Two bearded, long haired dudes sit down to talk about the world of voice acting and character reading!

Ray Porter is an audiobook veteran with hundreds of books to his name on Audible and across the audiobook world. Hear how Ray found a career out of bringing stories to life, and the tools he uses to give life and depth to characters.

Here's what they talk about:

Timecodes: 0:00:00 - Intro
0:02:15 - setting up a studio, does it need to be expensive? PVC pipe blanket fort
0:05:05 - Are mics important?
0:07:00 - The best way to start out in voiceover / audiobooks
0:08:45 - will your mic prevent you from getting certain voice work?
0:14:35 - Modding a 416 into an actual shotgun
0:15:55 - Do you and Simon Vance and Scott Brick get together for audiobook parties in LA?
0:17:00 - Why it’s important to stay diverse in your interests
0:18:35 - How did this all start, tell me your life story!
0:26:00 - How did you get cast as Darkseid in Justice League?
0:30:45 - Why audiobooks are better than real books (especially Shakespeare)
0:34:10 - What is your process for preparing for an audiobook?
0:38:01 - What are your relationships with your authors like?
0:40:04 - Tell me about your experience of recording ‘The Sandman’ series with Dirk Maggs
0:44:32 - Tell me about recording the ‘Project Hail Mary’ audiobook
0:47:50 - How to differentiate characters within a story? Tell me your approach for ‘We are Legion – We are Bob’
0:53:09 - How important is life experience in acting & narration work?
0:56:05 - The challenge of narration female voices
0:58:10 - Why Ray hates adverbs!
0:59:30 - What techniques can you use to modify your voice for different characters?
1:02:00 - The recent inclusivity discussion has brought up some interesting changes for actors. How do you feel about how what’s acceptable for actors to play has changed?
1:09:48 - Accents – do you like them, do you study them?
1:17:45 - What’s your advice for aspiring actors to do the work and get the work?

Thank you to Ray Porter who was so generous with his time and information.

Transcript:

Toby Ricketts

Welcome to vo live brought to you by gravy for the brain Oceania. We have a video podcast that talks to people who are big and voiceover the movers and shakers, the interesting people of the voice world. And my goodness, today's guest is very interesting. Indeed. He has his. He's an extraordinary the world of audio books. And he has also touched so many hearts and minds, including my own. It's Ray Porter. Hello. Hello. I'm

Ray Porter

sorry for touching your heart and mind. Yes, that

Toby Ricketts

was without permission as well. Yes, exactly.

Ray Porter

Well, the nice thing is you don't have to show everybody on the doll where I touched you. You said hearts and minds. So that's you know, exactly,

Toby Ricketts

yeah, it was very, very clear about that. Anyway, so how are you today? How are things?

Ray Porter

Well, thank you. I'm sweltering, a little bit. It's Los Angeles. So in my sort of janky home, slapped together blanket for booth. I I'm a little sweaty, but it's how it goes to the world of voiceover. I tend to work a lot at night, actually. Because Los Angeles. I don't know whether you knew this or not Los Angeles can be a kind of a loud place. Really? It's a noisy city. I know. Weird, right. So I tend to record a lot at night. Because of that. It just the general noise of the day is a little bit calmer. And it's cooler.

Toby Ricketts

Yeah, absolutely. Like the whole northern hemisphere is feeling a little bit a little bit Sisley at the moment. Well, yes.

Ray Porter

And the West Coast is, you know, doing its yearly being on fire things. So it's just you know, it's just one of those things.

Toby Ricketts

Yeah. The burn off. Happens every year off. Yeah. No,

Ray Porter

not that much can accumulate in a year. Can we stop just burning every year? Would that be possible at all?

Toby Ricketts

It would be nice. Yeah. It's nice to talk to a another voiceover professional, who has a beard and long hair as well.

Ray Porter

Rather, exactly. Yeah. Well, you know, it's like so many, so many of our colleagues actually pretend like they're gonna go out and interact with people. I just don't get that.

Toby Ricketts

Luckily, I mean, I live four hours from the nearest city. So like, at least I'm quite away from the humans. Yeah. So that's kind of nice. Yeah, yeah. But you, you instead just built a sort of a werewolf trench somewhere in your house with blue light? I

Ray Porter

have. Yes, yeah. So I have my apartment in Pasadena. And I went to Home Depot and cut up a bunch of PVC pipe and got some moving blankets and got some thicker, you know, acoustic kind of blankets and sort of hung the entire thing off. So it literally is a blanket for it.

Toby Ricketts

I feel like it's a very inspiring story, because so many people enter this game with the PVC blanket forward. And and think that they're kind of like, oh, you know, one day, I'll get a new studio. But I think you're living proof that you actually don't need to if you do

Ray Porter

it well, you know, the funniest thing when I started out, obviously, you know, because I had a background in radio, and then I went off and did theater forever and ever, and then started doing audiobooks. And of course, you get gear acquisition syndrome, you know, you you, you know, you're somebody who's got the authoritative, you need this microphone, and you need this blurry blur, and this preamp has to happen. And you've and pretty soon, you're making this enormous outlay of cash and you've not gotten a job yet. And I see so many people end up either impoverished or mystified or both, without ever having gotten on to it. And so I've recently more out of necessity than anything else, I've focused more on how little do I need to get this job done? And I don't know just simplify, because at the end of the day, if what's going into the microphone, sucks. The mic is not a magic wand, you know? So it's, you know, it's about how do I how do I do the most with what I have. So if you're sitting in a closet, and you change the acoustic characteristics by moving a sweater, I've done it, did it on a number of books. Or if you have a proper booth, which I did, or you you know, have this situation, it's about adaptability more than anything else. And finding the right tools. Let people have a lot of advice on Oh, this is the microphone you have to have. This is the industry standard. Well, the industry standard may not be your standard. Like I see that, you know you're talking through a u 87. Yeah,

Toby Ricketts

I am. Yes. This is my guest myself when I hit a particularly good year and I thought I put your microphone. Yeah. Actually funny that and I talked about this to George Witham and my last thing, but have you seen the replicas? This one he's made? Yeah. But the guy New York and they sound exactly the same. And they're $150. Yes, yes.

Ray Porter

This is what I mean. That's the other thing is and as a guitar player, too. You know, I remember back in the 90s there were certain brands of guitars, you're like No, no, and I played some recently it was like, oh, oh, I see. They did their homework. The same It's true. You don't have to lay out a massive amount of money. The reason why I point out the 87 is when I started, I was going to studios and everybody had them. They don't sound good on me. They make me sound like I have adenoids twice as big as my head. I just sound terrible. Yeah, so I went looking for a mic, which is not easy or fun. You know, it's, it's, it's like trying on shoes from people who don't necessarily want you to try them on. It can be very, very trying to to, you know, test out a bunch of mics. But I did a lot of homework I did a lot of reading happens to be in LA. And I had heard about this guy, Dave Perlman, who makes the Perlman TM one microphone, so I called him up. And I mean, I didn't know this guy is highly regarded for making his two mics, which are based on you 47 architecture, but they're hand built. And, you know, I thought I would go through like three tiers of secretaries or something. He answered the phone, and he was like, you're in LA. And I said, Yeah, he goes, wants to come to my house. Okay. So I went to his house, and I looked at his mics and stuff. And then he hooked one up, and I grabbed a book and I read something. And I took it back to the people I was working with at the time, and the engineer listened to it and his eyes got huge. And he's like, that's your microphone. Now, we got to find, you know, the right preamp to pair with it. So I ended up going with the great river me one and V. Which just again, was just a good fit when I moved into this place. The Perlman TM one is such a brilliant microphone. And if you ever have the privilege of dealing with Dave Perlman, Count yourself lucky, the guy is amazing. And he makes beautiful microphones, he really does this not an endorsement or anything. I just really liked the guy. But I got in here, and I'm in an apartment situation. And that microphone, I could hear the people upstairs changed their minds. I mean, it was so sensitive. So I ended up going with a 416, just because it's a lot more focused and you know, eliminates a lot of this sort of side noise that is so prevalent here. Yeah. So I've been bouncing back and forth between those two mics. Stuck with the me one and V as a preamp because it just suited what I was doing. But that's, that's the biggest challenge, I think is you do not have to spend a ton of money. You just need to find what fits you comfortably and properly and well.

