Tod Fennell Discusses His Acting Career and Using His Voice in the Video Game Industry

Ask any gamer and they'll tell you that the voice acting in a video game can make or break the experience. The best voice actors are able to connect with their audience on an emotional level, conveying everything from humor to horror. The challenge of a voice actor is more complex because they have only one resource to portray a character's emotions: their voice.

Our guest today is Tod Fennell, a Film & Television Actor, Voice-Over Performer, and Screenwriter who has been using his voice to portray characters for almost three decades. Tod's childhood was linked to the arts; his parents were professional dancers and choreographers and owners of a successful dance school in Montreal. Tod started his professional acting career at age 6 and continues to challenge himself in many different areas of entertainment.

As an actor he has appeared in numerous movies and TV shows. Tod also participated as a voice-over artist in several video games, including Kena: Bridge of Spirits, Assassin's Creed 2 and 3, Far Cry New Dawn, and Monster Hunter Stories 2, to name a few.

In this episode, Tod takes us on a trip into the world of acting, where we get to see different sides of it; we get to observe the challenges actors go through when getting ready for a role, or the importance of being prepared before the camera or the microphone starts recording. We go through Tod's journey into the acting and voice-over acting world, what he enjoys most, and the most challenging parts of it. We also talk about Tod's favorite games, the projects he enjoyed the most working on, his future plans, and much more.

Tune in to Episode 14 of A Gamer's Story and get to know better a profession that plays a central role in video games' creation.

Some Questions I Ask:

You've done everything from Nickelodeon shows to big prank commercials and voice-over acting? How did you begin acting? (1:36)
How are voice-over acting roles different from visual acting? (14:38)
Which acting roles have you enjoyed the most? (27:59)
Do you play any video games? And if so, which ones? And do you play the games that you've acted in? (36:56)

In This Episode, You Will Learn:

You don't have to pigeonhole yourself into only one thing. You can learn to do and try on several things within your profession (8:29)
The importance of looking at mistakes as opportunities to learn and grow (17:59)
The most important part of voice-acting is listening (22:41)
The importance of learning to say no to some projects and how not to take criticism personally is essential to grow and get better at what we do (34:19)

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