Meet Ted Evans

Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Ted Evans. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Ted, so great to be with you and I think a lot of folks are going to benefit from hearing your story and lessons and wisdom. Imposter Syndrome is something that we know how words to describe, but it’s something that has held people back forever and so we’re really interested to hear about your story and how you overcame imposter syndrome.

I don’t know that I can fully say I have conquered Imposter Syndrome, BUT, it is something that I frequently keep at bay. As a kid growing up in the 90s in the suburbs of Northern Virginia, I lived for Saturday morning cartoons. I remember seeing the Nickelodeon headquarters on TV and begging my parents to take me there. Now, as an adult and voice actor, my goal is to always be striving towards making that kid’s dreams come true, as though I could go back in time and tell myself “don’t worry, you’ll get to work on the things you love someday”. Having now worked for Nickelodeon, Warner Bros. and Disney, both on the studio lot recording bays and from my walk-in closet booth at home, there is DEFinitely that sense of those full circle moments, where you ask yourself, “is this actually happening?” “Is someone going to realize that I don’t belong here and kick me out?” Those thoughts don’t come up as often now as I’ve been at this for over 15 years, but anytime I reach a new milestone, it is easy for my brain to forget any of the things I’ve done in my career, and still think of myself as that little kid, just excited to be in the room.

Thanks for sharing that. So, before we get any further into our conversation, can you tell our readers a bit about yourself and what you’re working on?

Okay! So, I have been a voice actor since I graduated college in 2006. I was born on an Air Force Base in Maryland (as my Dad was a Tuba player in the Marine Band for 25+ years and my mom was a singer in the Air Force Choir.) I attended the Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD) after growing up in Woodbridge Virginia, where I picked up graphic design skills at my IT high school, Forest Park HS. At SCAD, I was going to perhaps double major in graphic design and film, but I auditioned for the freshman play “Orchards”, and was in a production from then until I graduated four years later, with a degree in Performing Arts, because apparently I am a glutton for punishment, haha! I remember auditioning for several colleges before landing at SCAD, and at one, the director said, “if you can do ANYTHING else, do that.” Only years later have I realized what he really meant by that. This industry definitely has its ups and downs. But I had that fire in me that made me realize I had to give it everything I had, and that part confidence, part blind optimism (delusion? haha, everyone needs a little bit of delusion to really want to give this career a go), that has stayed with me all these years, and kept me going, even when things got rough.

In college, there are only college kids to be in the plays (outside of the occasional guest starring spot by a professor). As such, I was very lucky and mildly spoiled to play a wide range of characters from young to old, human to otherworldly, and it was actually in a marketing class – where I realized my type would become much more of a hindrance as far as the roles that I could play, though vocally I had always had fun bringing life to characters and doing silly voices with friends. There was a *tiny* section in that class that covered voiceover, and it was in my senior year of college that I realized THIS was what I wanted to do. It didn’t matter what I looked like, if vocally I could pull off the sounds of different characters; one of my VO idols was Hank Azaria growing up, and I frequently was blown away by how many different characters he could portray. Versatility is something I have always admired and aspired to cultivate.

With a microphone and a dream, I moved back home with my parents in Virginia, while attending classes in Baltimore with John Gerald and Ty Ford, the latter of whom helped me make a commercial and character demo. I then spent the next six years honing my craft in Chicago, where I picked up improv at The Second City, and standup at The Lincoln Lodge, performing in plays in the storefront theater scene by night, and working temp and office jobs by day. This inspired me to create 3 seasons of a webseries “Funemployed” with my close friends and fellow SCAD grads. We worked with several friends who have gone on to become big names in the entertainment industry, and were even featured in Entertainment Weekly alongside Workaholics and Broad City, though we never made the leap into the limelight like they did.

My Chicago agent, Debby at Naked Voices, set me up with **ONE** meeting while visiting Los Angeles, and that was with Jeff Danis at DPN Talent, where I’ve been for the last 12 years. Since then, I’ve lent my voice to Pixar movies, video games, commercials, promos, trailers, and I am even currently the Aflac Duck. (Well, one of them anyway.)

While in Chicago, I learned to survive on a budget, and also picked up a trade, as a massage therapist, which kept me afloat in times when voiceover was much slower. And in my early years in LA, I learned how to create and edit video content for companies like Yahoo and Maker Studios, which gave me the skills to be creating my own work, to showcase my skills both on the mic and in the edit bay. I currently have found a small niche in making short form video content, re-voicing scenes in X-Men 97 which have garnered some attention – “Magneto in a Speedo” has been seen by over 1.6 million people on instagram. I’ve helped produce a series of videos called “BigHead Parodies” with my friend and collaborator Zoran Gvojic of Dead Meat and Low Carb Comedy fame.