Toby Ricketts

Absolutely. Yeah, you have to pick up on a couple of your points. I definitely think the biggest lesson I've learned from going from sort of, you know, one voice over to pro voiceover was to like keep your overheads as low as possible, especially in the beginning absolute, like you have to really like I mean, I moved to the country, so I had to pay it. So I only paid like, I don't know, $200 a week rent and I was like, literally only have to make $200 a week, I've got my gear already, like let's just do this. And then it takes the pressure off and suddenly you're not desperate to get working. It makes a lot of big difference. And as part of that the whole gear thing like you say like you build up your stable start really simple. And to be honest, there's never been a better time to buy this gear because the gear that you get for $200 now is as good as the gear you got for $1,000 About 10 years ago, like without

Ray Porter

question. My first setup was a RODE NT one and a joemeek preamp that I bought at musician's friend, which was a chain here. Yeah, you know, not a lot of money and it served me fine. And I ended up actually giving that microphone to someone else when I found something that fit better but yeah, don't be don't be fooled into it. Now. Conversely,

there's a lot of equipment out there that is what's a polite way of saying well what one would find at a wastewater treatment plant, we'll leave it at that

you really have to like you know, you got to balance a little bit between don't impoverished yourself but if this is going to be your gear, spend the money a little bit

Toby Ricketts

yeah, if you know you're going to be doing this for a while and you don't want to replacement to yours because you will have to otherwise like I think a 416 is it's sits in such a nice place especially like I did a secondhand for 16 you can get one for 600 bucks. Then belt what I did, yeah, exactly the same. So I've got 600 bucks, I used it for probably five years. And and funny story in my old studio, which is just over there. And it's literally I commissioned it from a company that makes children's play houses. So they built this thing and flat packed it and then I just got I spent all the money on acoustic stuff for the inside. But I only treated one corner because you know, as you know, acoustic stuff is really expensive and soundproofing is really expensive. And so I did just like one corner and the roof and then pointed the 416 into that back corner so that it's only picking up all of the sound deadening stuff and it doesn't pick up stuff that's coming from behind it, you know, to save money with it. And that lasted me a long time. Then I bought this mic, which of course is not like a hypercardioid it's not like a shot it's not just picking up in one direction it's picks up all the way around and I speak field and it sounded terrible in that booth. It just sounded horrific. And I thought this was gonna be like, This is gonna really up my game and it sounded worse. And so it was I was like what you know, what does it mean? And then I figured it out of course. was just picking up all the ambience in the studio, it's the wrong, it's not tuned for the studio anymore. And so I ended up building this place kind of around this microphone because I really wanted it to work. And I was like, I need a new studio, let's just do it properly. So now the whole room is treated

Ray Porter

and well, that's the thing is you make whatever decisions you need to make, you know. But you know, as well that there is, you know, there are endless people saying this is the kind of the be all and end all. I mean, you know, without slagging any particular companies, I noticed that there are a whole lot of companies that make these filters that fit on the mic stand and make a nice sort of arch. Yeah, around the back of the mic.

Toby Ricketts

Originally developed for trumpet players, actually, like it was originally. Okay, I get it. Yeah, it makes sense that way, but

Ray Porter

it's like, a noisy bit is not there the noisy bit, you know, behind it, you know, and I tried them. I said this because I tried them. I tried it all. Absolutely. And, you know, it's just like new neural.

Toby Ricketts

It seems like it's gonna work visually. But it just doesn't. It looks the business. Yeah. Especially ones with perforated steel backings and Oh, god, yeah. Shaped foam.

Ray Porter

They look cool. You look like yeah, when I found out that, you know, especially when you're on the road, because I have a little sort of road rig that I bring with me. You know, for auditions or whatever, while I'm out and about possibly the greatest venue I found to record and when you're on the road is inside your car inside your partner's car?

Toby Ricketts

Absolutely. I was about seven, you can get away with like a decent iPhone or a Samsung Galaxy, and just literally do the voice recorder, do a little bit of post. And it's fine. urgence it's fine. Sure.

Ray Porter

And a lot of those little mics that will plug into your iPhone or your iPad or whatever are actually okay. Yeah, no, obviously test them, you know, you know, I'm not saying like the big ass USB mics or whatever. But there's some little ones that do the job. And as electronics get better and better and better, you don't have to spend for God's sakes, don't buy the name. You know what I mean? Yeah, especially if you're starting out, it's just like,

Toby Ricketts

these those. There's time, some gaming companies now are insisting that people have like a UID, seven or a tail and 103 Or like, or a 416. Like, they say you can only do the kick, if you have this mic. And it's like a How are you going to tell without doing a zoom call? And like, because I don't know that many people that can pick up a mic, because there's so much there's so many more things to cover the sound like most of the things a little bit your interface, but mostly the processing you do afterwards. So like, it's like how you're going to tell that and it kind of does, it's kind of editorialize this and kind of, you know, put the gates up for people who haven't necessarily got the gear, which I think is a bit, especially when there's so many blanks available now nowadays, it's

Ray Porter

a little bit not okay. I mean, I think I think there may be some of that is, is you know, certain people within that company trying to justify their own position. You and I both know that the online forums are filled with people with golden ears. Who can hear the subtle transients, you know, yeah, and I submit that that's horseshit.

Toby Ricketts

Yeah, it gets a bit like a modern art at some stage where you're like, No one actually just throw paint Canada canvas, and then explain kind of afterwards.

Ray Porter

But I also I mean, I can also get why a production company might want to put up some barriers, given that they're going to be getting a wide variety of auditions, you know, with DB levels that look like Satan's roller coaster, and, you know, horrible sound quality and all of that, that they want, you know, the people to exercise a bit of control. I mean, it does pay to pay a little bit of attention to making sure that you are ready before you go public with your brilliant voice over talent.

Toby Ricketts

That's a good point. And the reason is, like the U 87. is an industry standard, because it's been around for ages, and everyone just knows knows it. And they know what it's capable.

Ray Porter

Everybody knows that they know what it's going to sound like. And a lot of engineers are really familiar with it and with the 416 they know what it's going to do. And all of that there's a lot to be said for that. But I do think that like that kind of hard line gear specific sort of thing is a little bit odd. The information is out there. If you go online, I mean, my God, you know, if you're watching this now, subscribe to this student's work, you know, he'll take you through it, he'll tell you, you know, what the standards are and what's needed. Typically, I've found when you're auditioning for things, whether it's a movie or a video game, or commercials or whatever, they like to have it within a certain range of dB. They like you know, there's some people that still love 1644 One, you know, and all of that stuff. Just pay attention, just read the stuff, you know, and try to do it. You don't have to have a 416 but if you do, don't buy one knew exactly, yeah, have is used and

Toby Ricketts

I've thrown it for 16 and a in a suitcase so many times and I've never had even any problems with it also,

Ray Porter

to fend off muggers, and they'll still record I mean, a literal

Toby Ricketts

shotgun mic like you can and then put a cartridge in it.

Ray Porter

I really hope I'm recording a Hemingway book next.

Toby Ricketts

I'd love to see someone do That model a 416 into it into an actual shotgun.

Ray Porter

Okay, that's horrifying. And a really interesting, you know, there's an audio book that just came out my friend Scott brick narrated it written by a guy named Landon beach and it's called Narrator And the premise is essentially, like Stephen King's misery. It's an audiobook listener who like takes things a little bit too far. Wow. Yeah.

Toby Ricketts

So isn't it? So that's written specifically for an audio book?

Ray Porter

I think it's, I think it's a print book as well. But But obviously, you know, it came out as an audio book and Scott brick, you know, is the God King so they know,

Toby Ricketts

gosh, that's

Ray Porter

so elevated, he had me like, right, because in the foreword, the author was saying such nice things about Scott break, and Scott called me and was like, I feel gross. So I was like, I'll record it for you. So I did. So he paid me to say nice things about him. That's nice. That's our friendship. Yeah.

Toby Ricketts

I'm just gonna say like, we talked a little bit about Simon Vance, who also has a guitar, addiction idea, friend whiskies and you're all kind of in the neighborhood doing the same thing. So you get together for like, audio book parties.

Ray Porter

We don't get together for audio book parties, we get together to just like, you know, hang out and be dudes and be silly. I don't I don't really like a lot of audio book. Events. Yeah. Just because nobody knows each other by face unless you're friends, you know, just in the real world. So you wear a nametag. And so there's a whole lot of like, Oh, hi, hi. Oh, hi. You know, because then you have a context, because we're all shut ins. And we're sitting around, you know, you know, people by voice, or maybe by a promotional photograph. Yeah. That said, I do love, you know, a lot of people in the audiobook community, but the Simon and Scott are friends, you know, and we, yeah, we might talk a little bit of business now. And again, but for the most part, now, it's a lot of just general sustained silliness, which I prefer,

Toby Ricketts

it's so important. It's so important, and especially in these creative industries, where you because if you did it so seriously, all the time, the creative pursuits, you just would, you know, you'd end up sort of hating anyway. So I think you probably do need that well released as

Ray Porter

an actor when I was when I was doing a lot of theater. And a lot of Shakespeare, primarily. I always was puzzled by several of my friends who, you know, the last book they read had to do with theater, or the last thing they watched was a documentary on the RSC or they went and it's like, okay, you're only eating from that one small part of the menu, you're missing all the nutrition and all the deliciousness of other things. And I think ultimately, you what you produce is going to be kind of bland, unless you're actually living a life. And I do believe that the same is true. For anybody who does anything creative, whether it's music, voiceover work, you know, whether you're a voice actor, or an actor who is not behind a microphone all the time. That distinction has always bothered me. Are you an actor or a voice? Actor?

