LOS ANGELES — She woke up with a tickle in her throat. This was worrying for Ashly Burch, who, at 27, is a rising star in the small world of voice actors, best known for her work in video games. She knew actors who had blown out their voices in the studio. She'd come close herself. So leaving her house that morning Burch sipped a soothing mix of chai tea and pea milk. "It's nondairy," she said. "Dairy creates mucus, and that's not a good sound."
Now, standing inside a soundproof studio in nearby Santa Monica, Calif., she gave no hint of discomfort as she prepared to record new lines for "Horizon Zero Dawn," one of the year's most popular new releases.
"How's your throat?" the director asked.
"Fine," she said, as a monitor glowed with her lines.
Voice actors are increasingly on the front line of a transformation taking hold in the entertainment industry as the creativity of Hollywood and the technological innovation of Silicon Valley converge. Voice, that intimate marker of human emotion, is now seen as essential to the $24.5 billion U.S. video game market, where the hyper-realistic graphics and operatic story lines used in games can be as textured as the best film dramas. And the best voice actors — their names known to fans and promoted by companies — can become celebrities despite never appearing onscreen.
Yet voice actors in this industry are not treated like actors in television and movies. This led voice actors to go on strike last year against 11 of the largest video game developers over bonus pay and safety issues such as vocal stress. The bitter labor dispute dragged on for 11 months, making it the longest strike in the history of Hollywood's largest actors' union, SAG-AFTRA. Burch was forced to give up a critically acclaimed role she loved. Gaming fans feared delays for their favorite titles before a tentative deal was reached late last month. A vote by the full union is going on now.
