Meet AJ Beckles

We recently connected with AJ Beckles and have shared our conversation below.

AJ , looking forward to learning from your journey. You’ve got an amazing story and before we dive into that, let’s start with an important building block. Where do you get your work ethic from?

I think my Work Ethic comes from my love for what i’m doing. I’ve always been the type that gets obsessed with new interests, and voiceover is my biggest one. Hours and hours of study doesn’t feel like work, it’s always fun.

I also think my family is a big motivator. I’ve always wanted to pay it forward for all the sacrifice and work they put into making me feel like i could do anything as a child, even when funds were low. The least i can do is try to get really good at what I do and pay them back!
Even though i know they’ll be proud of me no matter how successful i am haha

Thanks, so before we move on maybe you can share a bit more about yourself?

I’m a voice actor. My job is to look at a description of an animation character, and based off a brief description, make them come to life. It’s one of the most fun, exhilarating, fulfilling jobs in the world, and i’m lucky to be able to do it nearly every day.

I think I love it so much because it’s so free. Unlike other acting mediums our appearance, whether it be race, gender, height, disabilities, etc isn’t as much of a barrier im terms of what characters we’ll be able to portray. I can be anything from a teenager, to an animal, to an alien, to a monster, they can all sound like me, and as long as i do a good job acting it’ll be believable.

What I personally find myself doing most is Anime. It’s kind of surreal because as a kid shows like Naruto for instance really helped me on a personal level. I was adopted when i was young and the character Naruto was an orphan. He would act out in ways that i did when i felt alone and being able to see someone like him in media made me really happy, and inspired me quite a bit.

Now i think the property that prople most know me for is my work as the English voice of Okarun in a show called DanDaDan. Season 2 is right around the corner with a movie releasing on June 6th im the US, and the show premiering worldwide on July 3rd. If there’s ever a time to get into it it’s right now! The first season is incredible and being able to portray Okarun in English is the pride of my Career!

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?

1) Read!!! In voiceover there’s something we do called “cold reading”, where we take a script we’ve never seen before (we dont get to prepare with scripts weeks in advance), and we have to read it and act it out loud and make it sound as if we prepared it im advance. It’s very difficult and you have to be able to do it with very minimal error. Read everyday to get better and read out loud, thats the most important thing.

2) Do your own research online. A lot of people ask me how to do, and i’m always flattered but i feel bad because usually the questions i get asked are quite basic, meaning i’m not as useful as a resource in those moments. If you can learn to so your own research and learn as much as possible before coming to your favorite voiceactor with questions, you’ll get so much more out of the interaction.

3) practice! Spending an hour a day dedicated to working on dialects, cold reading, studying performances of all kinds, can rrally help you improve rapidly. The fact is at the beginning you wont be working as much, you need to get better, people need to learn who you are so they can send you opportunities, and because you wont be working as much, you can’t improve while on the job. Find time for yourself everyday to focus on a skill of your choice!

If i had to give advice to anyone new to voice acting, it would be to tell them to have fun. Which is very cliche, but it truly is the best advice. The more fun you’re having, the better your auditions sound, when you’re not worried about impressing anyone that’s when you can really show in your audition what makes you unique amongst the other 300 people auditioning for the same role. Never worry about what the casting director wants. Give them your version if the character. Statistically you’re not going to book most of your auditions, so make a good impression for the future, you never know if you did something really cool that might not have helped you book the character you’re reading for but might help you book a character thats completely unrelated some time in the future. It happens all the time!

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?

My mom Drilled into my head that i should always ask for help if i need it, whether it was school work, mental health or otherwise.

I think not being afraid to admit when you don’t know what you’re doing, only opens you up to receiving more information without ego.

It also makes you have more respect for other peoples perspectives and how to incorporate those perspectives in your own thinking.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://Ajbecklesvo.com
• Instagram: AJBecklesVO
• Linkedin: AJBecklesVO
• Twitter: AJBecklesVO
• Other: Tiktok: AJBecklesVO