Toby Ricketts

Yeah. Not so many of these questions I was gonna ask you are already coming up, and one of them was going to, but

Ray Porter

I didn't mean to answer all of them. Sorry. Sorry about that. I'm just gonna shut up.

Toby Ricketts

But like, we've touched into your history. And one of the things that I've, I've, you know, I've done some research and for the interview was, it was difficult to get a grasp, like your Wikipedia entry is not as as big as I expected it to be. And I don't know whether or not it's accurate, either. So like, take us back to the beginning. You've been an actor for a long time, like, tell us about your ducks and dives of getting into this industry and where you are now.

Ray Porter

Okay, well, I gotta go way back. Actually, I was. My parents were both actors in New York. I was born in New York. And then before I had anything to say about it, I was two years old, they whisked me off to a small town in Indiana, and that's where I grew up. And I always grew up around theater, and around performance. You know, my grandfather was also in the business. So it was always just sort of there. And because it was kind of the family business, I was like, Well, I'm not going to do that. I didn't know what I was going to do. But I wanted to find other things. I went to work for a radio station. When I was in high school. I was at WW que si in Kokomo, Indiana country music. I hated country music at the time. Don't mind it, you know now, but I hated it then. But I was a country music DJ and I did news and all that. And it was really fun. You know, it's 16 and 17. Trying to get my voice down low. I shudder to think what I sounded like. And then had an opportunity to go see a production of a play. I think it was in high school or something and it came out and was right. That's me. That's what I want to do. I went to the California Institute of the Arts here in LA to get an acting degree. I tell people, I didn't go to college. I went to collage. It was a very interesting school. I Um, and then, after graduation, I kind of hung around LA a little bit, you know, just starting out, like trying to get work, that sort of thing played in a band did all that stuff. I had an audition for the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in 1990, and got it got the job. And I was at that point, trying to decide whether I was going to stay in LA and be an actor or move to Nashville and do music. Country music got me again and got this offer for six months of work at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in Ashland. And I was like now, okay, so I told everybody in LA like, you know, I'll be back in six months. I'm just gonna go do this thing. And I got up there. And I was there for 18 seasons. Because it was beautiful. It was challenging work. It was work that I loved. It was people that I loved. And it was incredible. And in the meantime, kept my hand in with VoiceOver doing like local commercials and things like that selling tires in Medford, Oregon. Just as a supplement to the income which was weird, but cool.

Toby Ricketts

Hamlet sells

Ray Porter

tires. Yes, exactly. For soothe my Lord and then aluminum siding. So and people when it started to happen, I would have colleagues come up and go. Did I hear you for the debate here? You do an ad for the Jackson County Fair. We're standing there in our armor, and you know, and stuff like that getting ready to go on? And I'm like, No, I'm sorry. Do you mean the Jackson County Fair? Like what? Like I'm a whore. What do you want? So anyhow. And then I came to LA Finally, I've been dipping down into LA and doing TV and film and that sort of thing in the off seasons. But then I got married and I decided probably a better idea to be, you know, a husband rather than a phone bill. So I left the Oregon Shakespeare Festival and came down here. And I felt a lot like, you know, in Shawshank Redemption, when the guys get out, and they're, they're, like, institutionalized. I was like, Wait, there's no rehearsal today at one, there's no shots and I was I had been so locked into that schedule. And, you know, I don't know whether you knew this or not, but you know, in in Hollywood, there's not a lot of work, which was a surprise. Anyway. You know, so I booked a few things here and there, but it wasn't really sustainable. And I was also just creatively just frustrated because after so long of creative output, and then suddenly none. It really was like withdrawing from some sort of drug. So I contacted Blackstone audio up in Ashland, Oregon, where I just been doing theater. And they were like, Yes, send us an audition. And I slept together, you know, some equipment and recorded a thing in my closet and send it up there and they sent me a book. And I recorded that in my closet and it did pretty well and they sent me another and another. And I got nominated for two audio awards that first year and it was all in my closet.

Toby Ricketts

When he was that? Oh God 90s

Ray Porter

Long ago everything was in black and white.

Toby Ricketts

That long. There was tapes cassette tapes, yes, it

Ray Porter

was all Oh my god. Yeah. cassette tapes. Yeah. God Yeah, it was still the days of because like the iPad hadn't even really caught on yet. So I want to say 2006 2007 maybe ish, right? But they would FedEx you you know the manuscript one sided pages so you'd get this phone book you know and then stop recording change pages the whole thing was nuts. Did that for a while, got a booth eventually found one USD decided I needed at this point it was a going concern and a tax write off I would like to step up the equipment a little bit. So I got the TM one I got the M one L and NV and just continued and it just you know it's momentum. It's snowballed. One thing leads to another, you know, and an old friend who said nothing succeeds like success. It's a catch 22 of like, how do I become an audiobook narrator narrated audiobooks. You know, it really is a momentum thing. It starts out very slowly, and then suddenly, you're drowning under a pile of work. I'm not entirely sure which I'd prefer on a hot day like today. I'm grateful for the work of course, and I'm grateful that I get to do this. It also enabled me to have a creative outlet to be doing stuff that was creative. So I ended up doing better in auditions. So I ended up booking more acting jobs. So I ended up you know, and it all kind of feeds into each other. The greatest lesson I learned from all of that was patience with myself with the industry. And with the process. It doesn't happen instantly.

Toby Ricketts

Yeah. And sort of, you know, you've really got to maintain that passion you have for the work despite all of the cut downs and the auditions you don't get and you know, self doubt you've got to kind of quiet in that self doubt because it does come.

Ray Porter

Yeah, I mean, I have an impostor syndrome that's bigger than Shaquille O'Neal, you know, and it's equate. It's just, you know, it's not even quieting it down. It's just sort of making a deal. Like, okay, you can sit in the back today. Yeah. You know, I'll deal with you later.

Toby Ricketts

It does come with the territory and creative.

Ray Porter

It just does. I mean, you know, you know, this as well, you know, and the fact that we've been able to sustain ourselves and keep the wolf away from the door doing this stuff. Is is a blessing every day. It's I'm grateful every single day that I have gotten to do this. And it's opened up all sorts of things. You know, I happen to be in England, because at the time I was married to a person who was working on Zack Snyder's movie, the Justice League, Zack, who I knew personally up to that point, but I've never worked with found out because I don't I don't I narrate audiobooks from on him. And I don't put that out there. I'm just me. Yeah, so I've known him for a little over a year. And then he basically found out that I narrate audiobooks, and Zack is a guy who prefers to hear his scripts rather than sitting and just reading them. So he brought me in to read his scripts. So I was in there for rewrites, reading, you know, just so he could hear it. That's cool. And one day, he walked by me and he had an digital image of this character. Dark Side, it was like the big bad in the movie. He's like, What do you think he'd sound like? And I'm standing in a hallway. And we're at Warner Brothers leaves them and I went, and I just whipped you know, something off that I thought seemed appropriate to the image. Yeah. And two weeks later, somebody came up to me somebody's like, not Zach, just completely third party came over. I was like, so you're playing Darkside? And I was like, what? Wow. That was one of the weirdest ones because I didn't have to audition. I didn't, you know, it's just because I had worried at all.

Toby Ricketts

You did have to audition. You just didn't know it was an audition. Exactly. Yeah. And like, I feel like you you particularly are quite good at coming up with, with with characters on the fly. It was it was, again, as part of my research I looked so the little audio port, that audible video you did recently where they just hit you with errors. And Shakespeare said Go, which was

Ray Porter

born in the same T shirt. So yeah, I have more than one I promise.

Toby Ricketts

Exactly. And and that was that was really interesting in terms of like seeing your process for characters, which which we'll go into once we've sort of, you know, covered to where you're coming up to today. But like your your your dark sea book and its dark side, it's that seems to be what you're most sort of known for now, because it's such a big production. And you've done a bit of unscreened stuff that was in motion capture with that dark side, actually, as well.

Ray Porter

There was some motion capture with that. Yes, I did do mocap, which me and Kieran Hines in black lycra suits is not an image anybody wants. And then we also did this really weird a lot of the scenes that we did, we were wearing this headgear that had two cameras that are right in your face and two really bright lights. So they only catch this so they can CGI, the facial expressions and the mouth shape and all of that. It was quite a long process actually. That would you know, I would do some and then there'd be downtime for a long time. And then I'd be called in to do you know another thing and, ya know, I've done a ton of like, you know, it's funny, because after the movie came out, Zach's version of the movie came out, because Mr. Whedon decided to cut me from his version of the 2017 thing. So after it came out, suddenly, all over social media people were like, oh my god, he was in Frasier. Oh, my God. He was in a fight. Oh, my God. He was in politically, you know, and it's like, that's the that's kind of a lot of being a character actor is you know, it's like, oh, you're, you're

Toby Ricketts

I know you from somewhere. Yeah.

