Interview with Tara Strong on Her Voice Acting Career

Hey, this is Sari, and you're listening to the

GeekCast Radio Network of Podcasts. Hello, and

welcome to the special ToonCast and All Things

Transformers interview of Tara Strong. I'm your

host, TFG1 Mike, and joining me is Jenny C.,

who I know mostly from Earth2 .net, the show.

Hello, Jenny. Hi, Mike. How are you? I'm pretty

good. How are you? Pretty good. What have you

been up to lately? Mostly work -related stuff,

to be honest. It's a busy time of season for

me. So, lots of university stuff. related reporting.

That's about it. How about you? Just keeping

busy with this podcasting thing. This will actually

be the, I believe, the fourth or fifth interview

I've done. A while ago, I sent out a bunch of...

My buddy Steve, who runs the podcasting network

that we have with me, I try... Like, if there's

somebody I know that people like... and say a

special, like, say Christmas or a birthday is

coming up, if I can get an interview with that

person, I will do it. Sure. Or I will try to.

And Steve's birthday last year was in June. I

wasn't able to get David Kaye interviewed until

December. Oh, boy. You know, at least it still

happened. And then I had sent Miss Strong, you

know, Tara Strong a message asking for an interview,

and I'm thinking, okay, well... because I was

doing Powerpuff Girls research for our upcoming

episode of ToonCast, Powerpuff Girls, when we

reminisce on that, and I never knew that she

was the voice of Bubbles. Never. And when I first

started listening to Earth2 .net, and I first

heard you on the show, I'm like, wow, she sounds

just like Bubbles. You're the first person to

ever say that, but I suppose I can see the connection.

And so I sent Miss Strong a message asking her

for an interview after I did the research. And

I was like, oh, well, it'd be kind of cool if

I did this with Jenny since she is a fan of Bubbles

and a fan of Powerpuff Girls in general. Yeah,

yeah, totally. Yes, so that will be the interview

that you will hear next. Hello, everyone. This

is Michael Blanchard, and I am joined with my

friend and fellow podcaster, Jenny C. Hello,

Jenny. Today we have a super awesome privilege

to interview Tara Strong. Yes, that's right.

Bubbles from the Powerpuff Girls is on the line

with us. Hello, Tara. Hi. How are you? I'm good.

How are you? Pretty good. One of the reasons

why I wanted to do this interview was coming

up on ToonCast as one of our podcasts that we

do here on the Geekcast Radio Network. We are

going to be reminiscing on the Powerpuff Girls.

Right. Well, pulling research for that show,

I realized, I looked at the cast list, and I'm

like, wait, Tara Strong was the voice of Bubbles?

Dang, I never knew that. So that's one of the

reasons why that you're here with us. Also, it's

been a couple of months, but Jenny just had a

birthday, and I wanted this to be a late birthday,

it was supposed to be early Christmas present

at the time for her. She is a huge Bubbles fan,

aren't you, Jen? Nice. Yes, I am. I'm a big part

of a girls' fan in general, but Bubbles in particular.

Well, happy birthday, Jenny! Oh, that was awesome.

So, can you tell us a little bit about your current

projects? Is there anything that you can tell

us that you're currently working on that we might

look forward to seeing from you in the future?

I think everybody will be real excited about

a new show that's happening at Cartoon Network.

It's a creation of Gamby Tarkovsky, who, you

know, was a creative with Powerpuff Girls, one

of them, or one of the executives at least. And

this is all from his brain, and it's called Symbionic

Titan. And it's just a really, really cool show,

and the artwork's really beautiful. And I'm not

sure when that's slated to start. Maybe if we

do a little Google on the Cartoon Network Symbionic

Titan, you'll see it. That one's very exciting.

I'm actually going to be heading up to Vancouver

to start the new My Little Pony series tomorrow.

And we're still doing Chowder a little bit, and

we're still doing Fairly Oddparents, some pick

-ups and some, you know, movies of the week stuff

on that. I'm trying to think of other exciting

things right now. I guess that's it right now.

