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How Do You Voice Act?
Billy West • 2025-07-01
Dylan Carnahan:Welcome to The Simple Questions Podcast. This is your host, Dylan Carnahan. The question for this episode is, how do you voice act? You will learn in this episode how animated voices are brought to life, how voice actors record for animated shows behind the scenes, and how the voices you hear can actually affect your health. Our guest voiced iconic characters like Fry, Professor Farnsworth, Dr. Zoidberg and Bugs Bunny, brought life to Futurama, Space Jam, Ren & Stimpy, Doug and more, is one of the most versatile and celebrated voice actors in animated history. I introduce to you Billy West. I am in sixth grade, walking around my Spanish class, imitating a gentleman that I believe is named Scott Morris, who was a part of a video series teaching children how to do Spanish. And recently, I came across a memory book from sixth grade, and I had all these people who were saying, oh, I loved your impression of Scott Morris. And that kind of jogged this memory. And I think that's one of the earlier memories I have of personally imitating someone or doing a voice. And so I'm curious, Billy, how did you begin?
Billy West:I was a little freak when I was a kid. There was no word for autism spectrum or ADHD or OCD. There was none of that stuff. It was just like, I was that kid, that kid. And I used to turret out noises and voices. That was the way I expressed myself. You know, most kids were playing and being social with other kids. And I was spitting out reams of the dialogue from movies and television shows. And it's the way I expressed myself. And it always stayed that way. I hated school. I was not very good in school. I couldn't get my mind around anything. I just could not understand anything. I can't tie my shoes to this day. I still can't tie a necktie. You could show me 125,000 times and I still would not be able to do it. I struggle with seat belts to this day. But ask me to do a fucking Fran Drescher impression. That's autism.
Dylan Carnahan:So you obviously have this, I guess, you know, I don't know, how would you describe that? What would you describe that? This, this talent, would you describe as an infatuation? Like, you know, from your perspective, what would you, how would you define that?
Billy West:It's just something to choose with you, I believe. You know, I've talked to other people that are performers that did not have some form of child, you know, trouble in the way of like autism or any of that. But they all kind of felt like they had a feeling for it, but the world they lived in kept telling them, no, this is just, you know, dream, you're dreaming, you'll never get anywhere and it's not practical and, you know, the usual. But but I never listened to anybody because I just, my brain would not even listen to anything. And I lived in my own little world. So I guess it's something that chooses you. You know, it just came by one day and I had to go with it.
Dylan Carnahan:And, you know, a lot of people that, you know, listeners will reflect back on a lot of people, especially, you know, competitors and people that are at the height of a skill set. There's a big distinction, Billy, between, you know, being someone that may like to do voices to doing that for a living. How does that transition occur for you?
Billy West:Well, that was a long road. I, like I said, in school, I did not fare very well. I couldn't understand anything. And I had the days marked to the day I would graduate high school. You know, when I was eight years old, I had it figured out. And it was like a long jail sentence. Everything I learned in school, it's ironic, everything that I ever learned that was supposed to be important would do me absolutely no good in the year 2025. You know, so I should have never even gone to school. I used to watch, in Detroit, when I was growing up, they used to show The Three Stooges before I went to school in the morning. And I went to school with a head full of that stuff. And that's the stuff that would serve me in my adulthood. Nothing in school, none of it. And, you know, I just, I knew how to speak. I understood how to communicate, you know, by role playing. And that is just acting training, is basically what it is. And where you inhabit personalities and personas. And I wasn't schizophrenic. I mean, I was never diagnosed, but I could, I kind of inherently knew what to do as far as performing went. I didn't, I had very little formal training. But I started, when I graduated high school, the first thing I did was start a musical group, because I played guitar and I sang and I got in bands. And that was on stage, you know, playing here, there and everywhere with these guys. And, you know, I used to, when we'd break a string or something like that, I would, you know, we didn't have roadies or anything. And I used to just, the pressure was on me to say something and there'd be a crowd looking at me. So I'd start, I'd launch into these cosmic excursions, you know, like, it was like kind of Robin Williams, if I could describe it in any way close. And his idol was one of my idols, Jonathan Winters. And so there was always a comedy element involved to my thinking