Ray Porter

Familiar. Yeah, you must get. So you know, yeah, I mean, but it's been, it's been inordinately fun. I've loved going to comic cons and meeting people and and, you know, discovering just how much that stuff really matters. It was never really my thing. I always respected comic books and you know, and that kind of stuff. And I'm a big sci fi fantasy person, you know, but I never really got it and seeing the effect that it had on these people who really love it was was very humbling and also very gratifying and really cool. And I have a lot of people Like when I'm at a con signing autographs, or whatever, a lot of people will come up with a physical copy of a book that I've narrated, and they want me to sign it because they're just there for the audiobook stuff, which is weird, but cool. And yeah, you know,

Toby Ricketts

it's, I don't like I you know, as far as audio books go, I don't read books. I don't have time to read books, but I have I love listen to audiobooks when I'm doing other things like driving or gardening or whatever things because it's so, so damn time efficient. I read a book while you're driving somewhere. Like it's just this miracle. And I enjoy a lot more along. Yeah. And I because my mind kind of wanders if I'm trying to read the text. And I realize I'm four pages down. And I haven't understood any of this. And I have to go back and read the same four pages, again, was audio somehow gets into the brain a bit more. This is

Ray Porter

gonna sound weird and arcane, but just let me Let me stretch this out for as long as I can, and then gracefully pull me out of it when I get caught in a trap. Okay, okay. I trust you. Okay, doing Shakespeare, doing Shakespeare on the West Coast of America, in modern times, was a bit of an argument in and of itself, right. And there were a lot of people who would come because they felt like they should get some culture. And so they would sit there and be bored out of their minds and hated or fall asleep or whatever. And I heard so many people who actually work for a living, going, like I just, I don't get Shakespeare, I don't like it. Why does he take three pages to say he walked down the road? What's the point of it. And you know, people were forced to read it in school. Everybody in some teacher slapped this in front of you. And you had to try to make sense of this word salad. And people walk away from it. Like, it's really not for me, you know, another word for a theater or a venue to hear things as an auditorium, because you would go back in Elizabeth, oftentimes the language was you would go to hear a play, you never went to see a play, you want to hear the play. It is an auditory experience. reading Shakespeare is about as useful as looking at the blueprints for Westminster Abbey. Yes, it's interesting. But for me, I prefer going into Westminster Abbey, knowing what it smells like knowing what my voice sounds like. And the voices of others sounds, the feel of it inside. And you'll never get that, from looking at the blueprint. Well, the same is true of Shakespeare. And I think of a lot of other forms. receiving it. auditorially, as you said, while you're doing something else allows it to get in in a different way. Ideally, if if, if I as a narrator have done my job, to stay the hell out of the way of a text. I don't really want you to notice me, I want you to notice the book when I'm doing it. And if I do that, right, then yeah, you are gonna get maybe more out of it necessarily than you would visually. There are other people who prefer to read they don't like that distraction. You know, fortunately, there's plates for both.

Toby Ricketts

Exactly. And, and even as a third dimension. You know, I found my I found I caught myself finding at the end of the baba verse Book One. We Are Legion We are Bob, what you know, right? Yeah, syntactically, that I was like, I'd love to see what this looked like as a movie. And I caught myself and thought the movie would never be as good as what I'd imagined in my head. Like, the pictures are better. Like with radio, I think the quote was from a little girl back in the BBC days, and like, it's

Ray Porter

so true. Absolutely. My mother said that all the time. She grew up in the Depression era. And she said, There is nothing more terrifying or magical than what you can do in your own head. When it's being said to you on the radio, movies. TV could never do justice to what I imagined, you know? Exactly. So and I took that on, I took that on early on, I did it with Shakespeare to is like try to try to bring it but stay out of the way the text enough so that the person hearing it was able to like form and fashion whatever they got out of Shakespeare on their own, you know. And I agree with you, I do think that auditory stuff. It sparks the imagination in a way that the visual when you don't have the visual information, you're forced to supply it in your mind. Yeah, exactly. And we are all of us infinitely more creative than maybe many of us would let on. So I like that.

Toby Ricketts

Yeah, it's brilliant. Right. Switching that switching gears now. So right, we've established audiobooks, very important. Love hearing stuff by audio. So you get a book in the mail. What's your process? Like? I mean, I think people a lot of people assume that you read the entire book first and make notes and stuff. Is that or do you cold read, and then kind of, you know, go backwards and forwards as needed. You know,

Ray Porter

I, there used to be a real stigma attached to, to this and I don't necessarily know why. But there are a lot of people who are there a lot of people who are able to give their best work by sitting down and really going through the entire book and like parsing out which characters which I know people who will highlight in different colors when certain characters are talking. People have visual references, pictures and things like that. Mmm. And for me, I tried all that, because I felt I should. And the books ended up not doing very well in the reviews and not doing very well in sales. And I discovered that for me, the immediacy of it is really, really important. And that does mean that you're going to make a lot more mistakes, you're going to have to go back and covers things, you're going to have to fix stuff. Most famously, there was a book that, you know, this character, the author didn't really supply any information at all early on as to what this character was. And I got the impression of what this person looked and sounded like in my mind, and I did that accordingly until page 268, when it turned out to be an English girl with red hair. And I had to go back and redo all the dialogue. That was my own, you know, but so now, basically, I will go through lightly, I also will solicit, you know, from the author, like, how do you see these characters, and it doesn't guarantee that it's going to be like that, necessarily. But it's great to have that information. But then it's more about the immediacy of it. First of all, I don't have a hell of a lot of time to like, put stuff on it. I literally, it passes through my hands to you. Which going back to my earlier statement, I do think is the way to go. I don't have a lot of time to overthink it. It's just, you know, just go and do it. And that for me has done better. The books have done better. The reviews have been a lot kinder, the response has been a lot better. When that immediacy is preserved. Yeah, you know, and I mean, being in LA you, you have to learn how to cold read efficiently and well, pretty quickly. Cuz you'll have casting directors be like, yeah, that's not the right role for you try this one. You're like, Hello.

Unknown Speaker

Yeah, I was unwilling the other one.

Ray Porter

Exactly. When I was unwilling grace, and I rehearse to a scene for an entire week. And on the night, we did it in front of a live audience. And the two producers came over and went, Yeah, that's not working. So you say this, you say this, you say this, you say this, you say this? Okay. Well, sound? Yeah. Can you do it? You know, so you'd learn to get real comfortable with, you know, this sort of immediate? It's not like a hammock? Yeah. So yeah, for me, it's the immediate approach has always been best. Yes, there are probably more pitfalls. But that's what quality control is for. I will make huge mistakes that, you know, God bless the the people who prove them and the engineers, and we'll go back and we'll fix them. I've been caught out in a couple of mistakes, embarrassingly. So. I do try to do as much research as I can. But I still get caught on stuff. I mean, we're talking, you know, 300 plus pages. I'm not going to catch everything. But you know, the deal is to try to preserve what the author's intent was what, you know, the author wrote you a letter, you the listener, and it's my job to deliver the mail. That's, that's it. So

Toby Ricketts

in order to, like, establish what their motives and then

Ray Porter

sometimes yes, sometimes no, sometimes, I mean, I've solicited, you know, certain authors and been like, hey, you know, I'd love to get your thoughts on and never hear from them ever. Or I'll finish the book and be like, hey, I really liked reading your book. I hope it does well, and I never hear from them at all. There are other authors who have since become very dear friends of mine. Jonathan Mayberry is a great example of that. I've done his Joe ledger series for a number of years, we have since become God more than friends. We're like family. And what's funny is now there's actually interplay between us in his books. He will he started doing this years ago. Part of why part of why he became such a dear friend to me was I made a joke about like, oh, yeah, next, you're gonna throw me some curveball like some weird Latvian pronunciation, you know, or something. And he did in the next book. And then it became a thing of like, find the traps that Jonathan has laid for me in the book.

Toby Ricketts

That's hilarious. And he does one of his characters Ray Porter.

Ray Porter

Yeah, but he'll throw curveballs at me, you know. And the most, I think the biggest one was he did this great book based on the wastelands. Which is a role playing game, but it's like this weird sci fi Wild West thing. And there was a character in there who was educated in England, basically raised in England British accent, but he was Lakota Sioux. And he wrote in a couple of lines in Lakota, which I happen to speak a little love because I had a friend who was a Lakota Sundancer back when I was doing theater, so I immediately texted him and was like, fu dude, I know Lakota. Hahaha he was like, damn it. I thought I was gonna get with that

Toby Ricketts

one. Oh, that's hilarious. Yeah, that's fantastic. And some of the other other projects that you've done I know we talked about the sort of like the comics, you know, having respect for comics and other things. I was very excited when you and I didn't even realize while I was listening, but that you're in the Sandman series, we're saying the credits at the end, and I was like, oh, I want to go back and do I know and I had to go back and see which ones you were which is a testament to your

Ray Porter

team. Yes. I'm very happy to hear that. Yeah. Thank you.