I'm doing a fair bit of commercial work, too.

I'm the voice of Payless and the Bad Girls Club.

I mean, I've seen that stuff every single day,

but it's been good. Yeah, you stay very, very

busy. Yeah. Oh, I know what else. The Superhero

Squad show, that's ongoing, and people seem to

be really liking that show. Who do you play in

that? There's the witch, Scarlet Witch. Okay.

And then, I want to see, like, three other recurring

characters on that. There's like an invisible

woman character, and then there's this little

robot that the Scarlet Witch hangs out with.

Herbie. I can't remember which other ones I'm

doing. I mean, that show is like so much fun,

and we end up doing like three, four voices in

each show. Right, right. For those of our listeners

who may not know that much about you, where did

you grow up? I grew up in Toronto, where I started

actually. doing all kinds of acting as well as

animation. My first show was Hello Kitty, which

I did with Cree Summer. I was Hello Kitty and

she was Catnip, which was the bad kitty. So that

was there. We work together all the time now,

so it's kind of fun. Okay, well you just kind

of answered my next question. What got your voice

acting career started, which was that show, would

you say? Or was there something before then that

you... Kind of tell us how you fell into the

whole voice acting thing. Was it something you

always wanted to do, or was it something that

you just kind of fell into? I never really knew

that I wanted to do cartoons. In fact, the only

one in our business that really knew that, I

think, is Tom Kenny, SpongeBob. Other than that,

we all were actors and singers, and most voiceover

people are singers because they need to have

a good ear. And I was performing since I was

pretty young, and I always did silly voices,

but I didn't know necessarily that I was going

to make a career out of doing voiceover until

I did Hello Kitty, and then after that had a

pretty steady booking ratio before I moved here.

So I kind of fell into it, but not completely

off a desk job. It was sort of the natural progression

when you're doing acting and singing and improv

and stuff like that. A lot of people think, oh,

you just get into the room and speak. You have

to know your acting beats, and you have to be

able to play and be silly and try out different

characters and different sounds and be creative.

Going back to what I did read on, I believe it

was IMDb, that you did start in the theater.

Did that experience at all help you transition

to voice acting, or was it just completely, totally

separate? Well, I think any performing that you

do helps you with other areas of performing and

certainly keeps your chops sharp. theater that

I was doing was musical theater, so it was singing

and using my ear, but I would say that voiceover

as an entity is a totally different animal, and

a lot of times we'll have some on -camera people

come in and really freak out because they think

it'll be easy, and they think they know what

to do based on other acting experiences, and

it really is something completely different.

Right, yeah. Which do you prefer, voice acting

or on -camera work? That is a good question.

I'd say that I really love doing both for different

reasons. Like, my kids are all excited because

I have a part on Big Time Rush, and they've been

really advertising that a lot. I play, like,

the hot teacher in one episode, and they're like,

Mommy, I wish you were on more of that. So it's

kind of fun, you know, for me now and for the

kids to see me, and that part's fun. But they

love, you know, The Fairly Odd Parents and Ben

Penn, and they love my shows, too. I mean, I

really do love... everything, I feel pretty blessed

that I get to do a lot of different things. Very

cool. Jenny, why don't you ask her the next question?

Sure. I'm going to be focusing on mostly Powerpuff

Girls, and there's lots of years of supporting.

Can you reveal any particular behind -the -scenes

moments that were especially memorable? Oh my

gosh, we really had so much fun doing that show.

