Well, let me tell ya somethin’, BROTHER…
In the business of professional voice overs, we devote serious effort to making what we do feel effortless. A lot of work goes into bringing a client’s words to life in a way that sounds natural, easy and honest.
Sometimes we’re forced to think on our feet. It’s not unusual to be thrown a sudden request to change how we narrate a script, adjust our cadence or tone, or even conjure up a quirky character or personality on demand. You need to be open to whatever direction comes your way, even if it means winging it and ad-libbing on the fly.
We often hire coaches to help sharpen this unusual skill set. The better coaches know how to get us to loosen up and relax behind the microphone, so we’re nimble and receptive enough to instantly adapt. One of my coaches calls this getting “out of your head and into your heart.” Another respected mentor tells us “give yourself permission to play.”
Voice talents find all kinds of tricks to tap into that playful, spontaneous, creative side. Some take singing lessons. Others join improv groups. Some have backgrounds in theatre or public speaking.
Me? For many years, I’ve had my own peculiar but effective source of inspiration:
Professional wrestling.
Don’t adjust your screen settings. You read that correctly.
You wanna talk playfulness? Creativity? On-the-spot improvisation? Pro wrestling has all that in spades. I can see definite parallels between it and voice over work.
There’s a reason this comparison has been on my mind lately. At the time of this writing, it’s been a week since the passing of pop culture icon Hulk Hogan – hands down the biggest star pro wrestling ever produced.
I’ve been a wrestling fan since age 14. I used to feel sheepish admitting this, because for the longest time it was met with a snide, superior, judgmental sneer and comment along the lines of “You really watch that? You do know it’s fake, right?”
Ironically, I’d occasionally uncover that some of these same more-sophisticated-than-thou critics were themselves inexplicably familiar with all the biggest names and storylines! Clearly, they’d secretly snuck a peek while channel surfing. Funny how for over 40 years wrestling has remained one of the highest rated and most popular TV choices that everyone swears they don’t watch.
The earliest success of WWE (previously the WWF or World Wrestling Federation) came from the larger-than-life persona that Hogan projected as he’d manically growl into the camera during what the wrestling business calls “promos.” These were the pre-recorded interview-style segments that aired between matches on the weekly TV shows. Sometimes they’d go live in front of thousands inside the arena during a TV taping.
For my money, those promos were TV gold, a treasure trove of campy yet brilliant performance art. But it wasn’t always that way.
From the 1970s into the early 80s, many promos on WWF television, as well as those on local broadcasts of regional wrestling promotions across the US and Canada, were simply awful – terrible production value, eye-rollingly cringey or boring. Despite being lousy communicators, a territory’s marquee wrestlers were pushed by promoters to stand in front of the camera and cut a promo. The idea was for them to build “heat” for their big feud or rivalry, enticing fans to buy a ticket to the matches next time they came to town. The trouble was these poor slobs couldn’t talk to save their lives, and the segments were typically awkward duds.
But an odd thing started happening: a few of these guys discovered they possessed raw talent on the mic and an innate ability to play to the camera. They displayed charisma, the gift of gab, and a knack for improvisation and acting. Some had legit comic instincts – they were laugh-out-loud funny. It dawned on them that being able to ad-lib and ham it up was every bit as important to success as their theatrics in the wrestling ring. Some turned into breakout stars.
Sensing they’d captured lightning in a bottle, they seized on these weekly segments to hone their promo chops. It served them well: when the nationally expanding WWF famously raided the territories to poach fresh talent, it took the most unique personalities, molding them into the cartoonish, over-the-top characters WWF marketed to a national TV audience. The best performers got snatched up and signed to lucrative contracts – names like Hogan, Jesse Ventura, Roddy Piper, Junkyard Dog and Bobby “The Brain” Heenan.
It’s difficult to appreciate the wacky art of the wrestling promo without actually viewing a few – so I’ve selected a handful of my favorite masters of the craft.
“Macho Man” Randy Savage: With a voice that sounded like he gargled with gravel, Savage’s delivery alternated between a low, sandpapery mutter and enraged primal scream. His stream-of-consciousness monologues were a wild ride through a mish-mash of colorful metaphors and thought fragments he seemed to be randomly plucking from thin air, intermixed with grievances over his rival of the day. Yet somehow it all made sense.
Savage had an amusing tendency to find any prop that was lying around and incorporate it into his promo. It might be a broomstick, the newspaper, a plastic garbage can or a coffee cup. Here in his classic “Cream of the Crop” promo, he riffs for over two minutes with a fistful of little white coffee creamer containers, and the result is magic:
Don “The Magnificent” Muraco: The goal of the “heel” (bad guy antagonist) promo was to get you so mad you couldn’t wait to see this jerk get his comeuppance. No one did that better than Muraco. Arrogantly strolling out with a mischievous smirk, he was already telegraphing that whatever was about to come out of his mouth was going to be naughty.
Muraco perfected the role of brash, overconfident asshole, executed with relaxed ease. In this promo he lets you know just how unimpressed he is with his next opponent. When he’s interrupted with a question, he seamlessly pivots mid-stream into fits of hysterical laughter and continues the trash talk.
Jake “The Snake” Roberts: If he hadn’t been a wrestler, Jake could have just as easily been a college professor, a literary critic, or perhaps a psychologist. He was an anomaly in the business: cerebral, articulate and eerily mesmerizing, his sonorous voice and piercing stare captivated viewers. He was a storyteller at heart, on orator skilled at weaving an eloquent, poetic soliloquy that could go deeply dark and sinister, or offer a haunting commentary on the human condition.
Here he crafts a concise mini-sermon on greed, humility and revenge:
Regardless of your opinion on this niche form of entertainment – and I recognize it’s not everyone’s cup of tea – there’s something instructive and fascinating about what these guys were doing. WWE wouldn’t have evolved into the multi-billion-dollar global juggernaut it is today without performers like these who were willing to embrace the sheer low-brow, kitschy tongue-in-cheek absurdity of the genre.
Their job description called for them to credibly inhabit a bizarre fantasy universe as if it were 100% real, yet at the same time not take themselves too seriously. It required as soon as that camera light came on, they fully and instantly immerse themselves into their character and rant extemporaneously on command. (By the way, these sessions were said to last for hours – they’d tape multiple consecutive, individual segments customized for each local TV market where there was an upcoming live event.)
And that was on top of their brutal 300+ day a year travel schedule crisscrossing the country to pulverize their injury-prone bodies on a nightly basis!
These guys were improvisational wizards. They were playful and fearless. In a broad sense, yes, they were actors. And they were creative souls. Although there’s obviously a vast difference between a totally jacked muscle-bound monster in spandex and a voice talent sitting in a dark booth in front of a microphone, I’d suggest that what Hogan, Savage, Muraco, and their peers found themselves doing was on a certain level not altogether different from the mindset and attitude necessary to pull off a successful voice over performance.
Indeed, the common ingredient here is that attitude. It’s about cultivating the freedom to get out of your head, let go and just let it rip, no matter what.
And no offense intended to those of you who occupy the 9-to-5 work world, but you just can’t find that in a buttoned-down office environment.
So what’cha gonna do?
Rest in peace, Hulkster.