Toby Ricketts

Yeah, it was. It was fantastic. So much fun. I say to everyone, like if you want to hear like one of the best radio dramas ever recorded. The Sandman series is by far like, incredible. Well, you know,

Ray Porter

Dirk Dirk Maggs, aside from being a very, very dear friend, Simon Vance introduced Yes, actually is an absolute genius at what he does. Without question. You should honestly I would, if he if he can find the time and I'll put in a word, but you should have him on this because the dude is a genius.

Toby Ricketts

And he's spoken for the brain one voice conference recently in May. So as a follow up to that I might invite him on the show.

Ray Porter

Honestly, it would be worthwhile, seriously, and I'll tell him, you know, like, hey, talk to this guy. He's cool, you know? But yeah. It was amazing.

Toby Ricketts

What was the process like for that? Was that recording with other actors? Was it on your own? Yeah, I

Ray Porter

went to England. And for the first one. Anyway, I went to England. And we were at the audible studios in the glass house down by the Barbican. And crammed into this, you know, very sweaty, Hot Studio 11 actors in a in a booth built for maybe six. And some of the most mind bendingly brilliant talents I've ever seen or heard, and I got to be in the same room with them, many of them, you won't know their names, some of them you will. But we all just kind of got in the room, and we jammed and it was such a fantastic experience. And we were all very sad when it was over. It was like being a part of this rep company. And yet nobody knew each other. And so somebody would step up to the mic, and you'd be like, Damn, he can do that. What, oh, I better bring my A game. And so you got people like riffing and playing together. And the end result was amazing. Obviously, with the pandemic, Part Two was sadder for me because I recorded it right here. With Dirk directing. I didn't get that same sort of great, you know, playing with other people kind of thing. I mean, I got to work with Derek, which is always wonderful. But God, that first one, that was an amazing experience, you know, I mean, standard between Michael Sheen and Neil Gaiman doing the Beelzebub stuff, and we're just, you know, feeding off each other and doing this, it was just incredible. Yeah,

Toby Ricketts

it's just such a treat when you get such a great text and such a seminal kind of like, well, directed by the best in the business voiced by the best in the business. It's just the the result is heavenly.

Ray Porter

Well, and I've been such a fan of Neil Gaiman for so many years that you know, nevermind meeting him. Just the chance to say his words was so incredible.

Toby Ricketts

Yeah, his world building is just next level, like it really is.

Ray Porter

Phenomenal, phenomenal. And I've just always loved his, his voice, not his speaking voice not as narrating but his literary voice. I've always just, it's been it's one of those things has always drawn me in

Toby Ricketts

Yeah, listening to him narrate his own audiobooks is such a pleasure because you realize how much he writes the way he talks. And he's got this little really dumpy, dumpy, that he's got this some kind of it's not iambic pentameter. It's like, we should call it gaming Pentameter or something like this. He is yeah, he has a very specific way of reading books, which, which I've drawn a lot from, you know, and I've been inspired by,

Ray Porter

there's a there's an over arching kindness, both in his writing and in the way he says, his texts that I that I adore. And it can be talking about the scariest thing and you're, you're comforted somehow. But I mean, you know, I picked up I picked up his copy of never where years and years ago and I still go back and reread it periodically. It's just that damn good. And so I got to do his stuff. I got to play Burbidge in the Shakespeare thing, which was amazing. You know, and yeah, so it was a little bit nervous. I'm standing there in England with a bunch of British actors about to say Shakespeare and you know, I did okay, but

Toby Ricketts

Fantana fantastic. Some of your other work that I've also taken so much from I mean, Project tail Mayer was fantastic. Like that was a really nice piece of work and is doing very well in the sort of sci fi community and further you know, it's that was that was a real treat anything particularly about that series that you enjoyed, well, I

Ray Porter

love I love Andy Weir, his writing and you know, that was one of those books. People always ask me, How long does it take to narrate a book and I always say, you know, and it sounds like I'm dragging crystals out and making Graham's in the dirt. But it really depends on the book. The book takes as long as it wants. That's a book that was over too soon. I was sad when I was done with it. That's a book that I also would get up in the morning and be like, I get to go record more. You know, it was just because his his writing is so fantastic. And I had such an immediate affinity for the language and everything it was, it was a great fit. I loved it. I loved it. And I'm so happy that it's done well. Because he's a damn good writer that Andy Weir. Yeah, yeah, I look forward to what else he does. You know,

Toby Ricketts

it did sound like to me a lot like you. I mean, you're a great actor, but it sounded like that character fitted your character quite well as well. You know, it wasn't we were

Ray Porter

real close. Yeah, yeah, we were definitely real close. I loved I identified very quickly with the irreverence, the sarcasm, the occasional snark. And wonder, you know, as a massive astronomy geek myself, you know, and a big science geek I was, I mean, it ticked all the boxes for me. Yeah, absolutely. It was great. It's privileged to narrate that book.

Toby Ricketts

Yeah. And you, you seem to gravitate towards sciency work, so they'd gravitate towards you probably more accurately. Yeah,

Ray Porter

it's been more that's been kind of the way of things in the last few years, you know, I recently actually had a conversation with a producer, and when can I do other things? You know, just because I want to diversify the portfolio a little bit, too, you know, I mean, my earlier stuff is all over the shop, you know, I've got nonfiction physics books, I've got, you know, modern crime stuff, and horror, and all of that. And it just seems like, you know, obviously, in the wake of the success of Hail Mary, there's a lot of sci fi authors who are like, Yeah, I want that guy. You know, so I, so I've ended up getting a fair few sci fi books. And, you know, mostly pretty good.

Toby Ricketts

Yeah. Then I mentioned, there's a queue these days, like, do you have you got a pile that you're kind of working through

Ray Porter

pretty busy, I'm under a big ol pile right now. And I've got people that are, you know, just independently, you know, because I tend to work primarily with publishers now. But I'll have people reach out to me, like on Facebook or whatever, and bless them, you know, they're like, Hey, I'd love you to narrate my book. And it's like, yeah, I would probably love to do it. Talk to me in 2023. Because right now, it's just, you know, I'm, uh, you know, I'm gonna finish this with you today. And get back because I'm behind on one book that I've got to finish, right. And then I've got another one that I'm getting close to the red line on, you know, so I just, it's like, I gotta clear the deck. Yeah, I've got so many of these books in the pipe. So thankfully, and I'm grateful for that. Yeah, but it's a lot, you know,

Toby Ricketts

exactly. And so on. And then I want to talk about characters because you really can specialize in characters and, and differentiating them within a book, like your narrator voice is sort of very similar to the voice of using now it's easy to sort of fall back on that's, you know, that's that's obviously, and it tends to

Ray Porter

be, it tends to be like whoever the protagonist is, will also sound like this. Yeah, just because I think it's a lot more identifiable select, Bob is going to sound like me and Rylan. Grace will sound like me. Yeah,

Toby Ricketts

yeah. And to pick up on the Bob theme, and for those who haven't heard the, the Bob of this series is fantastic. The most interesting thing about it is I feel like it's a real study in how to differentiate characters, because without too many spoilers, the main character gets cloned, and, and cloned and cloned, and but each one has had is a bit different from the other ones. And so you have to, you have to identify, yeah, identify, so you kind of so you, you start off as this one guy, he splits into two, and then you need to tell the listener which one they're listening to, even though they're a clone. So what was your approach to trying to find? And some of them don't even it's not really in the texts, like, what their quirk is, some of them it is, but like, often it was just gonna your call?

Ray Porter

Well, you know, in I mean, in the case of like, you know, Homer, Dennis made it really easy, because, you know, he decided to be annoying and just do the Homer Simpson voice or his approximation of the Homer Simpson voice. Yeah. But there were others that were Yeah, very different. And they chose their own names, you know, so then it became a thing of like, a finding in the dialogue, in the written dialogue, the way they respond to something. You know, obviously the most telling thing as an actor, you know, the first thing I do whenever I get cast in a role, is I'll look through the script and see what other characters say about that character. Because there's great information to be gleaned from that. Whether you toe the line on what their description of you is, or not, you have that information. And so that's always good. Sometimes it's in the book, sometimes it's not. And I knew it was going to be a challenge for me and for the listener to differentiate between, say, Riker, and you know, Bob, and these various others and there are a lot lot and then you and a God, there'd be more I'd have to turn a page and be like, Oh God, I gotta do five more dudes. Yeah. And it became more about intention and less about inflection or mouth position or, you know, whatever. A great deal was accomplished in changing the velocity of speech and the just the internal intention.

