Behind the Mic: A Voice Actor’s Journey with Chris Dattoli

Voice actor Chris Dattoli joins me to share his journey from Nickelodeon sets to quitting corporate life and chasing a full-time career behind the mic. He opens up about the risks, lessons, and passion that fuel his work from his first audiobook gig to building a sustainable voice acting career. If you’ve ever wondered what it really takes to break into the industry, this episode is packed with insights and inspiration.

You can find his content via his website dattolivoiceovers.com.

Transcript

Intro Song

Rob Valincius: And we are live, baby. Let's go. It is, uh, I'm excited. You know, it's, it's almost a weekend. We're pushing that like Thursday's that I don't think Wednesday's the real hump day. I think Thursday's the hump day, because Wednesday's still center of the week. You're still got two more days. Thursday, you're like, yeah, baby, let's go.

I can have, I can have a couple drinks on a Thursday, deal with it a little bit on Friday. You know what I mean? Uh, anyway, I digress. This is the Drink O'Clock podcast. I am your host, Rob Valincius, and I have the pleasure of having with me Chris Dattoli, who is

Chris Dattoli: Hey, what's going on?

Rob Valincius: voice actor. Welcome to the show, brother.

Chris Dattoli: Hey, thanks so much for having me, Rob. Appreciate it. Happy be.

Rob Valincius: I don't know if you, if you're allowed to drink in your, uh, in your, your voice booth. But, uh, I'm, I'm, I, I've broken the, my, my rules over the past, like three weeks of drinking on my show. But, uh, cheers. Uh, you don't have to drink to be on the show. Of course.

Chris Dattoli: Cheers. Um, wish I just got off the, from one session, so I just hopped in and forgot to grab a drink.

Rob Valincius: You're good, man. You're good. So, um, yeah, dude, uh, voice acting. It, it's something, um, I've always been intrigued with because a lot of times, I'll tell you, so the, the, the start of this podcast was because I'm a gamer, I'm a nerd. I game, you

Chris Dattoli: Am.

Rob Valincius: uh, so I, I I play a lot of valor. I'm a PC gamer. It's, I can't, I'm a competitive person, so I can't be competitive anymore 'cause I'm fat and old.

Uh, I used to play a lot of basketball. I can't do that anymore. Uh, so I play a lot of hour 'cause it, it gets the competitive juices outta me, you know? Uh, and I was streaming at the time, so I did a lot of streaming and I, I was making, I made a lot more money streaming than I did doing this. But, um, people kept saying to me, Hey, you have an awesome voice.

You should be like an announcer or a voice actor or something. And I'm like, huh, maybe I'll just start a podcast. And, uh, I'm the drinker of my friend group. Uh, not, I don't have a problem. Well, people that have problems go to meetings, but, uh, no, I, I don't, I, I don't ever like get, I almost never get drunk unless it's a special occasion, my birthday,

Chris Dattoli: right.

Rob Valincius: shit like that. Like

Chris Dattoli: I.

Rob Valincius: have a little bit of whiskey chill, maybe drink a beer, whatever. Um, and that's how the podcast was born was because people kept saying to me. And I have a, I have a mixer. It's not a great mixer, it's an okay mixer. And I have it tuned up decently. And you know, when you're playing video games, sometimes you, you're over here and you're like, bro, you need a, your mic sucks.

What are you doing? You know, you get a Timo mic, you know? Um, but that's kind of how my podcast was born. So talk to me a little bit about, um, growing up, did you always wanna be a voice actor, you know, or how did you kind of grow up and then kind of stumble into this?

Chris Dattoli: Absolutely. So, uh, when I was young, I was so hyper and energetic that my dad said to me, Chris, I swear to when you're older yourself in all day long, and.

Rob Valincius: Parents are always right at some, at, at, at some point, they're right, right.

Chris Dattoli: Yeah. Yeah. So I'll tell my daughters that. Father of three. So, uh, yeah, I, uh, just, uh, when I was young, uh, back way, way back then where Nickelodeon actually did all their filming in Orlando, at the Orlando Studios, uh, I actually was touring the studios and they took one tour group, which was, uh, me and my parents.

