The Remarkable Voice Acting Career of
Stephane Cornicard in Seven Languages
By Kayla Bowles, November 5, 2023
Hello SOVAS readers, and thank you for taking the time to visit my column, Diary of A Voiceover Intern. Here, I intend to engage my evolving learning experience as an intern at the Society of Voice Arts and Sciences (SOVAS) through a series of conversations with voiceover professionals. I will engage SOVAS ambassadors, previous winners of the Voice Arts® Award, casting directors, talent agents, and others in discussions about breaking into the voiceover industry and building a thriving career.
Enter: Stephane Cornicard, a multi-lingual voice actor with over 30 years of experience of acting in film, TV, and video games. He has lent his voice to various notable clients, including the franchises Overwatch and Dragon Age, brands such as Microsoft, BBC, Chanel, and Cartoon Network. Stephane has received numerous awards, including Voice of the Year at the One Voice conference in 2021 and 2022, and the category of Outstanding Body of Work at the 2022 Voice Arts Awards. Please welcome him as my guest today.
Kayla: Hello Stephane, thanks so much for being here! My first question for you is: how did you get involved in the voiceover industry? How did you hear of the Society of Voice Arts and Sciences?
Stephane: So, I got involved in the voiceover industry from being an actor. I trained as an actor from the age of fourteen. My first actual job was when I was sixteen, narrating for a literary magazine where I had to play a seventy-five year old woman. That was quite a challenge, but it was fun. After that, most of my work was acting until I came to London, and I started working in education—recording tests and lessons for people learning French. A couple of years later, there was a big audition to be the voice of the cartoon network, and I got offered the job. That was really the beginning, because it allowed me to move from strength to strength and sort of learn my job.
Kayla: And how did you learn about the Society of Voice Arts and Sciences?
Stephane: It was because a friend of mine, Vicky Tessio, won a Voice Arts Award five or six years ago. I saw pictures of her on the red carpet and contacted her to ask what it was about. She encouraged me to submit, so I did!
Kayla: Not only did you submit, but you won the category of Outstanding Body of Work, which says a lot about the quality of the work you’ve done over the years. That’s amazing.
Stephane: Thank you. I was honored to be selected.
Kayla: When first starting out in voiceover, did you have any specific goals for yourself? How have your goals changed and/or evolved over time?
Stephane: No, I did not have any goals at first. I did not plan a career. I mean, I planned my acting career, and I was very successful in that, but my voiceover career sort of just happened. I didn’t plan it, but once I started, I started to have goals. I wanted to be one of the voices for the London 2012 Olympics and ended up getting that job! I wanted to work for really big companies and prestigious brands, and now I do. The more you learn about the voiceover industry, your goals evolve. My goals now are to do with increasing the number of my clients. And while I’m one of the busiest voice actors I know, it’s normal to want more opportunities, bigger campaigns, and to try new things. I have recently forayed into audiobooks, and I really enjoy it.
Kayla: What do you find comes easiest to you in terms of types of voiceovers (commercials, e-learning, narration, etc.)? What do you find most challenging?
Stephane: I love anything to do with voiceover, and there are different challenges in every avenue, like in commercial work, it’s all in the minutia of repeating the same few sentences over and over, while with audiobooks, you need to have the stamina to read continuously. The easiest for me is probably character work, as I do a lot of that and its sort of my go-to.
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Kayla: As an actor, many roles require that you connect deeply with your emotions. Even painful experiences in your own life. What is that like for you, and does your voiceover work ever require the same depth of emotional recall?
Stephane: Okay, first of all, I wouldn’t call it emotional recall, because that’s very Stanislavsky or method, which to me isn’t the way to do it. You’ve got to live it, not recall past experiences. But yes, for all the characters I do for video games, for example, I have to be emotionally connected to whatever is happening to the character that I am at the time. And I say “I am” because I don’t consider it acting, I consider it being the character through the emotions that the character experiences. So yes, voiceover work requires the same depth of emotional recall, even more, I would say, because for video games it is often very extreme.
Kayla: I think that’s such a great point, the idea of really embodying the emotions of a character as opposed to using your own experiences to relate or draw out a similar emotion. I have not yet performed a job where that level of emotional depth is necessary, but I can relate to what it feels like to embody a character, although not on the same scale. How do you feel about the actor/agent relationship? Obviously, some are great, and others are disastrous, but what is your take on how best to create a working relationship with an agent, and how important is your agent(s) to your career?
Stephane: Well, agents are very important. When I started, pretty much all of my work was through my agent. I have a lot of agents all over the world now, and my relationships with them are relationships of complete trust. I try to be as open and as honest with them as possible, and I expect the same. I’m an easy person to work with, so it’s not that difficult. As long as there’s honesty on both sides, it works. My agents are very important to me, and if I do not feel that my relationship with a particular agent is going well, I would address it, and if need be—it has happened in the past—we would part ways. It’s the best way to deal with it, I find.
Kayla: Clearly, you’re at the top of the game in character animation. What do you do to stay there?
Stephane: [Laughs] That’s a million dollar question because I don’t know what it is. I think reputation is something that works, so people tend to come back to me if I’ve worked with them once or twice. I think the fact that I have so many titles under my belt is also reassuring for some clients, and they feel they can trust me with a job. But I mean, tooth and nail [laughs] is what I do to stay there.
Kayla: What kind of marketing strategies do you employ to create new opportunities for work?