Toby Ricketts

But I wouldn't forthright or whether they were kind of Meek or

Ray Porter

whether they were forthright, whether there was you know, whether there was, you know, more or less music in their voice, where their heart happened to be sitting at that time. So, you know, you'd have a, you know, and it's a very subtle difference, but you'd have a situation of, you know, like, I don't know, you know, Bob, you know, St. God, it's a really beautiful day today. And Riker saying, guess it's a really beautiful day today. Real subtle, real different, but they say, you know, yeah, what notes Am I playing? You know? So and that was always a challenge, but a fun one. To do.

Toby Ricketts

You keep on top of the characters, because of course, they keep appearing. I mean, the book, I haven't finished the series, but like, the it's consistent the voices across the books, and, like, I'm up to about 36 Different Bobs now. Like, how have you kept track? If you have a post it note that says, oh, remember Riker, he's a bit like the one of Star Trek and you know,

Ray Porter

I will actually go back and sometimes listen to various sound samples of the people. I mean, it's easy with the baba verse, because it's all variations of me. You know, there's a few characters that aren't Bob, in the book that I that I've got, you know, instantly, you know, Guppy sounds like Admiral Ackbar. You know, Bridget, you know, as an Irish woman, you know, the various generals and that sort of thing. So that's one thing. The Quinlan ones, you know, that was another challenge of like, how do I come up with, you know, these, these voices for these characters, based on whatever their mouth structure is, that's in a later book, you'll find that out. But it's a lot of it, it sounds real, like, but I just I remember people's faces, I this is true in life, like, you and I could walk up at the same pub, and I'd be like, Oh, hey, um, I mean, I would know you because of your face. I wouldn't necessarily, I'd be terrible at remembering names. Do you know what I mean? There's a connection there that that kind of is a connection there with the face. And so for me, when, when a character pops up in a book, it happens most of the time, not all the time, but most of the time. It's like, an image of what they look like will pop up in my head. And then there's no other way to talk than what that face. Yeah, no, yeah.

Toby Ricketts

Because he knows the person. And they you know what? Their loss? Yeah,

Ray Porter

yeah. So you know, yes, my son what his father does for a living, he sits in a blanket for talking in different voices and seeing different faces. And they pay him

Toby Ricketts

advice basically sums it up, doesn't it?

Ray Porter

Pretty much. Pretty much.

Toby Ricketts

Like how important is life experience and bringing these characters to life? Because you know, you, if an 18 year old wants to write a book about a 30 year old, it just doesn't it like it doesn't seem possible, unless they're incredibly talented. And watch, I've watched a lot of other people do that kind of stuff. And I hear your life experience come through a lot on the big life moments of these characters.

Ray Porter

Well, obviously, it's going to be because it's the most readily available, obviously, it's the easiest to get to because it's, you know, right there I lived it. You know, the, you know, the old adage that like, once you're old enough to properly play King Lear, you're too old to properly play King Lear because it'll kill you. Once you've acquired, you know, that life experience and all that I do think that to a degree, that's important, but I really, really hate gatekeeping in anything like our craft. So I would always counter like, you know, the thing with the 18 year old, you know, 18 year olds have come up through a childhood that you and I know absolutely nothing about. It's true. They're going to have wisdom and depth in areas that you and I simply cannot understand. And it's going to affect them. And so I think that there are massively eloquent performances that can come out of someone who's in their early teens, but the performance is miles deep. I do think that there is regardless of how old you are or who you are or what your background is, there is absolutely no substitute whatsoever for being a voracious reader. I really do believe that. The more you read, and I'm talking about starting from childhood, you know, you should always have a book going have different kinds of lots of variety of different things. The more that you do that, the more you're going to understand. It's less about life experience than it is about human wisdom. Wisdom about humans compassion for that, which is different, that sort of thing. And that's going to add more colors to your palette if you choose to be an actor.

Toby Ricketts

Yeah, feeling things about things. Like very nicely. Yeah, yeah.

Ray Porter

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, ultimately, you know, any, any good scene is just humans being. To me, there's no more ready source of undiluted humanity, then a wide variety of reading. And you should never stop. If you're eight, or if you're at eight, you should have a book going, always, you know, I just I've always believed that it's good nutrition. But if you decide to do this for a living, it's, it's essential.

Toby Ricketts

Even if it is audio books, hopefully,

Ray Porter

even if it's audio books, yes.

Toby Ricketts

So in coming up with these different characters, and like bringing them to life, there's a number of I like to talk about when doing voiceover for any reason for commercial or for even elearning. and stuff. There's different kind of levers, you can pull in terms of this. There's like tone, and there's Tambor, and there's pitch, and there's tempo and there's like, then there's things like accents as well. Um, it sounds like you come from a very, like, intuitive place. So you're not really necessarily consciously thinking, Oh, I'll do this character a little bit faster. It's just what feels right in the time. But like, what are some of the levers that you kind of have at your disposal? If you were thinking about how to construct the character? That that might be sort of uncommon one's sense?

Ray Porter

Sort of, yeah. You know, though, one, the one big thing that I have grappled with and I've struggled with, I don't know if this directly answers your question, but I have struggled for years with honestly and properly and respectfully, giving voice to women, characters and female characters. It's really easy to like slap a voice on hope for the best. And I haven't been satisfied with the results ever. It's always been a massive challenge. So I've recently started experimenting with the idea that there are a ton of women who speak in a lower pitch and a lower tambor than I do. When I live there, why not focus more on character? Why not focus more on that sort of thing, and let the audience fill in the information as best they can, having gone along with the conceit, that they're going to be told an entire story with a bunch of characters at the hands of one guy, you know, and I think it makes it more noticeable if I try to put something on like I'm doing a woman's voice now you know, kind of thing. And it takes the listener out. Again, do less, do less get to the humanity of it, get to the truth of it. Sure, there's things that I'll do, I'll pull like tempo changes for certain sequences or certain arguments or certain discussions. Sometimes with authors I have said before, that I despise adverbs with fire inside me that I have a hard time describing without using profanity. Example. Where are you going? He asked belatedly, why do you ask? She said quizzically, I'm not sure he said confusedly. Then they walked out both redundantly. eff off with your you know, first of all, stop telling me how to do the line. Second, stop telling the audience how to feel about what you're writing. If your characters aren't full enough or rich enough that they require some tacked on spotlight, then go back and write the character better. You know, I should understand based on the dialogue, since human beings only have the dialogue when they're talking to each other. I should get it from that. Yeah, sorry. Let's go. So Fox,

Toby Ricketts

that's good. It's a bit like clumsy exposition in movies. It's like we don't have time for this to unfold. I'll just have the main character tell someone else about it on the screen.

Ray Porter

Right, right. Exactly. You know, yeah, the classic freeze frame. That was me six months ago. And even in exposition there's a lot that can be done. And I think too few people focus on it. There's a great deal that can be done just by shifting your articulators around a little bit. You know, and not a lot of people employ it and I really would love to see more people experimenting with it. You know, you in your day to day, you know, delivery, the way you talk just on the street the way you talk when you're doing you know various bits of copy or a game or a book or whatever are going to move your jaw in a certain way. Move your tongue in a certain way. Put the air in certain place and the voice and a certain place in your body based on how you've lived and that's just sort of the happy place for you. Well try shifting that. You know, if you find you speak into chest voice most of the time, put it in your head. Now I've done nothing except just change where my voice lives. And that's a different character right there. If you know if the audience is willing to go along with it. That's a different character.

Toby Ricketts

You know? Yeah, shift the way pediments the way like mine, shifts the way your tongue

Ray Porter

your tongue moves around in your mouth just a little bit. And suddenly, it's a different, and I've done nothing except move some muscles around. Yeah, yeah, you know, it's no, it's, this is basic ship. It's like acting one on one. It's just shit. I'm finding out now on my own sitting in my sad blanket fort in Pasadena. But I love it. It's fun.

Toby Ricketts

It is. And I mean, I'm on the similar journey in terms of like, in teaching voiceover, which I do with Greg for the brand quite a bit. I find the truth, which I'm like, I just whistled, right past that, when I was learning how to do this and happen to start doing it. But like, and I find out so much by exploring how I know what I know, you know,

Ray Porter

there's no better education than teaching. In that true, you go back and you're having to focus on first principles, which I believe we all should do. You know, my friend Dirk, in addition to being the most genius producer ever, is also a massively talented drummer. And just this last week, because I spoke to him, just this last week, he was going into a drumming class. You know, go back to basics, learn the stuff, you know, recover that stuff you think you already know, you know? You know, what was it somebody said, you know, your assumptions are like a mirror every once in a while, it's a really good idea to wipe the mirror off so you can see better. And I think it's true, we especially if we've been on the game for a long enough time we've we've structured, the sorts of things that kind of hold us up. And we have these assumptions. And this is the way you do things, you should question those all the time I do constantly,

Toby Ricketts

what an interesting time to be having this discussion. Because over the last two years that we've had been having, especially in the West Coast of America, we've been having the inclusivity discussion and and the fact that it's no longer acceptable for like actors to play minorities in a kind of a derogatory fashion or in an a stereotypical fashion. Because that does not summarize an ethnicity, for example, but it's always been, like kind of the lazy way, but also the kind of the expected way, like, if you want the audience to know someone's Indian, then you'd like do an Indian accent. And but like this is the tension that's between acting, acting means playing other people. But this, like, we've had to change how we do that, based on these discussions.

