Meet Marissa Lenti

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

Marissa, 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?
Weirdly enough, I think it’s innate, in a way. I’ve met many people over the years whose work ethic I admire, and when I ask them this same question, they often just say that they simply cannot leave a job undone, or do it poorly, and I relate to that heavily. When I think about not doing the absolute best that I can on any given job I have to do, it makes me extremely anxious. But, of course, this does mean that I also don’t take on jobs I don’t want to do very often, since then completing them becomes a chore, haha… So, find jobs I want to do, and then do them well just because I cannot imagine doing anything else. I suppose, then, my work ethic simply comes from knowing what kind of work will motivate me to do my best. This is why I continue to work in anime, even with people asking me if I’ll eventually “move on” to games, or film, or cartoons… Certainly I’ll do any sort of work in my field if given the chance, but anime is the thing that inspired my love of voice acting in the first place, so I’ll keep coming back to it in the end. It’s the type of work I know I could never get tired of.

Great, so let’s take a few minutes and cover your story. What should folks know about you and what you do?
Right now, I’ve found myself focusing a lot more on my directing career. I’ve gotten a lot of amazing opportunities in the last few years, like directing the dub of the legendary “Gunbuster” by Hideaki Anno, as well as directing the redubs of the classic first three “Digimon” films, including the ones headed up by Mamoru Hosoda– which are my absolute favorite pieces of anime film history of all time. Getting to work on OVAs and films like these just continues to reignite and fuel my passion for the anime industry, and pushes me to keep pursuing directing. It’s also been heartening to essentially be able to connect with the rest of the fandom(s) who love these titles from “the other side of the glass”, as it were– contributing both to fandoms I love and to fandoms I am only just now getting to learn about with creations that, I hope, they love.

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?
One of the things that really strikes me, as time goes on, is the power of the fan in the professional anime industry. It used to be that being a “fan” was a negative, because so many were viewed as not interested in actually doing the work, but just getting to peek behind the curtain. But now, we have a whole generation of fans who grew up on anime, and genuinely are ready to roll up their sleeves and not only get to work properly, but to apply the knowledge that they bring with them as someone who fixated on anime and learned all they could about their favorites. So for those wanting to get into this industry, I say: Don’t “put away childish things”. Keep loving the shows you love, and let that love fuel you to do the job right. You’re the kind of people we need.

What is the number one obstacle or challenge you are currently facing and what are you doing to try to resolve or overcome this challenge?
The unfortunate downside of getting to work on so much amazing anime is becoming privy to all of the other, just as cool projects out there that I’ll never get to be a part of. You can get serious FOMO when it seems like you’re working on the opposite side of a ravine from all of your friends, who are partying it up and having a great time across a gorge you simply cannot cross, for whatever reason. When you’re new to the industry, what’s going on across the ravine is irrelevant. You figure, there’s no way you could cross it anyway, so no sense being bothered by what’s going on over there. But, as you go up and up, higher and higher, your view of the entire lay of the land becomes clearer, and you wonder why you’re not able to cross. I often struggle with that thought, with wondering what I’m “doing wrong”. But the thing I keep reminding myself of is that there are likely people on the other side, too, wondering why they can’t be on mine. I get to work on a lot of wonderful things with a dedicated team that I’m sure some people would kill to be a part of, and the only reason I don’t know each and every person who wants to cross is because I’m working! Surely, it’s the same everywhere. So, one can’t blame others for not noticing me across the gorge, occasionally looking wistfully over but usually head down, hard at work. We all have our focus elsewhere most of the time. Keeping myself centered, humble, and logical is the only way I can see to overcome these thoughts.

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Image Credits
Gunbuster © Gainax Digimon © Toei Animation

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