Meet Ovais Malik

We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Ovais Malik. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Ovais below.

Ovais , we’re thrilled to have you on our platform and we think there is so much folks can learn from you and your story. Something that matters deeply to us is living a life and leading a career filled with purpose and so let’s start by chatting about how you found your purpose.
Watching my favorite cartoons and shows as a kid really got me excited for the world of acting. I remember “Looney Tunes” as well as The Disney Afternoon that had shows like “TailSpin” “Chip ‘n Dale :Rescue Rangers” and “Darkwing Duck.” just to name a few, that really inspired me. A funny side story to this is that I went to high school with and became friends with Jim Cummings’ daughter without even realizing who her dad was! I’d also do impressions of family members and friends and inherited a wonderful sense of humor, thanks to my mom.

Thanks, so before we move on maybe you can share a bit more about yourself?
I’m a multilingual voice actor who loves to bring characters, both fictional and non-fictional to life through what I like to call “Theater of the mind”. The fact that clients of all sizes trust me with their brands gives me such a sense of joy and responsibility to ensure that I represent their brand in the most organic way possible while also adding a bit of myself to it! I tell people that although I’ve been doing this professionally for about 13 years, I’ve been entertaining people since I was in grade school! It’s so gratifying to hear someone tell you how your character helped them get through a hard struggle or even inspire them to pursue a career in voice acting. My #1 goal is to make sure the people who hire me are not only just satisfied with the end result, but absolutely thrilled with it. I’ve had the pleasure and honor of working with clients worldwide and so it’s very important to me to not only put out quality work, but something that’s true to who I am as a person. I’m not a fan of representing brands of products I wouldn’t use.

Although most of my resume consists of English speaking roles but I’ve had some really cool opportunities to mix both English, Urdu and Hindi in to some of my projects because of my background as a Pakistani-American actor, I’m currently working on a video game slated to come out in June which is a cyberpunk role-playing-game set in a dystopian Los Angeles in the year 2108 with a third-person perspective which showcases me using multiple languages with the character so I can’t wait to share more information on that soon!

There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?
Take acting and impov classes! Contrary to what some people believe, you must have acting experience to be successful, particularly in specific niches of voice over like video games. I can’t speak to every genre of VO because I don’t do it all but video games in particular are 40 hour films and their performances are based on grounded, real characters. Not over the top and cartoon-like. There are exceptions to the rule but that’s not very often.

Invest in your recording space before you invest in your gear. If you’re recording in a big room with high ceilings and walls around you with things hanging off them, you’re going to hear every bit of that when you record! A smaller recording space is great. Many people cant afford to buy a vocal booth which starts at around 5K, so a closet would be perfect! Make sure whatever room you use is treated properly. It doesn’t have to cost you an arm and a leg either! Many people leave book shelves in their rooms because the books offer a great solution to sound refraction (your voice bouncing all over the place). If and when you get a good mic, it’s going to expose any of the “holes” you have in your recording space even more which is why it’s always good to make sure your space is up and ready first.

Be realistic with your goals and allow yourself to make mistakes. This is probably the most important rule of the 3, in my opinion. We’re all our own biggest critics and working in the entertainment field where you see people posting about their achievements and successes can be very hard on your personal psyche. Allow yourself to fail, every single person on this planet, regardless of their success has and will continue to make mistakes. Learning from those mistakes is the biggest win you can get from failure. You don’t know until you know! I got lucky on my first gig and booked it fairly quickly but then didn’t book another job until 100 auditions later! I keep every audition recording so I can go back and see how I’ve improved. You’ll always have people that doubt you or simply don’t understand what you’re doing. It’s just the nature of what we do! Keep pushing, grinding and working and you will be better because of it.

Before we go, maybe you can tell us a bit about your parents and what you feel was the most impactful thing they did for you?
This one could take all day to dissect but I’ll try and make it as painless to read as possible! In a nutshell, they taught me to always do the absolute best I could in whatever it was I was doing. Whether that was in sports, working for someone or trying to build my own business. They made sure I understood that if I did my absolute best at something, regardless of the outcome, I’d never have regrets later on in life. That and never letting someone else dictate what I can and can’t do was really impactful for me and continues to be to this day!

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