Ray Porter

You know, for the longest time, there was a whole lot of people, you know, my mother used to tell me, I remember she told me this, I was really sad because I was up for a role and I didn't get it. And a person that I hated, got the role that I wanted. And my mother, who, you know, has forgotten more things about being an actor than I'll ever learn, said it was their turn. It was their turn, It'll be your turn. It just wasn't today. So many people, so many incredibly talented, brilliant people have never had their turn. So now, a lot of people are getting their turn. And I think that's right. Now, with that comes a lot of hurt a lot of assumptions, a lot of ignorance on every side. I want to believe that everybody is coming from a really good place in their heart with addressing this, but you know, I mean, in theater, you're seeing a lot less straight white dudes, you know, playing lead roles in theater right now. And I know that that's been hard for a lot of my straight white nude friends. However, it's been great for a lot of my, you know, queer friends of color, and different abilities and that sort of thing. They're getting a turn, and it's way overdue. I believe that, as Ian McKellen says, it's all going to kind of settle down. And people are going to recognize that acting is acting and living is living. But right now, people are getting their turn and I'm glad for that. You know, I'm not affected by you know, I don't get a job because my skin is this shade or my hair looks this way or whatever. I'm not bothered by that. Why should I be you know, it's somebody's turn. And that's great. Because there's been a whole bunch of people who, you know, I mean, I have friends who tell horror stories of getting called into an audition for something. And it's literally like, Oh, you're black, you know, kind of thing and horrifying. Um, I've never felt that way. I don't know what that is, I'm completely ignorant of that kind of pain. And so I'm not gonna even try to speak to it. So I think that, you know, I, I, quite often in doing audiobooks will be giving voice to characters who are women who are women of different ethnicities, men of different ethnicities, people of different nationalities, sometimes the author will say, he spoke with a heavy Indian accent. But if you say Indian accent, there's a million Indian accents, which one, you know. So, it requires me to be a lot more observant. And if anything I'm doing feels like a comfortable generalization. I go back and try to try to eliminate that, you know, there's an like, Yeah, I mean, there's a thing of like, you know, yeah, I mean, one of the most racist things I've ever heard in my life was someone saying, Well, you don't sound black, to one of my friends is like, That's horrific. Please don't ever say that again. Again, we are all of us. big, messy, diverse, huge, complicated species of mammal. And we express ourselves in a lot of different ways. And if I'm an actor, and I'm meant to hold the mirror up to reality, then I want to try to get that mirror as polished and clean as it can be. Without assumptions. To hold that mirror up. It doesn't mean that I'm scared, or I shy away from doing let's say, an angry woman who's black. And from south, you know, south of the Mason Dixon Line. I just need to be real damned accurate. And anytime I feel like I'm making any kind of an assumption. I don't dare. Now, on that same note, one of my good friends, Peter Klein's, who is an author I've narrated a million books for. And we've had some good success together with his audiobooks, had a new book coming out. And he reached out to me and he said, you know, the main character is a young Latina, and a young black man. And I'm like, I hope you find the right narrators for that. That's real different. And I would never, ever for a second, assume that I could do that.

So, you know, it's a very sensitive time. There's a lot of feelings around this. There's a lot of again, there's a lot of assumptions and ignorance and confusion, but I hope that through all of that stuff, everybody will endeavor to try to reflect humanity with as much sensitivity and awareness as possible in their performance. And we have to remember, it's acting. It's pretending this isn't real, you know, kind of straight actor play a gay person. I hope so. Enough, gay men have played straight people for a long time. You know? I mean, yeah, I mean, you know, as a soundbite, that's horrible. Please don't put that up as a soundbite. I'm gonna get such angry letters. But do you know what I mean? Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Um, you know, and I'm, again, I'm taking this from a comment that Ian McKellen made a few days ago of like, why would you deny yourself the gift of this actor if they are the most brilliant actor for this role? Why would you deny yourself their performance if it isn't? ticking every demographic that the character is, you know, I've played horrible murderers. I'm not a horrible murderer. I've played terrible racists. I hope I'm not a terrible racist. I do my best not to be. You know, I'm an actor. It's pretend I have to embody and give voice to characters that are as diametrically opposed to who I am as possible. That's the job.

Toby Ricketts

Yeah. It comes with the territory, doesn't it? It comes with the

Ray Porter

territory. But I do like I do like that there's a whole lot more people being given an opportunity now both in audiobooks and in voiceover and on stage and on screen, because it's fair. Mm hmm. It's getting fairer. It's not quite fair yet, but it's getting there. Yeah,

Toby Ricketts

exactly. Yeah. The impetus seems they had the kind of intention, like is definitely spreading to make it more fair, which is which has been a very welcomed.

Ray Porter

Absolutely, absolutely.

Toby Ricketts

Speaking of, you know, giving voice to other characters and things. I've always been an absolute accent nerd. Like I just love accents you've spent it's a brilliant place to learn different accents, especially up in the sort of like RSC, we're also has to diversify to know Within Stuff People Say like a British accent, it's like, wow, that narrows it down. Like American like this?

Ray Porter

Well, the thing I say to people, whenever they talk about a British accent, I'm like, you're talking about a country where if you drive 30 miles, Brad has a different name.

Toby Ricketts

Some of the people, the opposite ends cannot even understand each

Ray Porter

other. No, that's absolutely true. Absolutely true. You know, are we talking west country now? Or you know, and were in the West Country? How long counties? Scots, you know, very In Scots is very different. Just in Scotland. I mean, you got, you know, on this coast, west coast Highlands. Totally. And then the guys from Inverness who sound almost American, they sound like an American doing a light Scottish accent a lot of people from Inverness, you know, and they're like, you're not from Scotland? Yeah. I'm from Inverness, as Scottish as it possibly can be. Yeah, you

Toby Ricketts

know? And do you have resources? How do you how do you do you study accents for certain roles? And and how do you go about that?

Ray Porter

I, you know, weirdly, I do study a lot of American regionalisms. And there are some that I find unbelievably hard. Try Philadelphia sometime.

Toby Ricketts

Yeah, that's a good one. Isn't that? Yeah. So you'd like that the East Coast, like kind of halfway down in the middle. They're like buying Washington. There's all this like, as soon as it gets into mountains, there seems to be a lot of crazy stuff goes on.

Ray Porter

Well, yeah. Cuz a lot of it, you know, up until fairly recently was closed off from the rest of the world. But you know, like, like I said, Try Philadelphia. Alright, you've tried Philadelphia, congratulations. Try Bucks County. Totally different sound. And it's the same state. Yeah. So within that, this is going to sound like such a cop out probably is I'm a lazy bastard. What can I say? I have found that you will sound more accurate when doing either a language or a dialect. If you're incredibly sloppy with it.

Toby Ricketts

I think that's true. I've taught people that with accents. You've got to kind of learn the accent and then just relax into it. And like people with a certain accent don't they're not they're not actually conforming toward the like, we're all kind of a bit a bit rough around the edges.

Ray Porter

being different. Yeah. Every every human. I mean, I have. I just came back from England and I've got a lot of friends over there from all over the country. Do you know what I mean? It runs off us. And you sound real different. I can tell you've been living in New Zealand for a while.

Toby Ricketts

Suddenly. Yeah, but it's in New Zealand is that like, gosh, you sound a little bit British. No, of course. Of course. It's

Ray Porter

I knew a woman who was Glaswegian, who lived in the States for three years and her friends back home started calling her the Yank. Because she sounded American to them. I can't tell you how many people in England that don't know me. You know, I just happened there was a woman on the street in Hartfordshire. Who was like, you will foreign? Yes, I am. Where are you from? My friend said where do you think? And she said, Australia. I was like, no, she went South Africa. Canada? No. I'm from the US. Oh. So I think that there's when you focus precisely on a dialect when you focus precisely on a voice or something like that, it's going to take everything out of the story. It takes the story out of the story takes the audience out of the story takes you out of the story while you sit there turning wrenches when the whole point is the damn story tell the story Yeah, bring the character well I have I have found that less is more for sure. That being said, you know you have to be very careful about things like you know where where would this British character make an R sound rather than an ass sound? You know with the word you know that sort of thing? Yeah. I do. YouTube is a fantastic resource for dialects you know you just can't look specifically for the dialect Don't ever do that you know West Country dialect into YouTube and you'll get some very well meaning educator who will say you know, if you want to do a good West Country dialect, harden your Rs Well no, if you want to really great West Country dialect watchtime team a big blonde hairy dude who's an archaeologist has a fantastic Somerset dialect. Yeah. Pick him up pick them up where you can I mean, the great thing about living in a city like Los Angeles is I'm constantly bending my ears to the way people sound you know?