When the pandemic hit, I was extremely fortunate to be able to let go of my dayjob massaging shoulders, and pivoted full time to recording voiceovers in my home studio. In an ever changing landscape, I continue to press forward in my voiceover career, consistently learning new skills and setting new goals to stay sharp and competitive in this very challenging field. But I always remember to celebrate the wins and remember how far I’ve come. Above all, persistence is the most important skill I have attained, and continue to hone everyday.

Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?

For me, the most important qualities for pursuing this career are patience, persistence, and understanding. Talent is up there, but at a certain point, everyone who is a peer in this field is extremely talented. Some of my good friends are working on some incredible projects, and I am consistently blown away by my fellow voice actors’ skill level.

Patience is key. If you are setting a timetable for how long you want to stay in LA, you’re doing yourself a disservice. Everything in this city takes time to adapt to. In other cities I’ve lived, what you see is what you get. Things are more accessible in places like Chicago. In LA, what’s readily available may not be the best thing for you. I once followed a link on Backstage for a cheap acting class my first year in LA, and it turned out to be a lure for The Church of Scientology. You have to sift through the sand to find the diamonds, whether it be with friends, restaurants, or acting coaches.

Persistence. I am a very sensitive person. I have also classically been a people pleaser, and a stringent rule follower. I am always looking for the **right** way to do something, and if I’m not getting the results or feedback I want, I will repeatedly try to find the leak, and patch it asap. I have auditioned for hundreds if not thousands of projects that have not gone my way. You will be extremely lucky to book ANY project, and if you do, you should be thanking whatever higher power you believe in, because the odds are HIGHLY stacked against us. Hundreds of people auditioning for one part. At a certain point I had to redefine what rejection meant to me. A huge piece of advice: Realize that auditioning IS the job. Many of my auditions have gone on to air in both commercials and promos for major networks and companies. If I were to beat myself up over every job I didn’t book, I’d barely be able to get out of bed in the morning. Persistence is above all my most valuable skill, and one that took time to learn.

And Understanding. Knowing that this is an absolutely bonkers industry to take part in. And it’s just gotten weirder in the past couple of years, from AI concerns, to the strikes, and the state of our country and the cost of living. But being able to understand where people are coming from, whether you’re talking to a Starbucks barista, or a fellow actor who is making their lives on social media look MUCH more glamorous than they might be in real life, to a casting director who you’ve auditioned for 800 times without hiring you (okay maybe an exaggeration), everyone is going through something. And the more grace and compassion you can grant to people, the better. Booking a voiceover job and hearing yourself on the big screen, or through a radio or the TV is one of the greatest feelings ever….and the inevitable lulls that can occur where you feel like you’re throwing your auditions into a black hole and you’ll probably never work again, is one of the crummiest feelings ever. But it is NEVER personal (well usually never personal), and understanding that this industry, while incredible and life affirming, can also be cold and difficult, is an important quality to have to be able to weather the storms.

My advice for newcomers – go for it! Take all the classes you can afford to, go to all the voiceover events, join the facebook pages and the discords and get to know people! I’d always heard LA is about “who you know”, but I like to think of it as “who is aware of your presence?” Whether it’s creating content on social media and youtube, messaging people on linkedin, or taking people to lunch or coffee after a class, making friends with your peers in this town is one of the most important things a young actor can do.

Looking back over the past 12 months or so, what do you think has been your biggest area of improvement or growth?

So, I like to refer to this as “the dangling carrot effect”. There’s always a goal in this career that just forever seems out of reach. And it usually plays as a mantra in my mind, or something that comes out of my mouth when talking to people about my career, usually when people ask THE Question: “Have you done anything I might have heard you on??” And my response will be, “well I’ve done XYZ, but I’d really love to be the voice of” .
Well for a long time, my answer was, but I’d really love to voice a trailer. Don LaFontaine was the original Movie Guy voice, and Pablo Francisco’s standup bit about his voice always cracked me up, and got me working on MY Movie Guy impression. For years I have practiced lowering my voice to recreate this sound for fun, but only in the past year have I gotten close to that goal. The world of promos and trailers is very fast paced, and if you’re not cutting it, you can get left behind. I made a point in 2021 to put myself out there more in this field. Two years ago, I reached out to my promo agent Kama Nist and made a gameplan, and the following January I was additionally represented by Jason Marks Talent for promo and trailer. Suddenly I was getting more auditions in this field than ever before, and just this year, I booked my very first movie trailer. I’ve been doing trailer voices as a joke with friends for 20 years, and now I can actually say I am a trailer voice artist. It’s one of the things I’m most proud of, and to make things even better, I was just nominated for a One Voice award for that trailer, for the film Sasquatch Sunset by Bleecker Street Films.

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Image Credits

headshot photos by Rob Mainord

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