Stephane: Well, I’m part of a network of voice actors, and am constantly on the lookout for new opportunities. I’ve got loads of agents who do that research, and I use LinkedIn quite a bit. For example, if I see that a promo is getting a lot of awards, I will try to find out who the director is, who the writers are, and perhaps try to find them on LinkedIn and connect with them. You want to link with the people who are A) successful, and B) who’s work resonates with you, and I think that’s what I try to do.
Kayla: I’m sure there must be a voice actor or two, or three, whose work you greatly admire. Who are they and what’s a single characteristic for each one that excites you about their work?
Stephane: There’s one that definitely comes to mind, and that’s Stephen Fry. I’ve had the opportunity to work with him once, and what I value in him is his intelligence. I mean, the man is a brain power, and I think one of the skills or aptitudes that people don’t think about enough when they talk about voiceover is intelligence. You have to be quite bright to do this job; it requires a lot of textual analysis and script intelligence. It’s not often that people mention it, even during classes, and that, in my opinion, is a problem. So, yes, I’m going with Stephen Fry, the man.
Kayla: That’s such a great answer. Stephen Fry is an incredible talent, and I really appreciate your point about intelligence in relation to voiceover. Acting skills and vocal training and care is only a part of the work that voice
actors have to do. There is a great deal of active learning involved, and it’s an ongoing process. What are you not good at as a voice actor?
Stephane: What am I not good at? [Laughs] The fact that I’m even hesitating sounds very big-headed. Perhaps pursuing opportunities. I find that because I’ve been doing this for a long time, work comes to me. I think that If I deployed more energy in searching for work and sourcing more work, I would probably be earning twice as much. But, at the same time, I am a bit… I have massive imposter syndrome going on, and I find it very difficult to approach people cold. I will approach people that have been recommended to me, but approaching people cold is a challenge for me.
Kayla: I completely relate to that feeling. As an already introverted person, it can be very hard to approach people. I think this can happen with any job, but especially voiceover, where there is so much competition, imposter syndrome is something that can feel overwhelming. It’s something I’m consistently working on, but what I like to do is to use my goals to motivate me. If there’s something that I really want to accomplish, try to let that drive me, rather than the fear of speaking up. You speak multiple languages (French, English, Spanish, etc.) Of the languages you speak, are you able to work regularly in all of them, and do you do so accent-free?
Stephane: So, I work accent free in French and English—well, British RP, although I can do Trans-Atlantic. In German I’ve got a slight accent, and in Spanish I’ve got a slight accent, but you can’t pinpoint where those accents are from because I speak seven languages altogether. It means that most of my work is unplaceable, as I would put it. Eighty percent of my work is in English, and twenty percent is in other languages.
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Kayla: What would you say is the biggest risk you have taken in relation to your voiceover career?
Stephane: That’s a very good question, but I can’t think of any major risks that I’ve taken. Going into the voiceover business in the first place was probably the risk, but no, I don’t think there are any others. At some stages I’ve put my foot down and asked for certain practices in the workplace and lost jobs because of that. I know that for example, once during a dubbing session, I questioned the choice of the director because to me it was absolutely the wrong choice, and I paid for it because I never worked for him again, but then again, I didn’t want to work for him again, because he wasn’t a very good director. History proved me right, I suppose, considering that he is no longer on the market.
Kayla: Wow. That opens the door to an important lesson for voice actors to parse according to their individual tolerance for risk. As lessons go, what do you think is the most important thing for someone breaking into voiceover to know?
Stephane: Know that there will be ups and downs. It’s not a straightforward climb. It’s not like building a house where it’s brick after brick. No, most of the time it’s more like you get to do an incredible job and think you’re on top of the world, and then face three months of mediocre jobs which sort of slap you back into your place. It’s a seesaw, but the trick is to make sure that the seesaw goes up, so that the new highs are higher than the former highs and that the lows are higher [laughs] if that makes any sense.
Kayla: That makes perfect sense and I’m sure everyone can appreciate your sentiment. Before we wrap up, do you have any final thoughts?
Stephane: Although many people have said it before, I’d say that the voiceover career is a marathon, it’s not a sprint, and it’s something also where you have to be really honest with yourself. Sometimes, ask yourself the question: “Am I suited for this industry?” There’s more and more lure to bring people into the industry, and in my opinion, that’s really good, but it means also that some people are obviously not suited for it. There’s so much competition among so many talented voice actors out there who are already doing it, So much so that some voiceover hopefuls really don’t have a chance. They might make it as a hobby, but they’ll never be able to make a living on voiceover alone. I think it’s important to be realistic, and as a coach, as a mentor, I try to be as nicely blunt as I can when I assess someone. I assess both their ability to do various things, their skills, but also their overall ability to make it in the industry. I find it very dishonest that some coaches are stringing people along who, in my opinion, do not have a chance to make it in the industry.
Kayla: That’s tough medicine, but I understand your point of view. Thank you again for talking with me. It was wonderful to spend this time with you.
Stephane: And you’re very welcome, Kayla. All the best, cheers!
Kayla Bowles is assistant to Rudy Gaskins and Joan Baker, founders of the Society of Voice Arts and Sciences (SOVAS), creators of That’s Voiceover! Career Expo, and the Voice Arts Awards. She currently studies the art of voice acting with Joan Baker, and has studied with Real Voice L.A., The Acting Studio, and Broadway Evolved. Though new to the voiceover business, Kayla has already booked a local TV commercial, a role in an indie animated series (in development), and lent her voice to various passion projects. She is currently an undergrad at Sarah Lawrence College in Bronxville, NY.
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