Voice acting

[a] Examples of voice work include animated, off-stage, off-screen, or non-visible characters in various works such as films, dubbed foreign films, anime, television shows, video games, cartoons, documentaries, commercials, audiobooks, radio dramas and comedies, amusement rides, theater productions, puppet shows, and audio games.

Non-fictional voice acting is heard through pre-recorded and automated announcements that are a part of everyday modern life in areas such as stores, elevators, waiting rooms, and public transport.

For live-action productions, voice acting often involves reading the parts of computer programs, radio dispatchers or other characters who never actually appear on screen.

[4] This means artificially removing breaths from the recorded voice, and is done to stop the audience being distracted in any way from the commercial message that is being put across.

[7][8] ADR is also used to change original lines recorded on set to clarify context, improve diction or timing, or to replace an accented vocal performance.

[citation needed] Voice artists are also used to record the individual sample fragments played back by a computer in an automated announcement.

At its simplest, each recording consists of a short phrase which is played back when necessary, such as the "mind the gap" announcement introduced on the London Underground in 1969, which is currently voiced by Emma Clarke.

In 2019, AI startup Dessa created the computer-generated voice of Joe Rogan using thousands of hours of audio from his podcast,[9] while video game developer Ubisoft used speech synthesis to give thousands of characters distinguished voices in its 2020 game Watch Dogs: Legion, and Google announced that same year their solution to generate human-like speech from text.

[12][13] Although SAG-AFTRA heralded the deal it struck with AI company Replica Studios as a breakthrough due to its supposed ability to give actors more control over licensing their voice and how it may be used, the deal received backlash for its actual lack of protections from prominent voice actors such as Steve Blum, Joshua Seth, Veronica Taylor, and Shelby Young.

[15] That same month, an audio deepfake of Slovak politician Michal Šimečka falsely claimed to capture him discussing ways to rig the upcoming election.

[16] In January 2024, voters in the New Hampshire Democratic presidential primary received phone calls featuring an AI-generated voice of U.S. President Joe Biden that tried to discourage them from voting.

[citation needed] Other actors more linked with film or television acting have also voiced video game characters, such as Ray Liotta (Tommy Vercetti in Grand Theft Auto: Vice City and Billy Handsome in Call of Duty: Black Ops II), Michael Dorn (various characters in World of Warcraft and Gatatog Uvenk in Mass Effect 2), Kaili Vernoff (Miranda Cowan in Grand Theft Auto V and Susan Grimshaw in Red Dead Redemption 2), Ashley Johnson (Ellie in The Last of Us series), Kristen Bell (Lucy Stillman in the first three mainline entries in the Assassin's Creed franchise) and Kevin Spacey (Jonathan Irons in Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare).

Some actors from both live-action and animated works have also reprised their respective roles in video games, such as Kevin Conroy (Batman) and Mark Hamill (The Joker) in the Batman: Arkham series, Sylvester Stallone (John Rambo) in Mortal Kombat 11, various actors from the works of Walt Disney Animation Studios in Kingdom Hearts, and Mike Pollock (Doctor Eggman) in Sonic the Hedgehog.