And they said, Hey, you know, listen, we're filming a show right now. It's a pilot. Would you like to be involved with it? And we were like, yeah. And I actually got to be picked and I was on the pilot of the show. I don't think it ever came to fruition 'cause we did two episodes, like back to back, uh, it was like adults versus kids or something like that.

And, uh, eventually I got to be on an episode of Wild and Crazy Kids. So ever since then, I kind of got like a little bit of the acting bug. Um, and I did a lot of theater. And it wasn't until around 24, 20 13, 20 14, 20 14, I always had a passion for doing, like, making voices and everything, and like cheering up.

Whenever I would eat dinner, I put on a big show for my family. So I, I had some theatrics to me. Um, 2014, a friend introduced me to a website called Voice Acting Alliance. So I did like a few, like free, like projects on there and a publish co a publishing company heard my voice on one of the projects I did, and they said, Hey, listen, would you mind auditioning for an audio book, uh, from this, uh, author called Sending A Day was called After the end.

Um, I did auditioned for it. Got it. And that was my first really big like paycheck. Uh, and I didn't know anything. Like, I didn't know about residuals and like all of a sudden, like I got this big paycheck and I thought, you know what? If I'm gonna do this, if I'm really gonna live a passion of mine that I wanted to for years, I gotta go about the right way.

So I did research. I took the money, I got, I invested it into coaching. Then eventually I made a professional demo with my coach. Then I brought, you know, sent it out to agents, eventually got one, then I got work, then made another demo, made, you know, got more voiceover work and so on and so on. I just kept taking a percentage of my money and just reinvested into training and kept doing that over and over and over again until, uh, I'm at where I'm at right now.

And, um, I made a few mistakes along the way. Trusted a few wrong people, but, um, you know, as, um, yeah, as, uh, someone told me life is a tough teacher because she gives the test before the lesson. So,

Rob Valincius: That's quite true.

Chris Dattoli: yeah, that's actually, um, I have a passion for making medieval armor. And it was actually the guy who was teaching me how to make armor.

He taught me that, and I'm like, huh, that's pretty cool.

Rob Valincius: that, all right. So you might be more nerdy than me then. I feel like, like I'm a nerd, but there's, there's a next level up from me. I think you got me by a little bit. I have some friends that do, uh, they, they make their own, like, um, uh, what's the, what's the paintable? Warhammer?

Chris Dattoli: Oh yeah, the, uh, Eva foam, uh, armor and costing and everything. Yeah. I handed to those people. They're very talented. I, uh, I can't do that. No, it was just something, um, 'cause I would go to renaissance fairs and I would always be dressed up and, um. Uh, I was gonna join something called the SEA, which is the Society of Creative Anachronism, which is like, people actually go out and beat the crap outta each other.

Wear with tan swords and everything wearing like, like period, authentic clothing and weapons. And I was gonna do that, and I made the armor and I wore it to Renaissance festivals. I actually got a, an acting job wearing that armor, uh, for a show, unfortunately I can't talk about. But, uh, it was pretty cool.

I got, uh, just in, like, I took a picture of me and my armor and someone said, uh, gave it to my agent, and they're like, Hey, you know, will you be interested in doing this? I'm like, eh, why not? And I got it. I'm like, oh, cool. Hey, my, my nerd, my nerdism got me a, a job.

Rob Valincius: Hey, look, all I'm saying is, is nerds are in, man. It's not as, it's not as bad to be a nerd now. I mean, there's some dudes that just play video games and make more money than I'll ever see in a lifetime.

Chris Dattoli: Oh yeah, I, I hand it to them to, to sit there because, you know, everyone said like, oh, they're just playing video games all day. I'm like, no, man. Like, it's like 12 hours. They're sitting there playing sometimes to one person, sometimes to no one, and they never lose momentum. And, uh, that is actually the key to success.

Going from failure to failure without loss of, uh, enthusiasm and to sit there and do that, adjust positions and everything, get like really passionate. I, I hand it to anyone, any field looks easy if you're good at it.

Rob Valincius: Yeah, I mean, look, I, that's, people have been saying that for years, right? I mean, ah, they're just playing a video game. But, and, and look, I was the first person to say it, but when I started streaming video games, um, people say that, oh, you're just, you're playing video games for people. But there's a lot to it.