and meandering, you know, outside of music. My idol was a guy named Sid Caesar, who used to do dialects and voices. And he was, he was just, he was the most famous guy in television when I was a kid, when I was a little, little kid. I used to watch him and I would spectrum analyze what these people did, these guys, Carl Reiner, Howard Morris, Imogene Coca. They were like gods to me, you know, not sports heroes or anything like that. I just had such an esoteric interest in things. So it was these people and all of the stuff that I learned from watching them would be exactly what I'd wind up to be doing, only vocally. I always wanted to do voice work. I had very little interest in being on television and movies. I just thought, you know, you get lost in the sauce. I felt like if I had a specialty, it would serve me better. You know, being a specialist at something, rather than trying to just do everything, just try things. But when I got a little too old to be playing rock and roll music, they took away my Spandex license in 1978, and I went to comedy clubs. I started going to comedy clubs and doing open mic nights, and nobody told me you had to have an act. So again, I was just pulling stuff out of my ass, and some nights it would be great. It would be unbelievable. And other nights, you go to hell on a twisted metal fireball, and you learn really fast. But the thing was, I was fearless. That's one thing I always had going for me. I had zero fear. I was not afraid to experiment. I was not afraid to fail. And so, I didn't stay with that very long, because it just didn't seem natural to me to be doing, you know, 12, 13 minutes a night, and pretending it every night that I just thought of it. I'd rather just make up stuff, which is the reason I'm not doing it. But after that, I just happened to get into radio in Boston. We were living in Boston. And I grew up with a station there, an FM station called WBCN, and they were progressive. They were FM. They played really, really modern rock and roll stuff for the time. And I'm talking about 1968, 69. And so years later, I wind up, you know, after I stopped going to the comedy clubs, I wound up in radio in Boston. And I used to write and I had the voice, the things that I wrote, you know, if I wrote a skit and I was learning to write comedy, like on the fly. I mean, I just got thrown into the machine and, you know, it was sink or swim. Somebody said, do you, if you want this job, then start, you know, producing content. And I was like, I didn't even know what he was talking about, but I inherently knew what to do once I got behind a tape recorder and they had old tape recorders. I mean, with oxide tape, you probably barely remember that. Splicing blocks, you had to have a straight edge, I mean, a single edge razor blade and a grease pen. And you had to mark where you needed to edit. And then you had to splice, you know, physically. Now everything is digitally, digitally done. But I mean, it was all the hard way. It was doing stuff the hard way, but it was good. It was good training. Because if you could make something cool out of going through all the stuff you had to go through, you felt a sense of accomplishment. And I fell in with some people at that very time that would become really important in my life. The morning show guy liked me, Charles LaCoudera, his name is. And, but I met a guy who I've known for 45 years or so. And when we used to take our lunch breaks, you know, we were fooling around with drugs back then and we'd be high and we sitting around and I said, Eddie, what must it be like to be the guy? You know, to be the one that everybody points to is the example of what's really going on and what's the height of the art and the state of the art? What must it be like? And he goes, we'll never know. And so 45 years later, I call him up because Eddie was partners with Chuck Lorre. Eddie helped create all these shows on television. He was the biggest guy in television comedy. And I called him up one day. I go, Eddie, one of us knows. And but I mean, he said, yeah, well, you know, I mean, we wound up to become like the top of our respective fields. And I just thought that was very, you know, the odds of something like that happening is two guys that just were banging into each other at a radio station going on and going all the way. And so, you know, that's how it all came about. And I started auditioning. I got out, I went to New York. I went to New York to work in radio and I worked for Howard Stern from 1989 to 1995. And, you know, it was the real eye opener. What's Billy talking about, Robin? You know, he never knew what I was talking about. He never knew. I don't know what he's talking about, Robin. What's he saying? You know, and I was like, Jesus. You know, it's like pro wrestling. But I, you know, everything was a learning experience for me. Everything. You know, good, bad and different. It's what points you in your ultimate direction is how many things you can let bounce off you that would normally destroy you.
Dylan Carnahan:Yeah, it seems like there's a lot of, you know, again, that fearlessness you described and a lot of the things that you gravitated or became a part of on your journey ultimately ended up for the better.
