The Fall of Animated Voice Acting

In the past decade, voice acting has become an art, and celebrities voice acted because they were a good fit, not relying solely on their fame, with iconic performances from Robin Williams in Aladdin or Tom Hanks in Toy Story being examples. With no disrespect to the actors, casting Chris Pratt or Awkwafina in every role is simply a poor move. 

The rise of celebrity voice casting has primarily risen due to marketing. Studios want their content to be relevant and having a famous celebrity voice actor over a professional, lesser known voice actor, regardless of their talent, guarantees headlines and attention around their project. 

This shift has had a major cost: it belittles professional voice acting. Professional voice actors spend years honing their skills, allowing them to breathe life into these characters. Take Tom Kenny for example, the same actor who voices the joyous and bubbly Spongebob also gives a deep emotional performance as the lonely and moody Ice King from Adventure Time. When studios prioritize a famous name over years of professional training for the sake of profit and popularity, it undermines the art and skill of voice acting while also leading to performances that feel mediocre or generic. 

Oftentimes, it feels as if a celebrity voice actor is just acting as themselves rather than adjusting to the role. Sometimes this goes well when an actor is similar to the part they were given. For example, Chris Pratt’s portrayal of Emmet in The Lego Movie fits his energetic, ordinary human persona that feels authentic to the character. Compare that to Chris Pratt’s portrayal as Garfield, the lazy, sarcastic, cynical orange cat. Pratt’s performance is almost the same as Emmet reducing the Garfield we know and love to Chris Pratt but a cat.  

However there are still a lot of studios that do celebrity inserts well. For example in Arcane, Hailee Steinfeld and Ella Purnell bring emotional depth to the characters without letting their real world personality overshadow them. These two celebrities, despite being relatively famous, are widely considered to be good voice actors. Many indie studios still rely on professional talented voice actors and still generate amazing movies and shows with incredible storytelling.