Um, and I know that maybe that just sounds, you know, um, I don't, not counterproductive, but it, it sounds, um, weird to say because I was making a couple hundred bucks a month playing video games for people. But, you know, I also, that doesn't pay my bills. So I'd work, I'd come home, I'd, I'd stream video games for three or four hours.

Some days there would be one person. Some days there would be 20. And some days it would be great. And I was, I had a great day at work, so it was a great day. Some days I just, you know, 'cause you always have to be on for people.

Chris Dattoli: yeah, absolutely.

Rob Valincius: Uh, the charm, the smile, the charisma. Um, I applaud some people 'cause they can do it for, they can have that charm charisma for 12 hours a day in front of a thousand people.

And it's like, I don't know how they do it, man.

Chris Dattoli: Yeah, I, I, I, I hand it to him that, that's incredible. It really is a feat, and I think everyone who just doesn't understand something tries to knock it down. Like, oh, you're just playing video games. I heard all a time. Oh, you're just talking. Yeah, just talking till they say ganglio naro three times fast and try to make it conversational.

All right. So,

Rob Valincius: Yeah, I mean, dude, it's, it's just, yeah. It's like, oh, well, that you're, you're a voice actor. Well, yeah, I'm an actor. You know, there's a, there's a lot of, of craft that goes into what you do. And it's the same thing with people, like, people that compete, like watch the Valor, um, like VCT, like the championship series.

I mean, these guys, I mean, all they do is train. Like the game itself is a difficult game. Um, and I've been playing it since it, since beta. So like, it's a difficult game anyway. But then once you get into that level, I mean, these people are killing you before you even step around the corner. They already know where you're stepping because they've played it so much that it, it's frustrating

Chris Dattoli: it's, oh my God.

Rob Valincius: someone that's just getting into it.

Chris Dattoli: Yeah. Uh, I remember when, uh, playing like a master blaster and a monster party on like Nintendo and Super Nintendo and like, oh God, the old school mega mans. Just how difficult they were.

Rob Valincius: Oh, but there was something about beating an A

Chris Dattoli: it was, it was, it was just like a sense, like, wow, I did it. Like now, um, there's so many save points and video games now.

It's almost like I actually went back and tried to play those games. I'm like, man, I suck. How was I good at this game? Like, I, I don't, I don't, I, I, and I hand it to anyone who like goes around. I'm like, I'm like, I played valor a few times and I'm like, all, I'm go, okay, I'm dead. Lemme get up. I'm dead again.

All right. What? I'm like, what, what the f is going on? Like, what, what can I do, man? Like,

Rob Valincius: It's, it's very skill-based valor. Um, but a lot of games, like I, uh, I, I played Apex Legends a lot too. Apex is is fast-paced, right? It's, but it, there still is a, is a skill cap that, that you have, like, you just have to develop these things as you go and, um, you know, it's the same thing right? With your craft.

I mean, how long were you doing the voice acting before? I know you said you, you kind of, that was your first like, real money, but when, when did you really know that you had something going on?

Chris Dattoli: Uh, right when I, uh, did that audiobook, um, but actually, no, forgive me. It was actually doing a gay radio play project, uh, for free. And, um, some guy said, listen, um, Chris, I want you to know, uh, you got some really good talent. And honestly, man, I, I would do something with it. And it was just like a, a random person never met, just auditioned.

And I got, uh, just a free part and I'm like, huh, maybe, maybe I should like, and just, I know when I get behind the mic, I feel happy. I feel ultimate despite, you know, if I have to play sad or depressed characters or villains and anything, what have you, I know like no matter what I'm doing, like. Sometimes I'm not in the mood, but once I start like getting into character or like talk, reading the script and breaking it down and analyzing it, I know I'm in my element and I just feel so happy doing it.

And it, it's just like every time to this day, I still haven't lost that passion. I'm just like, I feel really good. Like I, I love it. Just like once, like I step behind that mic and I just felt that wave of like, well, that's really fun. I'm like, let me, let me keep at it. Let me, you know, despite, I mean in other countries, like in England, like acting's kind of like, basically like a full-time job, this theater acting.