Billy West:Yes. You know, and I realized that they didn't really want me at that station. I was getting too much attention and that bode no good for me. You know, it's the price you have to pay for being a superlative. Somebody's going to get you out of there. And, you know, and I didn't care. I had nothing. I just didn't care. I didn't care either way. There was nothing at stake for me. I had no great love for radio at that point. I always did. And then once I was part of it and I took the ride, I finally wanted to get off because I knew that there were other things that I really wanted to do. And thank goodness, because radio is dead. You know, no one wants to be a broadcaster. Everybody wants to be a podcaster. But I mean, it was the most desirable thing you could think of. I mean, the coolest thing you could think of in the old days is like, hey, I'm on the radio. You know, what's cooler than that? But I knew that there were things that were cooler than that. And one of them was auditioning for commercials. And cartoon animated projects. And I started making some headway in New York. I was auditioning. And I wound up working for Nickelodeon. And they introduced in 1992, I think it was, they introduced a three cartoon animation block for Sunday mornings. They wanted to do everything that the other networks weren't doing. Like, they show their stuff on Saturday morning for kids, we're going to do Sunday mornings. You know, that was Jerry Laybourne, this woman that was head of Nickelodeon. She just, she had these ideas. And I auditioned for two of the shows. One was called Doug. And it was a very sweet show. It was, you know, it was really nice. And it had some lessons to be learned. And it didn't shove it down your throat. And it was cute, you know, and kind of innocent. And I remember doing it was like, Didgeridoo.
SPEAKER_3:Hi, it's me, Doug. No one ain't you, you lying loser. You rotten, lousy, lying loser.
Billy West:And, you know, and then there was, well, they're 30 years older now. So you never know how they're going to turn out, you know.
SPEAKER_3:Didgeridoo, today I blew up a courthouse. Whoa, look who it is in my courtroom. Funny, you loser. I knew you were going to be in here one day. You got losers written all over your face.
Billy West:It's so wrong.
SPEAKER_3:You're going to jail, Funny. You're going to jail for 500, no, a thousand years, Funny. Oh yeah, Funny. You're going to be someone's bitch in jail, Funny, every night, oomba, oomba, eww. You know, it's like, oh no.
Billy West:That's never going to happen. Maybe it did, I don't know. But then there was another cartoon called Ren & Stimpy, and I auditioned for that. It was my audition tape that sold the show. I did both voices, and the guy who created the show decided he was going to do the Ren voice, and I didn't give a fat frog's ass who did what, because I had a job. You know, I said, Jesus, I'm going to be doing cartoons. I mean, you know, it's kind of everything I wanted to do. And so I did it for, we were into it for about a year and a half, and he got himself fired from his own show. You know, he was kind of a loose cannon. And so they came back to me and they said, hey, weren't you supposed to do both voices originally? And I said, yeah, I remember auditioning. And they said, we want you to do both. And so then it was, you know, happy, happy, joy, joy.
SPEAKER_3:Hey, Ren, will you button me?
Billy West:Will you shut up?
SPEAKER_3:It's bull. And I said, deal you.
Billy West:And, you know, that lasted, excuse me, for about four seasons. And so did Doug. And then Disney bought the rights to Doug. And they, you know, they came to me and they said, we want you to do it. And they wanted to give me less money for more work. They wanted me to do more for less money. And I said, I wish you the best, you know. And Ren & Stimpy, just very recently, about a year and a half ago, I got involved with recording some new stuff. But I don't know if it's going to come out or if they shelved it or whatever. But I was screaming and yelling like 31, 32 years ago. And I said, you better keep a paramedic in the lobby, you know, because I was a young guy when I did that show.
Dylan Carnahan:Yeah. Kytt, you know, from an outsider, there are going to be a lot of people, you know, that are working different industries, different jobs, and they're going to be listening to how you're talking, Billy, and they're going to just not understand how the voice acting business works. Could you just give us a very surface level? You know, it sounds like you're auditioning for parts. Yeah.
