About Me

On this page, you can find out a bit more about me, my voice and my studio.

Why?

Why do I do what I do? What is important to me in a performance, voice or otherwise?

Well, I have a craving for sincerity. A large part of life is spent doing and saying things you don’t believe. This isn’t a moan on my part, just a statement of fact, society would descend into chaos if everyone just said and did everything they felt like all the time!

I have found acting to be the one place where I can be true to myself. This might sound counter-intuitive as acting involves playing other people and speaking lines that are not your own. However, this is precisely why I can be truthful: I use who I am, my real feelings and impulses. Since what I am expressing is through the prism of someone else’s words, I feel complete freedom to be myself in ways that I don’t in “real life”, which is more exposing.

This means every project I undertake, from corporate voiceover reads to extreme characterisations, is imbued with truth and my own genuine personality.

I believe this is of paramount importance to all voice and acting work: selling a product in an online commercial requires sincerity just as much as a role in a drama.

Voice Profile

My voice is articulate and sincere, bright, assured and educated.

My natural pitch is medium (high baritone in singing terms) though I can go both deeper and higher as required.

My native accents are:

-in French: Neutral Metropolitan French (from France)

-in English: Standard Southern British/London

I am also very comfortable speaking in English with a French accent, UK Estuary, Heightened RP and General American and in French with a Parisian accent.

A lot of the work I get asked to do is in English with a French accent. Now of course this is “put on” but I would also argue that it is authentic. As you can hear in the clip of me singing when I was 3 (!) in my Biography (see further down the page), I had a strong French accent when I first started learning English. So when I’m asked to voice in a French accent, I am merely going back to my original accent in English. This also means that I am able to tone my French accent up or down, as required, from light (almost “international” English) to comically strong, and everything in between. Here’s the same sentence, spoken several times with increasing French accent:

I could of course voice in French with an English accent if required, though no one has yet asked me to do that!

I can switch from casual, conversational styles, to more serious, corporate narration.

I am also experienced in character voices.

Biography

Early Life

I grew up in London to French parents (kind of, see a more detailed description further down!), going to the French Lycée from the age of 4 to 17, hence speaking French both at home and at school. I first learned English at nursery and then kept it up mostly through watching TV!

Here’s a clip of me as a 3 year old child, when I still had a French accent when speaking in English:

Although quite common amongst my classmates when I was growing up, native bilingualness is pretty rare in the world of voiceover. Most voice artists who are bilingual can speak those languages fluently (which is an achievement in itself) but don’t have a perfect native accent in both.

I do. Don’t believe it? Have a listen to my French and English demos.

This has enabled me to carve out two parallel careers, working at the highest level in both English and French. The early acquisition of two languages, as well as a musical upbringing, go a long way to helping master other accents and I also regularly work in mid-Atlantic and General American. My mother actually being a US native (I said my parents were “kind of” French earlier!) hasn’t hurt either.

Background

A brief tangent about my family background: my father is French, being born and growing up in Paris. His father however was Turkish Jewish, which is where my surname comes from (derived from Arabic, it means “friend” or “travel companion”). My mother was born and grew up in Brazil, in the middle of the rainforest no less! She then moved to the US where she completed her school and university studies. Her family are American, of Polish, Irish and German descent.

Education and Training

Anyway, back to my own journey. After school, I studied Physics for many years (actually getting a PhD for my sins). This may not seem like an obvious way in to the performing and recorded arts but I feel that this scientific background has truly helped me as a voice talent in understanding and communicating technical jargon and often complex information in voiceover scripts .

My Physics degrees were followed by a foray into the world of Musical Theatre, graduating with a PG Dip from the Royal Academy of Music in 2008. I then carved out a career as a jobbing actor, working mainly in theatre, whilst continually furthering my training with more acting courses. I still work as an actor and you can find out more here about my stage work and screen work.

Skills

I consider myself first and foremost an actor and this training I feel is invaluable for voiceover work, both for the more obviously acting-led genres such as video games and audiobooks but also for explainer videos and corporate E-Learning. As an actor, you learn to be empathetic to the character or story you are telling.

The analytical, scientific side of me helps me understand intellectually the subject I am voicing, the acting side provides me with a “way in” to understand the character or client emotionally. These two factors, combined with an introverted, casual and unassuming persona, mean I can deliver truthful, sincere copy which is neither over-the-top nor dry.

It’s no surprise that a lot of the work I get is for explainer videos, particularly for tech products: I specialise in the conversational, natural read, making technical content clear to the listener, delivering the message articulately, thoughtfully and engagingly.

I also have a passion for voicing characters in video games, having been a lifelong gamer and enjoying being able to combine this with my acting skills.

It’s for the love of it!

Having said that, my one true love is… variety! There is literally nothing that I love more than the scope and range of the acting and voiceover worlds (except for my family of course if you’re reading this!). From embodying a grotesque futuristic monster one minute to energetically selling everyone’s favourite food delivery service the next, while finding time to calmly describe the virtues of the latest business app as well as slowly but truthfully enunciating simple sentences for those seeking to learn a language (ELT), there is never a dull moment.

Studio

I work from my own purpose-built professional studio space.

Sound-proofed and acoustically-treated, it provides a professional, broadcast-quality sound, approved by studios, clients and engineers worldwide.

Most of my work is self-directed and recorded in my own time but I also can accommodate the need for live-directed sessions, including using any of the below methods:

-Source Connect Standard

-ipDTL

-phone patch

-bodalgoCall

-Cleanfeed

-Source Connect Now

I have used Session Link Pro with studios that prefer this method.

I can also record myself with the client listening in via:

-Skype

-Zoom

-Facetime

-Google Meet

-Microsoft Teams

or even plain old-fashioned phone calls: whatever method the client prefers.

I record and edit in Adobe Audition. I am happy to provide either raw audio files or fully edited and mastered recordings.