And myself and EG, who played Better Cup, we

would tease each other relentlessly. I mean,

if they ever decided to sell the tapes of what

went on in between takes, it would be pretty

crazy. I mean, really funny moments for me, like,

you know, Bubbles can talk to squirrels. And

for whatever reason, that meant that I would

be putting my hands up to my cheeks and making

these cute little squirrel faces. Tom Kenny was

like, is that how you talk to squirrels? And

it's just kind of funny when voice actors do

something physical with their bodies, because

obviously it doesn't matter what your faces are

doing. So that was kind of fun. He's like, does

that help you do the... I guess so. I guess I

need to put my hands up to my face and look like

a squirrel. We really laughed so, so, so much,

and Tom was always improvising. He always had

a false start. Like, every single time he said

the city of Townsville, he'd get, like, you know,

half a line into the sentence and then he'd have

to start again. It was like there was all these

sort of things that just happened every single

time. And me and E .G. were always, you know,

being very silly. And Catherine, who played Blossom,

was always very well behaved, which is funny

because that's so her character. Yeah. Yeah,

the sense of fun definitely came through in the

final product, for sure. Yeah, I always tell

people if it's fun, then you're going to get

a better show. Yeah. What's your favorite memory

overall from Powerpuff Girls? Hmm. My favorite

Powerpuff Girls memory. That's a good question.

Well, you know, my husband and I actually wrote

a couple episodes and one of them they ended

up doing. So that was kind of fun for me to see

an idea that we had sort of come to life. And

I loved the musical episodes that we would do.

We always, whenever we'd go back in, we'd sing

love, love, love, love, love, love. That was

one of my favorites. Yeah, it was the only time

we got to sing and do some fun stuff. That was

cool. And I think when Bubbles thought she was

Mojo Jojo, that was pretty fun for me. My nanny

came in, and she was crying so hard. She was

laughing. She was crying so hard. She was like,

Tara, yesterday on the board with girls, and

Bubbles thought she was Mojo Jojo. And she was

just, like, losing it. She was laughing. It was

so fun. What do you miss the most? I'd say I

miss the camaraderie. It was a really great,

solid, fun cast. I miss that show a lot. I wish

they could have done more. I had tons of fan

mail. I'd say I get more fan mail for that and

for more Teen Titans than anything else. I think

they both had a lot more years in them. My kids

watch it now on Boomerang and there's no toys

anywhere. I think they're kind of missing the

boat on a whole new generation of people that

would be buying stuff and liking it. I mean,

if you look at something like Hello Kitty that's

sustained over years and years, there's certainly

no reason why we couldn't do, you know, more

Powerpuff Girls and more Titans. And I think,

you know, the fans really want it. And we had

so much fun. It was just a tremendous amount

of fun. Yeah, because I had that special episode

not too long ago that was sort of commemorative,

if I remember. Okay. Yeah, I mean, I got letters

all day on Facebook. I have, you know, probably

mostly fans, and they're all like, why can't

we have more? It was so good, it was so good.

I mean, the numbers were really high for people

watching the special and then had a whole new

resurgence in people liking the show. And, you

know, people often say to me, can't you do more?

And I'm like, I'd love to do more. It's not in

my hands, but I certainly would love to do more.

Was there anything about that show that was particularly

challenging as far as work goes? No, I mean,

the only thing that they sometimes have to direct

me is that I was too high, because sometimes

Bubbles, when she gets, you know, excited, she

talks in such a high register that the director

would be like, um, Tara, the dogs in the neighborhood

are coming by, and you have to pick them down

a little bit. But it wasn't really so demanding

or challenging. It was just fun. And then one

more question. At the time the Powerpuff Girls

were on the air, which voice actor in the industry

did you admire the most? Hmm. You know, I always

have such a soft spot in my heart for Frank Welker.

I think he's sustained such a long career, and

he really is just such a nice, nice guy. And

I would say if I had to pick someone that deserves

a star on the Walk of Fame for doing voiceovers,

it's him. There's a lot of people that can't

necessarily sustain over the years, and I think

it's because... You have to be aware of what's

going on around you and the different trends

in the industry, and I think he's just one of

those people that transcends everything. On top

of it, he's just the nicest guy in the world.

I'd say he's someone I always really adored.