Billy West:You go to do it real. You can't know who's hiring who for what unless you have an agent. It's very difficult to discern where projects are being started and that they're looking for someone. An agent that you hire will set up auditions for you and if you book something, they take 10 percent. That's the business of it. The more you expand your bag of tricks, the better your chances of getting more and more work. When I came to New York, normally it took people like 10, 15 years to even put a dent in things. It took me like two years really to just like rise to the top of it all. And because I was dead serious, I had single pointed conversation, single focus, you know, a crystallized vision of what it was I wanted to do. And I didn't F around. I mean, I just was like a machine. And I called upon everything that I had, you know, that I knew. I even took a scene study class when I went to New York. There was an actor, an actress teacher, she was famous. She taught Marlon Brando how to act, but she had a school in New York City called Stella Adler. And I went there just to take, because I wanted to learn. You know, I had a voice, but I wanted to learn what to do with it. And that involves acting, which I instinctively understood. But, you know, I just thought that I needed to hear it. You know, because I was in a class one day, and the teacher had a bunch of students, and he wanted to test our ranges and our power, vocal power, you know, for strength and stamina. And he had everybody yelling. He said, I want you to yell so the people across the street can hear you, you know, as part of theater training. And he finally got to me, and I opened my mouth and I let out a blast. And he was like this. He was like, my God, you have a voice. I said, tell me something I don't know. I want to learn how to act. Yeah. You know, and so that I didn't stay long after that. You know, I figured, I think I got what I needed. And there were teachers I couldn't do right by, you know, having you do stuff over and over again. You're not getting it. You're not getting it. And I said, OK, well, then I don't get it. You know, I'll succeed anyway, with or without you. You know, you just have to make up your mind about yourself. You can't you can't let stupid technical stuff get in the way of art, because I don't think any great artist ever did. Well, we'll see what happens. Yeah, but that was what I learned to do. And then I auditioned for Ivan Reitman, who was the producer for the first Space Jam movie. Great producer, big, huge body of work, esteemed. And it was from him coming into the Stern Show, he was producing Howard Stern's first movie, and he got a load of me. And he wanted me to audition for the Looney Tunes characters. And so I did. And I wound up being in Space Jam as Bugs.
SPEAKER_3:Ain't I a little stinker?
Dylan Carnahan:That's fantastic. So, Billy, you know.
Billy West:Yes.
Dylan Carnahan:That process right there, you know, going in to audition, all this stuff, you know, you as an actor and how you modulate your voice, how do you create a voice?
Billy West:I guess it's, you know, I wasn't even aware in the very beginning, like when I was a kid, I didn't know that people have superpowers and maybe you're lucky enough to discover it, especially autistic people. There's store rooms upstairs. There's rooms that other people don't have and you don't have the keys to them. And one day you find the key to one of the storage rooms and you open it up and you find out there's all this stuff that you never knew was there or even supposed to be there. And it's just, it's how that condition works. You're very awkward. Depending on what level on the scale of autism, I think everybody is slightly on the scale to tell you the truth. Some more than others. I was on the higher functioning end of autism. But the voices, I mean, you have to, you hear them in your head. You get inspired by other people. And in the beginning, you were trying to mimic what you heard, you know, growing up with cartoons, especially the Looney Tunes. Mel Blank was, you know, he was the person that led the way for everybody else after that. There was another guy named Jack Mercer who was a genius, and he was the voice of Popeye in all the Popeye cartoons. And, you know, yo ho, olive oil, I bring you some flowers.
SPEAKER_3:Woo woo!
Billy West:And he was, he did so much, he wrote episodes, he voiced tons of characters, and nobody knew this about him because he never got credit. Really? They didn't put his name in the credits, which was a thing they loved to do, you know? They didn't even put Mel Blank in the credits, and then one day they finally did. They said, you know, he wanted money, he wanted to get more money, and they said, well, can we do something else for you besides that? And he said, well, you can put my name in the credits. So he was the first one, you know, because they used to view us as the redheaded bastard stepchildren of the industry, and you know, that we weren't real actors. And meanwhile, I know voice actors who can piss circles around stage actors. I really do. And they can do all the things those people can do, except that they can alter their voice. They can become disembodied characters that stand alone just sonically, which is what most actors cannot do. You know, I know they stick them in movies just because, you know, because it's stunt casting. But there are people that were in animated features that had no business being there. Yeah, I always had a problem with that, because they came in at entry level and got paid the most money. And I said, well, gee, wouldn't that be great if the world was like that? I'd show up at a baseball field and have the demand that the Red Sox hire me. Entry level, you know, but it'd be like hiring a highly skilled plumber to come and win the World Series for you. You know, it'd be stupid.
Dylan Carnahan:You know, you did Popeye, and this maybe just came to mind. And I had a friend, Eric Anderson, who I tell people ahead of time who I'm going to interview, and he brought this up. How do different voices impact your health? And I know you did the Popeye, and it sounds very straitless. Can you elaborate on that?
