One of the advantages of voice acting is that you can be literally anyone or anything. A different race, not even human–not even biological, a powerhouse, a mouse, even gender isn’t necessarily limiting. Until recently most little boy characters were voiced by adult women. All you have to do is be able to pull off the performance and voice that make us believe the character is a real person. This is true for audio dramas, cartoons, and video games. At least until recently, as the “looks like me” crowd keeps insisting you can’t get buried in a role. People need to see “you”, not the character you’re playing.
Take for example Debra Wilson. The voice actor and mocap actor has done a bunch of video games lately, but even when playing a pre-existing character, like Amanda Waller above or more recently Callisto (a traditionally white character and there’s no reason she has to be voiced by a white woman for the animated character to be white…until the 2020s) in the lambasted recent Marvel’s Wolverine game, it doesn’t look like the character. It looks like her. That’s a bit more acceptable for original characters, but even that isn’t necessary. Gamers are getting annoyed that every character she plays, and she’s good at what she does (no, I’m not making “that” reference), but apparently someone else is disappointed that every Debra Wilson character in games looks like Debra Wilson…namely Debra Wilson herself! Apparently it kind of takes the fun out of playing roles you’d never be able to in physical live acting when the character just looks like you anyway.
BW’s Daily Video> Where Disney/Pixar Went Wrong
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Posted by ShadowWing Tronix on October 16, 2026 in Animation Spotlight, Movie Spotlight and tagged commentary, Disney Entertainment, Disney/Pixar, Pixar.
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