure, there are some people who did manage to “fast track” success in voiceover, even without going the traditional routes. Maybe they have never even taken an acting class because they naturally have great instincts, or maybe they have a particular sound that just happens to be what a lot of clients are looking for, so they get thought of routinely for auditions and auto-cast bookings. Maybe they even did happen to be in the right place at the right time and somehow got noticed by an important decision-maker and the rest is history…you name it.

The bottom line is that “unicorns” will always exist, but by automatically assuming you must be a unicorn or trying to force your circumstances in such a way that you might be considered one, you are taking the power away from yourself and relying on luck to make things happen for you. And while there are certainly extraordinary actors who are unlucky and mediocre actors who manage to get lots of work for one reason or another, do your best to focus on your own journey – and working towards being the best you can possibly be – rather than stressing about others whom you think have it easier.

when is ‘nepotism’ actually nepotism?

Those who are bitter about not yet having achieved their goals may rant about the idea of nepotism in the industry. “What good is it for me to even try to be a voice actor, when the same people get hired over and over again because they happen to be in the right clique?”

It is understandable—and human—to feel this type of frustration, and if you’ve spent any time in the voice acting scene you’ve probably caught yourself feeling this way on at least one occasion. But how much truth is there really to the idea that voice acting is all about “who you know“?

Defining nepotism

While the traditional definition of nepotism refers to preferential treatment towards family members (‘cronyism’ is technically the term for favoritism towards friends or associates), the term nepotism is still colloquially used to describe “people hiring people they already know and like.” In the case of a voiceover studio, this may be perceived as the casting director always bringing in the same actors on every project who happen to be their ‘favorites’ and not giving new talent a chance.

But does this actually happen, and if so, why?

It can…to a degree. There are multiple reasons why someone may tend to favor actors they already work with, regardless of whether they end up truly being the “right” choice for a project.

When a decision-maker brings in an actor they already like and have worked with before, they take a lot of the variables out of the equation. They know that person is a good actor, is pleasant to work with, can take direction and work efficiently in the booth. They already know what that actor is capable of without having to roll the dice on an unknown factor.

But when they take a chance on someone new, it’s just that—a gamble. Even if that actor turned in a great audition, what if someone else coached them on it and it actually took them a large number of takes to get a compelling read? What if they end up being difficult to work with, or hint online about the project despite it being strictly confidential? What if they need so many redirects that they don’t hit the target number of lines needed for the session, costing the client time and money?

There is, of course, certainly a good chance that the new actor could be just as good or even better than those they already work with! But when deadlines get shorter and budgets get lower, sometimes the decision-makers would rather go with a safe bet—even if it means a “predictable” cast.

But that’s not fair…

Yes, but it’s important to understand that the entertainment industry is inherently “not fair”.

It’s not a pleasant truth to deal with, but it’s ultimately one you must accept if you wish to go into this business as your profession. You will sometimes be passed up for opportunities that you feel you would have been the ideal fit for, and sometimes roles will go to a producer’s friend or partner or family member who didn’t put in anywhere near the same grind as you did. Maybe there are certain opportunities you’re not considered for because you don’t live where the work is, or they don’t think you have enough other credits yet, or even because some higher-up in marketing decided you don’t have enough social media followers!

Yes, it’s not fair, and no, it’s not fun. But the bottom line is that voice acting is not a meritocracy. While it’s important for casting directors to diversify their rosters and especially make an active effort to include actors from various marginalized groups, discrimination (a very real and serious issue in the industry that should be discussed and constantly improved upon) is a different matter than “I’m upset that all these studios are hiring the same actors they know instead of trying out someone new, a.k.a me.”

What if I just need someone to give me a chance?

This is heard over and over again among aspiring voice actors—“If I’m just given a chance, I know I could be really successful!”

But the (unfortunately harsh) truth is that no one is going to randomly hand you an opportunity just because you want one and feel you deserve one. When decision makers are looking to cast voice actors for a project, their ultimate goal is to make their project the best it can be. Many of the actors who currently work all the time do so because they are skilled at what they do and consistently turn in great auditions that clients feel fit what they’re looking for.

Instead of waiting for some arbitrary “chance”, what can you do to actively take concrete steps towards the goals you want to achieve?

Examples may include taking a class, watching videos or reading free resources online, taking a peer or mentor out to coffee for advice, working with a coach, attending a casting director workshop, doing cold submissions, upgrading your home studio, getting a new demo done, studying existing media and performances for inspiration, auditioning for open casting calls, creating your own content or even just practicing independently. Forging a path for yourself takes time, and it may not always unfold in the exact way you picture it to, but be open to the experiences along the way!