Billy West:There are voices that are wear and tear on your throats, but for somebody like me, I felt like nothing would ever be right with the universe if I couldn't replicate it. And that's what drove me. It's just like, I didn't care. I was willing to wreck my facility. My throat, whatever. I was willing to wreck it for art, you know? And I know it sounds corny to say that there's a bit of suffrage required, but I just didn't care about things like that. To me, those were just technicalities. You know, so what? You can't talk for a month. So what? That's how I felt about everything. But, you know, the most important thing is to not, not how you mimic other characters or other people that did characters, that the real test of your skills and your heart and soul is when someone asks you to create something, which is what happened with Futurama. I went to audition for Futurama and I sat down and I met Matt Groening and David X. Cohen and some of the writers. And I knew that I was going to be auditioning for these two characters. One was an old, old 147-year-old professor and this crustacean doctor. You know, and they just, all they told me about him was to wear his sandals and he's poor. And I thought that was hellaciously funny because I never met a poor doctor in my life. So if that doesn't say loser, nothing does. And that's what Zoidberg was. And Professor Farnsworth was just really old. And I auditioned for them and I would be like, you know, who needs courage when you have a gun?
SPEAKER_3:You lose an autograph?
Billy West:What about Zoidberg? No, no one cares about Zoidberg. They only care about the stupid Fry or the robot. And so they liked the stuff that I did. Luckily, I was hitting all the right notes that day because I was walking over there and I said, you better be on your toes today, Mr. Man. And I went into that room and there was 200 people waiting to audition, including Ryan Stiles. And I said, I'm getting the fuck out of here. I said, that guy will mop the floor with the audition. What am I doing here? You know, I just, but luckily, I stayed.
Dylan Carnahan:How did the, I guess, like creative control you had over those characters differ from maybe other gigs you've had?
Billy West:Let's see. Well, original characters, you get out of it and other people get out of it what you put into it. So it requires a lot of thinking, a lot of skill, a lot of intuition. And then the desire to let it evolve, to inhabit it, to find a new way to do it every time you do it that makes it better, hopefully. But I have no idea that I was going to audition for Philip J. Fry. They just pulled that drawing out at the last minute and said, what do you think about this? And I had nothing prepared. And so I said, Jesus, you know, if I got this, he's the star of the show. He has the starring role. I said, I want it to be a voice that nobody can imitate. And then it dawned on me. I said, I'm going to try and sound like I sounded when I was 25 years old. And that's something no one can imitate, really. You know, because there's nothing to A, B it to. There's nothing to B. You know, I had this, I had this plain vanilla voice, all whiny, nasally and complainy. And, you know, always bitching.
SPEAKER_3:Oh man, I broke a string. Now what am I going to do?
Billy West:And I wanted him to be a project for Leela, because I was a project for a girl. So I was like, what's the matter with you? Just get your shirt. You know, what's the matter? Why do you wear your hair like that? You know, and I was a project. But I was all over the place too, just like Fry. But his heart was in the right place. And I always felt like my heart was probably in the right place for most of my awkwardness.
Dylan Carnahan:Can you walk us through how, you know, what other people do you collaborate with while recording? Is there a sound person or other actors present? Like, can you talk about, I guess, like that collaborative process?
Billy West:Well, you always have a script to work off of. And it tells you, you know, which characters you're playing. And you read it and you kind of prepare an approach, a trajectory. And then there's the director, which is the most important, because, you know, you have to do what that person's looking for, because they have the ultimate overview. And you can try things, you know, they'll say, is there anything you want to try? And sometimes I'll try something and sometimes it'll stay in. But most of the time, you've got to honor the words. And we have the best writers that I ever met in my life. So clever, so brilliant. And Matt Groening, I mean, it's hard to describe him. I mean, I, you know, I met him and I just was, I realized what he had achieved and I kind of looked up to him, you know? And to this day, I've never stopped looking up to him. You know, I just hold him in the highest esteem and but yes, there's also engineers, a recording engineer at those sessions. There's also somebody that makes note of how many takes it took you to do something. Like you try a line and say you did it like seven times. They have to go back and they have to mark the selects, the ones that they really can use. And the others, they just push to the side. And then there's the cast, you know, and most of the time we recorded, it was ensemble, which I felt was, I liked that better than just being alone in a booth, you know, being judge and jury, just sitting there. I liked working with others. I did because it just added another element, another spark of electricity to the air, the environment, and everybody is so wickedly talented and just the nicest people I've ever met, everybody. And so you feel like you're part of a family and you want to do good for everybody. You don't want to just like say, I crossed the finish line in that session, you know, first. It's not even like that. And there's no competition. I mean, I hold everybody. You know, I'm in awe of the people I work with. I mean, a lot of people don't know what it's like to go to work in the morning and open the door and you walk into a room full of genius level performers. And so I consider myself to be real, real fortunate, real lucky.