How were you informed that Powerpuff Girls was

coming to an end? Did you think it did everything

it could have at the time? I mean, you've said

that you wanted it to go on, but at the time,

was there a definitive ending to the show? It's

been a while since I've seen it. You know, they

just sort of tell us at one of the sessions or

we know a season's wrapping up and then we're

not sure if there's going to be a pickup. And

I would say they could still be doing it. I don't

see... I mean, I would say if they were smart

and wanted to make money on toys and purses and

backpacks and... They could still be going. I

just don't... I'm not sure why they would have

pulled the plug when they did, but it seemed

to me that we could, like I said, still be doing

that show. Yeah. Jenny, I think the next two

are yours. You had another one, but... Oh, did

I? Over the course of the show, did you ever

watch the cartoon back? Do you hear what you

sounded like? Oh, yeah. I love Powerpuff Girls.

I always watch that show. I mean, I really love

that show. I watch it all the time. That's cool.

And how easy or hard was it to keep track of

which voice went with which character? Do you

have a technique for that? You know, that's not

really ever a problem unless it's the audition

stage still because a lot of times for the auditions

we'll do several different choices and then we

don't remember which one they liked or which

one they picked. when you get to the session,

but by the time a character already has an existence

and a life, I don't know why, we just don't mix

them up. It's kind of like, you know, I remember

one time I was doing the Rugrats and this guy

drew a really funny drawing of Baby Dill doing

some crazy stuff and he gave it to me and I'm

like, and he did it so quickly and I said, how

do you do that? And he said, how do you do what

you do? And I just went, okay, I get it. You

know, it's just like, those of us that work,

that much, it's just sort of by nature that we

can sort of keep them in check. You know, and

I've been on auditions where they're like, can

you do Timmy on this one from The Fairly Oddparents?

And I'm like, no, Timmy is alive on The Fairly

Oddparents, so we can tweak him a little bit.

But each character is, you know, they're their

own entity in my brain once I've created them.

So you have like, you sort of compartmentalize

each one, sort of. Yeah. I'm going to skip down

one question because I think we've already asked

that. Which voice actors that you have worked

with do you still keep in contact with? Oh, I

see them every day. Yeah? It's pretty much the

same, you know, people that you see all the time

that work consistently. So we're all friends

and we all, you know, get excited when someone

books a job because we know we'll see each other.

Yeah, I see most of my friends in the business

at least once a week, just at different jobs

or different studios. Right. You recently were

the voice of Sari Sumdak from Transformers Animated.

Did you have to recreate that? Did you have to

create that voice, or did you adapt it from other

little girls' voices that you've done in the

past? She's probably someone pretty new. You

know, even if you're doing, like, a slight variation,

like, I play, you know, several different 10

-year -old boys, so I try to keep Ben 10, you

know, older than Timmy, and then I'll do Terrence,

like, on Foster's Home, like, really mean and

even gruffer than some of the other characters.

So even though it's, like, still me, there's

just a tweak in it enough that the fans won't

go, oh, my gosh, you're doing the same voice

on that. I don't like to do the same things on

each show. So Sari is someone I'd say that I

haven't really done. You know, like, obviously

Ravens has a very different sound. Even Batgirl

is kind of lower. She's a little more nasally.

She's a little younger. I don't think she really

exists on any show. Yeah. Yeah, it's funny when

the... Oh, boy, I just lost my train of thought.

Oh, the Ben 10 thing you mentioned. It's funny.

When I was doing the research for this interview,

I'm like, she's the voice of Ben 10? Wow, I never

knew that. And during the research, I found a

line that said, I guess it's your tagline or

something, you're mainly known for doing young

boys' voices. Well, I mean, because, you know,

if you're going to hire a real 10 -year -old

boy or a 12 -year -old boy, which would be really

risky, you know that stuff's going to change

pretty soon. And when you're bringing in real

kids on a show, you know, you have to deal with

school and stuff. So they actually really like

to deal with adults. And I think for the most

part, women can sound more like little boys than

men. Because quite often if you hear a little

boy talking and they kind of sound like little

girls, a lot of them are sort of interchangeable.

And, yeah, it just ends up happening a lot. That's

really interesting. Oh, yeah, that's very interesting.