Toby Ricketts

Yeah, tourist towns and good like that. You can just sit on towns are brilliant that way and and like eavesdrop? Yeah, or um, the other thing, fun thing to do is like find someone who's got an interesting accent to follow them around for a bit, listen to what they say. And then you start you go around and be that person for little bit in that environment and like force yourself to to just go out with that accent. It's not full immersion.

Ray Porter

full immersion is the only way but also, you know, I love hearing them. But then I have to remember this thing. There's a great in Saving Private Ryan. There's that moment between Tom and will Matt Damon where they're sitting there and Matt Damon tells that of what I heard was completely improv story about his two brothers who had been killed. Obviously, we know this in the movie by now. And then he says, I can't remember their faces, I can't remember their faces. I'm thinking and I can't remember their faces. And Tom Hanks, his character says you have to put them in a context. You have to put them in a context, don't try to think about their face, think about what they were doing at a certain time, or remember them. Remember the time that you guys all did this thing, and then you'll see their faces. And that's absolutely true, I believe. And I think the same is true for recalling voices and or dialects put it in a context can be very, very helpful as far as recall, you know, a physical segment

Toby Ricketts

where you hold it in your mouth and your posture. Like yeah, yeah. With characters really. It's really

Ray Porter

Yeah, yeah. Like, I knew a guy I knew a guy who was from Wellington and had lived in America for a long time. So there's this strange kind of mishmash, you know, not everybody sounds like Jacinda. Ya know, as much as I'd like to have her running things here. She's not everybody sounds like her, you know, and the same is true in England. Right? I mean, you know, you sound different from Simon Vance, from dirt mags to from all of my friends, you know, because everybody sounds fundamentally different. I don't know where my dialect is from. I can hear a fair amount of Midwest in it. But that's just for right now. Sometimes there's east coast, and it seems, you know, the it's all these little influences, which makes it all pretty much of a mess. So I say, play the mess.

Toby Ricketts

Yeah. It's a spectrum.

Ray Porter

I love the slice. Yeah. Don't have to be precise. And if you are, it'll sound artificial. Yeah, yeah.

Toby Ricketts

Yeah. Well, fantastic. Well, you have I've taken up so much of your valuable time. I know, but very pleasant. To be very fun. We haven't even talked about whiskey yet, but I'm sure we can

Ray Porter

all enjoy whiskey podcast.

Toby Ricketts

It's a good question. If we serve and whiskey podcast,

Ray Porter

you should do you should do that. To actors talk and slowly get pissed.

Toby Ricketts

Yes. Well, maybe we could make that happen one day.

Ray Porter

Yeah, we gotta get Vance in here for that. Absolutely. Yeah.

Toby Ricketts

Yeah, well, maybe I should just come to the next time I'm in LA, we'll just get down. It's one.

Ray Porter

We'll just have a massive piss up. That'll be brilliant. And you can tell people about it later.

Toby Ricketts

We kind of touched upon my last question, which is, which has to do with like, you know, newbies, people wanting to get into the industry. People love listening to audiobooks, and they're like, I really I just want to do this. I love reading books. I feel like I'm good at characters. What do you say to them? Like how to do the work and how to get the work? Do you have any formed opinions? So it's obviously a very different time from when you started. But he's very different. Now. Do you see any avenues that you would recommend to people who are on that journey? Well,

Ray Porter

there's there's a variety of avenues. I mean, I know that ACX has been very good for a lot of people. It's not been great for some others. So I really can't speak to that. Obviously, just like, you know, being an actor, there's no substitute for acting. You know, somebody's like, I want to be an actress, like, great, go do a play. What do you mean, there's a play happening in a church basement within 15 miles of you, I guarantee it, go do it. You know, the same is true, I think with narration. The more you narrate, the better you'll get, the more comfortable you'll be with it. You know, that sort of thing. And eventually, it'll happen. Yes, sometimes the process would make you want to prescribe riddle into a glacier. It's a lot slower than any of us would like, but it will happen. The one big pitfall that I always bring up with people who wants to narrate audiobooks is you know, I'll say, Go on Audible. Listen to as wide a variety of people as you possibly can to get a sense of what they do. But for God's sakes, do not do an audiobook thinking about what you should sound like. You will get work as you the narrator, not you the sum, total conglomeration of all the popular narrators in the world. Don't try to sound like me. Don't try to sound like brick. Don't try to sound like Vance. Don't try to sound like Hilary Huber, or Aaron Bennett or xe sands or any of these other narrators who you'll see getting awards all the time, Bonnie Turpin, and you know, there's so many incredibly talented people out there. And the one thing that I can say is true about all of them is that they above all sound like them. They don't sound like other narrators. So, you know, anytime you start thinking about what you should sound like you're not doing the work.

Toby Ricketts

Yeah, yeah, same for commercial So, so many people who come and say, I've got a great voice. And it's like, that's not your voice though. Is it?

Ray Porter

Me, I want to I want to take one of your classes because I can't get arrested on commercial voiceover. I can't. I do all these audiobooks, and you know, all this on screen stuff. And I, for some reason, yeah. You know, so. And I've started to I have started because, you know, in the last few years, I realized that I was doing exactly what I said not to do with audiobooks. And I was like, What should I sound like? As opposed to,

you know, fuck it, I'm gonna just sound like me. But it's tough. It's very hard. Well, let you know,

Toby Ricketts

we'll continue that conversation after the interview, because I don't see why you shouldn't you're definitely talented enough, so it's just an access thing. So yeah, well, and but it's, you know,

Ray Porter

if you want to start out doing audiobooks, I mean, obviously, it's a very, very, very busy field right now. So I would say that the place where to go that has, you know, copy that's like ready to go and, and wants recordings of it to start with would be ACX. They're a great clearinghouse for this kind of stuff. They're fantastic. Obviously, have some decent business sense about yourself, so that you do get paid for your work. There's been some horror stories about scams on ACX. You know, yeah, where people just disappear or whatever. So you know, be an adult about it. Don't think about what you should sound like. And don't take anybody's advice that is telling you to buy 1000s of dollars worth of gear, you don't need it right now. Get yourself a good microphone, that's going to probably not be a USB mic. Get a decent microphone, get a decent interface. And used to you don't have to buy new, go on Craigslist, go on gum tree, you know, or whatever the clearing house is, wherever you live. And just get yourself enough gear and a decent environment to record in and then just dammit, start recording, and start narrating.

Toby Ricketts

I wonder if there's an avenue for like peep. There's lots of people who want to be authors, their writing, they've just written their first novel, they haven't gotten a show of actually getting audible studios to pick it up. But like, if you could if there are groups on Facebook of like, of novice authors who want this, like you could both grow up together like that might be an ad

Ray Porter

Could you Could I do see it often in the audiobooks subreddit, where someone will be like, I've just written this thing, or this is my first narration, you know, give it a listen. I don't know what kind of success that has really. I do know that there's a plethora of people on ACX who are like, Hey, I've got you know, this 250 pager and it's not published yet, but I'd love to have it in audio. You know, that sort of thing. The works there. You got to do a little bit of digging before it starts coming to you. But it it is there. Yeah, yeah. So. Yeah,

Toby Ricketts

very nice. Well, thank you so much for your time today. Is there anything we haven't covered that you you wanted to cover? Uh

Ray Porter

huh. No, I can't think so. I do think it's really vitally important for anybody who's starting out to grow a beard and long hair.

Toby Ricketts

Absolutely. Yep. Guarantee big, big top tip.

Ray Porter

You heard it here first.

Toby Ricketts

Well, we're gonna send over descender to run in the 2024 presidential leg. Thank

Ray Porter

you. She gets my vote immediately. What are you guys gonna do though?

Toby Ricketts

I don't know. There'll be there'll be someone else I'm sure even even most right even though most right leaning politician is still well left of center in the States, I'm sure.

Ray Porter

Oh, God mate Yes. You know. Yeah, I'm I'm I on those visas hard like, you know, I'm just gonna come over there and declare asylum. Yeah. Become an asylum seeker in New Zealand.

Toby Ricketts

Fantastic. Thank you so much for your time today report. It's been great to have you on the show.

Ray Porter

An absolute pleasure. Thanks, man.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

VOLIFE Global Voiceover Blog

Interview with Audiobook & Character actor extraordinaire... Ray Porter!