SPEAKER_4:Yeah.
Dylan Carnahan:I'm curious. You know, I want to go back to this and especially think about the takes, right? You brought up the takes and indicating.
Billy West:Yes.
SPEAKER_4:You know, how, how do you?
Dylan Carnahan:You know, and you mentioned early about replication being of a significance. You know, what are some ways that you ensure that you create or you are able to replicate a voice, maybe if you're returning to a role?
Billy West:Well, as far as approach, you really, you know, you have to work to not be derivative. Because when I think about it, almost everything under the sun has been done or, or approached or, or referenced in some way. And so when you're doing your own characters, you just have to be consistent. You have to, it's not about finding the voice. It's like when we are, when they cancel the show and we're not working for a couple of years and then we come back somehow after five years or whatever. It's up there. Every character has a musicality, a certain sound to it and you can't forget that. It's a cadence. It's not so much the voice. It's like if I was going to do the voice of Yogi Bear and I couldn't use words, you would know who it was because of the cadence, because of the musicality of the character. You would go, oh, that's Yogi Bear. Every character has a musicality. All you have to do is remember that and then the voice falls into place.
Dylan Carnahan:That's very interesting. I appreciate you sharing that. That's very interesting. Sure. You have such a large body of work. Again, a lot of things I've experienced, you need exposure. So this may be someone's first time being exposed to the fact that people can get paid to voice act. That's something to do. So I'm curious, Billy, what advice do you have for aspiring voice actors?
Billy West:Let's see. It's a business of 95% unemployment, and your job is looking for work.
SPEAKER_3:If you can get past that.
Billy West:No, I mean, you have to have passion and you have to be inspired. That's where it starts. I don't care how much of it or how little of it you have. If you have an inkling or a thought to go in that direction, you have to try it. It's like any other thing. You don't want to wind up missing the boat years later and sitting watching the sunsets going, I wonder what would have happened if I had tried this or if I had gone out that day and tried to get this. I wonder what would have happened. You don't want to be that I wonder what would have happened person. You have to act on these things that are active inside you because you might be a genius for all anybody knows. You'd be the last one to know it because that's how it works. But you have to find out if you're inclined and you have a proclivity for certain things. I don't just mean voice stuff. I mean any kind of field where hopefully they're seeking superlatives and not just people that can do the job, like good enough for government work. I mean, you won't survive if you're not good, unless you're a star already and then no one cares if you're good or not. They just put your name in there. Oh, yeah. Well, guess what we got? Guess what we got?
Dylan Carnahan:I'm glad that you shared that. I think it's evident based upon this conversation, your level of passion for what you do. I think it's really evident in your journey to that, what you gravitate toward and where you're at now.
Billy West:But I never played anything small. I always played everything big because you can't inspire anyone else if you're invisible. You have to have an impact for you to inspire someone else. You have to have your character work had to have been impactive or big enough for someone to go, hey, listen to that. Holy shit. Wow. And then the inspiration for others, they go, that turns me on. I want to be part of that. I want to do that. You know, that's the natural order of things. And I find out, you know, when I go to all these Comic Cons, I talk to thousands of people. And there's so many voice people. Some of them are actually having careers and are voicing things and are getting gigs that said they wouldn't have done it if it wasn't for me. So that makes me feel really good, you know, that somebody was inspired to that degree to take action and change their life and change other people's lives.
Dylan Carnahan:No, that's definitely something to feel proud of. That's an amazing thing. And I'm sure that that probably feels very interesting to hear people, you know, divulge that to you.
Billy West:Yeah, I'm totally moved by that and touched by it. Because when I think about it, it's like you serve the greater good if that's what's going on. You know, that others can find their way or follow, you know, your lead. Because I had to do it. I mean, I used to look at people that were established. There just weren't all that many of them in the old days. There was a handful. And when I first came to Hollywood, there was about eight of us that were getting all the jobs because there was nothing that we couldn't do. You know, someone said, hey, be a woman today. Oh, okay. You know, no problem. Hey, be a talking toilet. Oh, okay. No problem. You know, it's just it was never a problem. And everybody had the facilities to execute it. But now there is a big emphasis on recording and doing voices and being a voice actor. You know, I'm glad it happened. I mean, but but AI is going to put us all out of business. I hate to say it. You know, it's it's awful.