Tell us your thoughts and experience in attending

BotCon. Because I'm a big Transformers geek,

and I've never been. What is your opinion of

VotCon? Well, I think it's nice for the Transformers

fans because they're such amazing, strong fans

of that show that they have their own convention,

and they really know everything about the show,

and I have to say I was overwhelmed by how welcoming

they were because I know initially, and in fact,

some of the fans told me that they weren't crazy

about the idea that there was a human on the

show. And then a couple of them kind of guessed

that it was going to turn out that Sari was not

entirely human. And they said, you know, you

just played her so well and so real that we end

up welcoming her, even though the idea of it

wasn't something they'd originally liked. So

the fans, for me, is what makes it all worth

it. You know, they were extremely welcoming and

complimentary. In general, I prefer it not being

Cincinnati. It was a little far for me to go

without the kids. I was kind of over the sightseeing

thing immediately, no offense, Cincinnatians,

but maybe next time we can go somewhere a little

more fun or a little closer to home if they ever

invite me back. You didn't just attend the one

in California last year? No. Really? I mean,

I don't always get invited because I'm not really,

you know, a transformer. Sorry, I was only on

that particular run. But, yeah, I mean, I wasn't

invited. If I had been invited, I'd probably

show up. I like meeting the fans. I mean, the

fans are why we have shows, you know? Do you

have a strangest fan experience, whether it be

at BotCon or Comic -Con or anything like that?

There was a convention. It was, I think, anime.

primarily, but they did have some cartoon people

and a girl asked me to sign her butt. That's

going to go up there with one of the strangers.

I mean, she had a lovely butt. It was just kind

of strange. I did sign it, yeah. It was a nice

butt. That's awesome. Okay, and the last question

is yours, Jenny. Sure. What's your favorite role

out of all the voice acting roles that you've

done? That's a tough one. I really do have a

soft spot for Bubbles. I love doing Kimmy from

Fairly Odd Parents. I love Raven because she

was so different. I really love when I booked

the Little Mermaid sequel because I got to sing

with the original Little Mermaid. That was really

exciting for me. I've had so many that it's really

hard. I'm so blessed that I've had so many good

ones that it's hard to pick. And plus, if I do

make a choice, then the producer's going to get

mad that I didn't choose his show, so I can't

do that. Yeah, that was one of the things that

I've read in the research, was that when you

met Jodi Benson, you almost cried in person or

something. Oh, yeah, I burst into tears. She

was like, are you okay? I was like, I've just

loved you for so long. I mean, I don't know what

little girl didn't want to be the mermaid, but

it was pretty fun for me. All right. So you want

to, before we close this out, you want to remind

everyone about your upcoming projects, and we

would like to thank you for joining us. Thank

you so much. So, like I said, we would like to

thank Tara Strong for taking the time to chat

with us in this special ToonCast All Things Transformers

interview. You can catch her on Cartoon Network.

What is the name of that new show that's coming

out? Symbionic Titans. Semionic Titan. Okay,

so thank you very much, Tara. Hang on the line.

We're going to get some clips from you, and we

will talk to you later. Sounds great. All right.

Thank you. Hey, this is Sari, and you guys should

check out all things Transformers with Steve,

Megatron, and TFG1 Mike. It's a cool show. We

are back, and we just interviewed Tara Strong.

Wow, that was amazing. She was really cool. Yeah,

she was very cool. Even though it's only like

a 20 -minute interview, And I asked her beforehand,

before we were able to bring you on the line,

I asked her how much time she had, and she just,

well, obviously, you know, people can't see a

shrug in the audio, but, you know, she's just

kind of like, you know, let's just do whatever

we can do. So that was pretty cool of her. Yeah,

it was really great of her. She wished you a

happy birthday in Bubbles' voice. I know, that

was awesome. I wasn't expecting that at all.

Yeah, even though Bubbles, or not Bubbles, even

though your birthday was a couple months ago,

you know, it's just, I'm glad I'm doing this

podcasting thing because it's so great to be

able to talk to voice actors. I never thought,

my wildest dreams, if you told me when I was

five, six years old back in the 80s, you know,

saying that 20 years from now you're going to

interview the voice of Lion -O, which I did previously

on this, on ToonCast. It was like, yeah, right,

you know. Just, you know, shrug your shoulders

at somebody like, yeah, okay, sure I am, uh -huh,

you know. And then you did, so there you go.

