Regardless Of Party, Voiceover Talent Get Plenty Of Green During Election Cycles

Man, if only I smoked 2 packs a day for the last 15 years, I’d have a pretty good voiceover voice. So how are voiceover artists doing? Some do very well in an election year.

The Hollywood Reporter looks at the money–and the party loyalties involved.

Once a voiceover artist works for one major political party, he or she is unlikely to get a call from the other. [Voiceover artist Pat] Duke says his Washington, D.C.-based manager told him during the lead-up to the current election cycle that “nobody can be switch-hitting anymore. They don’t want to hear your voice in a Republican ad.”

But Dave Sebastian Williams, who has done voiceovers for Republicans such as John McCain (he voiced some of the “Maverick” TV spots) and Newt Gingrich, says some of his colleagues “go both ways” but might not want to be outed. “Each job is a job,” he says. “And actors have to survive.”

With so many political commercials being done, for both broadcast and viral, I can’t say I could pick out a person’s voice unless I heard it on a demo tape once. But hey, if someone wants me to do voiceover work, I can do the “negative ad smug voice” as good as anyone.