Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Liisa Lee. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Liisa, thank you so much for joining us and offering your lessons and wisdom for our readers. One of the things we most admire about you is your generosity and so we’d love if you could talk to us about where you think your generosity comes from.
I think, honestly, my generosity comes from a sense of safety, of having enough
and also from an innate sense of helping.
Being able to help others feel good about their work or talent is so fulfilling. Just that simple act of humanity, support and sharing together has always meant a lot to me.
Generosity is a great glimmer of happiness.
My family owned and ran a campground in Florida. We all pitched in mowing, running the general store, stocking shelves, cleaning the pool, working in the cafe, taking reservations, and helping guests have their best vacation.
Cleaning the pool may not have been the most fun chore, but decorating 7 Christmas trees, barbecues, pot luck dinners, running swim races, or the camp fire circle and marshmallow roasts were absolutely a blast. Making sure the midwestern snow birds weren’t getting too sunburnt at the pool.
I learned early how good it feels to help, give back, and make people feel welcome. I felt like I had 32 sets of seasonal grandparents. Teen faces lighting up when dad would hand them a free soda, or I gave them an ice cream cone.
That laid back camper community taught me a lot about work ethic, and how good it feels to be generous with people.
Why not be generous and share that uplift? It makes everyone better.
Great, so let’s take a few minutes and cover your story. What should folks know about you and what you do?
My story started in the pine woods of Florida, on Orlando lakes, and the Sarasota gulf.
My childhood was an eclectic duality of white sand roads, magnolias and playing in lakes and blackberry groves, to following in my mother’s footsteps to ballet and musical theater classes in NYC, and after broadway nights at Sardi’s.
It’s a juxtaposition I love. Shackett Creek to Sardi’s. Barnwood to Baccarat.
Cut to LA, California, studying at the Beverly Hills Playhouse, and acting for film & tv, then voice acting and now coaching and directing voiceover.
I’ve always been a lover of theater, and storytelling in all its forms, and tried my hand at directing all the way back to one-sheet plays during 4th grade lunch period.
(A very short run, and sharp cafeteria critics)
It’s enormously fulfilling to me as an actor, to move people and take them on a ride of experiences.
It’s all about the Stories, that can make you feel, heal, learn, process, grieve, uplift, grow, understand, etc.
Being able to move people, touch them with a performance they’ll remember means so much for both the actor and the audience.
There are so many singular moments of performance that mean a lot to me, from the quiet moments, hearing the overture from the wings before a show, to laughing so hard in a looping session, the director has to wipe his giggle tears and tell us all to settle down.
Here are two favorites.
Getting called from backstage to sing “Auld Lang Syne” and “The Joker” at the millennium concert with Tim McGraw & his band.
And just as lovely, though a much smaller scale, getting to sing a duet of “Now Westlin Winds” at an Irish pub in Toluca Lake, on a cool winter night, with Kevin McKidd.
Very different audience sizes, both singularly special for the moment.
As an audience member, I’ll never forget closing night of Sunday in the Park With George. After intermission, they finally opened the doors, to let theater kids in to share in such heart swelling, electric for-the-last-time moments. We filled that house, as we cried and stood for the entirety of the last half. Such a gorgeous, bittersweet excellence of a performance. It was magic. We were there.
Teaching voiceover and directing, has made me a better actor, and a better coach with each success and win from my clients. Those are starting to gain momentum and I love it for all of them.
It’s an incredibly fun thrill to get texts from my clients about callbacks for Disney, or a win in meetings,
booking animation or successfully protecting themselves in contracts.
I’m focused on a few things, right now. As always a multi-hyphenate.
While music and writing industry friends are nudging me to finish up a current project in RPG worldbuilding, as well as recounting stories from my “she did what?!” kind of life, Voiceover Coaching & acting is my main focus.
We’re back to the great feeling of generosity and helping others.
I’d love to have a place, a camp, a get away, where artists can gather to celebrate and work on their skills.
A Jacob’s Pillow of the West Coast, for actors, musicians, artists & voice actors. That would be wonderful.
Actors can book one-on-one sessions, coaching packages as well as weekly Voiceover Workouts on my website.
Right now, I’ve got a Spring Sale on all coaching packages.
https://www.liisaleevo.com/coaching
If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?
Three skills that helped me.
Well, four.
I think, reading and writing, and being a being a theater kid. Growing up backstage watching my family perform, and, as a friend put it, having a really keen sense of understanding and reading people.
Watching and listening, as an actor, is just as important to learning as doing.
I learned to read very young, before 1st grade and fell in love with books and stories.
I was that kid that checked out 12 books at a time from the library.
Creative writing was both a creative outlet, Thank you, Mrs. Van Arsdale, and a solace for me when growing pains got difficult. I also started dancing and performing very young, which also meant early dance injuries.
Being able to journal some of that out, on my own, was a great help in processing those.
I think that theater kids have a huge advantage and a head start in learning and life.
We learned fun, various bits of history, a bigger vocabulary because of scripts and working with adults, costuming, manners, and had a sense of community that you don’t get in grade school classes. Theater kids get hands on experience in so many practical things, I think it helps every kind of learning.
The innate skill of being able to read people came from being really observant, being the youngest and smallest in almost everything I did, and of course, a bit of trauma.
It also helped me focus and learn better communication skills. Highly recommend. (the skill, not the trauma)
Advice for folks: Read. Read a lot. Read as much as you can, and YES, that includes listening to audiobooks. (Good audiobooks, though)
See Art, read more. Watch movies, get lost in your own town, take a class in something artistic for the joy and soul uplift of learning a creative thing.
(You don’t have to be good at it.)
Take care of you: hydrate, eat good food, take your vitamins, rest, and move your body, find little bits of magic in the mundane, and READ more books.
Then go create something that makes your heart happy.
Okay, so before we go we always love to ask if you are looking for folks to partner or collaborate with?
I’m looking to coach & direct voiceover with professional, focused & fun, ethical, supportive coaching platforms,
colleges and fellow coaches to help actors grow their skills, and succeed as voice actors.
Connect with me: [email protected] website: https://www.liisaleevo.com/coaching
I’m also looking to worldbuild and collaborate with RPG live play and book companies.
My RPG writing and play: https://www.liisaleevo.com/rpg
Contact Info:
- Website: https://bsky.app/profile/liisalee.bsky.social
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/liisalee/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/LiisaLee
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/liisalee
- Twitter: https://x.com/Liisabelle
- Other: Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/liisalee.bsky.social
Image Credits
All images created and taken by Liisa Lee
so if you or someone you know deserves recognition please let us know here.