It's just great. I actually, I will go ahead

and spoil this now because I already pretty much,

I haven't spoiled who the interview is with,

but when I was thinking up promos for, because

I asked her if she would do some, you know, promos

for some of our shows, and she said, yeah, sure,

fine. So I wrote out some promos, and I'm thinking,

okay, well, you know, I love World's Finest Podcast,

and just, you know, so I figure, okay, well,

I didn't realize she was the voice of Batgirl.

until I did the research. So I had her do a couple

of clips in Batgirl's voice for Mike and James.

Sent them to Mike the other night. By the time

this airs, it'll be a few nights ago. He sent

me an email back. He's like, ah, that's just

awesome. Thank you so much. I'm like, yeah, no

problem. But yeah, that was just... Usually when

I do interviews, I'm trying to get all my geekiness

out. That's why we do these intro -outros. So

we speak out on the person as we're doing it.

You know, and usually after, you know, when I

do the outro, I'm like, just basically speak

just like, wow, that was so awesome. It was.

It was, because when she was doing the promos

beforehand, because I had already sent her, she

just printed it out, I guess, the stuff I sent

to her through Facebook. And, you know, she didn't

even stop. She didn't even stop to take a breath

on the promo. She just switched from Bubbles

to Sari Somdak from Transformers Animated to

Batgirl. It was like, wow, how do you do that?

She's been doing it for a long time, so she's

a pro. Would you like to tell everybody about

your recent addition to the family? Oh, yeah.

I adopted a two -and -a -half -year -old cat.

About two months ago, actually right before my

birthday, so I guess you could say he's sort

of a birthday gift to myself. And he's an all

-black, long -haired cat. His name is Weevil,

which comes from a character from Veronica Mars,

which I'm a big fan of. So, yeah, he's here,

and he's kind of standoffish, so he hides a lot.

But he's starting to get used to me, and he'll

come out. He loves eating tuna, I've learned.

That's been my trick to get more contact with

him. Yes, he is the ninja kitty. He is very elusive.

You can't hear him stalking around at all. He

had a collar with a bell when I first brought

him home that they put on him at the shelter.

Somehow, I'm still not sure exactly how he got

it off, but he managed to slip it off. So now

he can, you know, slink around undetected in

true ninja fashion. Now, he's an inside cat,

so did you have him declawed? Oh, no. No, he

has all declawed. I have a scratching post that

I got for him that he makes good use of, and

he's not one to really attack the furniture,

and frankly, my furniture is from Ikea and not

that expensive, so if he were to go to town on

it, it wouldn't be a big deal. But he was already

neutered by the time I had gotten him. He had

been adopted once before by another family. And

actually, when a particular shelter that I dealt

with has cats that are, you know, when they take

them in, they automatically neuter them. So he's

had that taken care of, but he gets to keep the

claws. That's cool. That's cool. Well, I would

like to thank you for joining me here on this

little journey of ours, and it's just been a

blast. Just a little quick administrative stuff.

You can find this interview on geekcastradio

.com. You can find me on Twitter. It's TFG1Mike.

The show, ToonCast, does have a Twitter as well.

It's GCRNToonCast. I don't know if you use Twitter

that much, do you? I have an account. I use that

primarily for making wrestling -related comments.

So my handle on there is rassle, R -A -S -S -L

-E, writer. But, yeah, I'm not on there super

frequently. But you can find me on there if anyone's

interested. We also do have a, I did create a

fan page for Geekcast Radio. I'm not exactly

sure what the link is. You can call our voicemail

number, which is 502 -526 -5821. Be sure to say

what show you're leaving the message for and

your name. Coming up next on ToonCast, we're

going to be talking about, I believe it's the

GoBots episode. GoBots. Transformers knockoffs.

Anyway, again, thank you, Jenny. Thank you. Thanks

for having me. No problem. And we will see you

next time on ToonCast.