Dylan Carnahan:Can you can you dig into the the evolution of things? You know, how you brought up kind of this, hey, pull you in and go, hey, this is a character we're thinking of. Billy can what do you what do you got? To to now that you you have like, again, the increased technologies made things a lot more accessible. How have things changed?
Billy West:Things haven't changed that much technically. But but what happened was because of the Internet, the producers started wanting to hire people because of the amount of followers they had on TikTok or Twitter or and and to me that is the antithesis of art and the creative process because you're not hiring the best person for the assignment. You're just you know, you're sticking somebody in there. It's like somebody who's a nepo baby or something. You know what I mean? It's like they got it. It's already built in baked into the cake that they have all these people. And that's ultimately what those producers are looking for is eyeballs. And I always thought it was stupid. And I thought it couldn't stand because the art will go down the drain. It's just it just absolutely will happen when you don't get the best people.
SPEAKER_4:Yeah.
Billy West:You know, it's not it's not a you can't play the home game. You know, I mean, it's like, if you love Gary Oldman, and you run around trying to look like Gary Oldman, and you want to sound like Gary Oldman, and you work to be to be able to do anything Gary Oldman can do. The world already has a Gary Oldman.
Dylan Carnahan:Yeah.
Billy West:You know, and and so it doesn't do anybody any good. You have to you have to develop and and grow as an artist or a performer. The more you learn about life, the better off you are. The more wisdom that comes from your experiences and you become seasoned. What I really like is when there's these really young people that just instinctively have, you know, like like some of the young shucks, Wednesday Addams. I'm trying to think of her name, Jenna Ortega.
Dylan Carnahan:Yeah, Jenna.
Billy West:Yeah, and I look at her and I go, how can you be that brilliant in 24 years, you know? God bless her. And I get excited when I see that stuff because that's the way it should be. Somebody should be able to walk in that room and blow people away. There shouldn't be any mediocrity involved with art. You know, I just, I'm not a snob. I just, I come from old school.
Dylan Carnahan:And I just, it seems like you have a lot of, I want to make sure I articulate this the best of my ability, of, you know, pride in this skill set and that you've dedicated a lot of time and you've acquired a lot of ancillary skills and you've had a lot of experiences that have culminated to where you are right now.
Billy West:I'm also in good company. Like I said, originally when I came to town, there was about eight people that were doing all the work. And they're all my friends. I got to know them. I got to work with them hundreds of times. There's new people now and then that break the barrier and get in. And it's like they go, I can't believe I'm sitting here with you. You know, I idolized you. And all I could hear was me telling that to Jackson Beck, who was the voice of Bluto in the Popeye cartoons. And he was the voice on, before there was television, he was the narrator of Superman on the radio. And Jackson Beck, I told him, I said, Mr. Beck, I can't believe I'm just in this session with you. I just can't believe it. And he goes, well, where you been? We've been saving a seed for you. You know, and I find myself saying that to younger people. Where you been? You know, we've been waiting for you.
Dylan Carnahan:That's, that's awesome. That's a great memory. I appreciate you sharing that and kind of the-
Billy West:Sure, sure.
Dylan Carnahan:Billy, what's the best way for people to learn more about you?
Billy West:Well, there's IMDB and there's, you know, I'm on Twitter and I'm also, I have a Facebook, you know, and I talk to people. I'm not above chatting with people. It's just, there are some people that go nutty and want to pick a fight with you for some unknown reason. You know, there's a lot of angry little dudes out there. I don't know where they're all coming from, you know, but that's the way it is. But I wrote a book during the pandemic. I sat here and I said, I'm not sitting here for two years doing nothing. You know, I can't, you know, we weren't allowed to go to the studios because of the pandemic. And I'm sitting home and I said, I started writing and I said, I know a lot of things. And I have a lot of stories about my life. And I said, no one wants to read about how great you're doing. You know, nobody wants to read about how good your life is going. That's just, you know, it doesn't ring quite sincere. But they want to know where you came from. And my beginnings, I realized that it's an interesting story because if you have the guts, if I had the guts to write what happened to me, I think that people would find it fascinating or interesting or relate to it somehow because the same things happen to them. I began to write this book and I realized, you know, I mean, I took my first beating in utero. You know, that was my introduction to the world. My mom introduced, you know, my mom came home and announced that she was pregnant and my father snapped and went nuts and beat the shit out of her around the kitchen and kicked her in the stomach trying to kill me. So that was, you know, that was my first experience as a being that was gonna come into the world. And it never got better after that. My dad was psychotic, drunk, crazy, abusive, physically abusive. I was the whipping boy because I was the oldest. And he thought I was stupid because again, there was no autism. There was no, oh, he's, you know, he's neurodivergent. What? What does that mean? You know, no one even knew. And so I just I took it left and right. I was like a punching bag. And, and I, many, many times, I felt like I was going to shatter like glass as a child. But, but something, something held me together. Some, some lucky spirituality or something. I had an imaginary friend. And I think it was invented out of necessity. Someone to talk to, you know, I was a loner. I didn't relate to very many people, especially with my, my strange interests, my narrow interests. Yeah.
Dylan Carnahan:Billy, that, that is, that's, those are some heavy things. And, you know, again, those are the, those are, that's raw, that's real, right? And so I'm glad that you shared that, shared that, that's, that's important.
Billy West:And that stuff, you know, even if you survive it, you spend the rest of your life cutting through scar tissue. But I made it worse when I was in my twenties, you know, playing in bands, I began drinking. And then I discovered drugs and I was a mess. I was like, I was a real, real mess. And I was suffering inside, angry and hurt and afraid of everything and everybody. And I couldn't understand it because by nature, I was fearless. You know, my spirit, I was fearless. I wasn't afraid to try things. I wasn't afraid to talk to people or, or look them right in the eye and everything. I didn't have problems that way. But these shattering experiences just chiseled away at the self-esteem so greatly that it took forever to try and rebuild, you know, to reconstitute after being disintegrated in childhood.
Dylan Carnahan:Man, you know, and now to think that again, you're having conversations with people just like you had conversations on your way up and that people are reaching out and they're saying, hey, you know, you inspire me to do this. And so it's what you do with that, isn't it? It's what you do with those experiences. It's what you do with those feelings that really is what you control and makes the difference. And Billy, I'm very, very glad the decision you've made. And I think it's impacted not only just your life, but the lives of other people that have been exposed to your work.
Billy West:Well, I thank you for that. I think that I think there's a lot of people that stuff like this has happened to. And one of my charities that I that I favor is Save the Children, because it helps children that are victims of abuse sexually, violence. I had all of it happen to me twice before I was 10. And so I want people to know that you're not made out of breakaway glass, you know, like a beer bottle in a movie that just... You're not made of that. You're made out of iron, because that's what you were meant to be. And the only way anybody can break through is if you let it and you cave and you just feel sorry for yourself. It requires a lot of courage to straighten up and fly right, as the old song used to say. Whether it's overcoming addiction or overcoming the poor me from being a child, oh, poor me, I get the shit beat out of me every day. And if it wasn't at home, it was at school because for being a weirdo. But you weren't meant to break. I maintain that. I maintain that we're stronger than that, because we're not just our physical body, we're not just our ego or our feelings. We're not just that, we have a spirit and a soul. And everybody knows what the mind wants, and everybody knows what the body wants. But the spirit is looking for meaning. And that's what moves you forward is like, what does it all mean? How do I how do I fit in this picture? What is it that I can do? You know, as I pass through here, what is it that I can do that's not selfish? How can I be more selfless or how can I give more of myself? You know, so that was the idea of wanting to be involved with art.
Dylan Carnahan:Billy, that was a very powerful message. That was very powerful. And with that, I have nothing left to do, but to thank you for sharing your deeply rich knowledge and your time today, sir.
Billy West:Oh, it's a real pleasure. I'm glad to talk to you and we can do it again, you know.
Dylan Carnahan:That wraps up our conversation with Billy. We talked about what it's really like inside the voice acting industry, insightful advice for anyone dreaming of a voice acting career, and a powerful reminder that we're all made of something much stronger than glass. Go to this episode's show notes to see any resources Billy mentioned during our episode. And lastly, subscribe to the Simple Questions Podcast to get notified when our latest episodes are released. Thank you for listening and remember to keep asking questions.