So if you say, oh, I'm an actor, you're like, oh, in England, you think, oh, that's pretty interesting. That's cool. Like, oh, you must do theater. You must do this if you do it in America. Yeah. I'm an actor. Like, yeah, what restaurant you work at Buddy? Like, you know what I mean? It's kind like that. I'm like, all right, Applebee's, but hey, you know, uh, so

Rob Valincius: Hey, if it pays the bills, man.

Chris Dattoli: pay the bills.

I don't care.

Rob Valincius: did you, now, did you do what a lot of younger kids do? So I, I've had a, I've, I've, I love, uh, interviewing actors and authors because there's a craft to what they do, but everyone has a different path to where they got, and in, in a lot of cases. Um, I've talked to a couple people with a.

They were kids, they were 18, 19, 20. They said, all right, I'm, I'm going to LA and I'm gonna make it. Um, what's your story there? Did you, did you, obviously voice acting might be a little different. You don't necessarily have to go to la Right? But, you know, did, did you just say, fuck it? You know, I'm, I'm, I'm going for this.

And did you drop anything, uh, significant to do it

Chris Dattoli: Absolutely. I quit my job. Um, I actually have a

Rob Valincius: from Applebee's? Like, I, I quit Applebee's.

Chris Dattoli: no, actually, um. I was come from the corporate marketing world. I went to school for marketing and business marketing and I was pretty high up at this one company, um, probably in the executive level. And I just wasn't happy. And I remember walking in the, I mean, it was the day before, uh, there was a big holiday party and I wasn't invited.

And I said, why wasn't I invited? And the CEO said like, oh, I thought you were going to eat all the food. And he said that. I'm like, wow, you're an asshole man. Like, forget the language. Uh, I'm like, wow. So I remember.

Rob Valincius: you want here, brother.

Chris Dattoli: Alright, I appreciate it. Careful. I'm an Italian from the Jersey Shore. I might, uh

Rob Valincius: I'm from Philly, brother, so

Chris Dattoli: Alright, perfect.

Alright.

Rob Valincius: North Easterners. It's just part of the language, man.

Chris Dattoli: So I remember I walked into, I sat down to my desk the other day and I just looked around and I said, I'm not happy. I said, I walked in, I said, I quit and I just. Threw my computer, threw the computer down. I'm like, I'm done. And they were trying to like, talk to me on the way out. I'm like, nah, I'm done, man.

I'm done. Like fuck this shit. I'm out. And I got back home like, I'm going for voice, acting full time. That's what I'm gonna do. And it was the best move I did. And also the worst move I did because, um, I was a single father raising two daughters. I have, uh, full custody of my two older daughters. Uh, their mom kind of took off when my youngest was born, or my, excuse me, my middle child now.

So in a, in a small apartment. Like, like, God, I, I need to do something like, but I said, no, if I just focus on the voice acting, it's gonna come to me. And I just kept auditioning for projects, not getting anything kept at it. Just kept going and going and going from early in the morning to late at night while taking care of the kids, while not getting an income, because I quit.

So I, I couldn't get unemployment and everything. So, but every now and then I would get a, a job that would keep me afloat. I'm like, all right, I can pay my bills this month. I can eat a little something. You know, just, it would be one or two jobs getting me that. Then eventually I got more and more jobs.

Eventually I got another agent and it, it led to me like really pursuing voice, acting full time. But, you know, the moment was like, and, and I was making like, I, I don't wanna say like how you made anything, but it was a pretty good paycheck I was making. And I let, I let it go. Like most people would be like, I know my brother said just grin.

Like, take, come on grin and bear it. What's wrong with you? You stupid. You let go drop to what you can do. Voice acting. Are you stupid? What's wrong with you? My brother's very old school. Tough love, by the way. Uh, but you know, he was right. I'm like,

Rob Valincius: We're all like that. I feel like the northeast we're, we're just kinda, I think that's just part, like the pa jersey, New York. Like we're all kind of tough love here. It's, it's not like a a Oh, do what you, it's not a frilly. Like do what you want. No, it's like, bro, you're stupid. Like,

Chris Dattoli: Yeah, it, it's exactly like that. And you know what, uh, looking back, I'm like, I am stupid, but this is what I wanna do, so I'm gonna do it. So that's exactly what I did. So I, I benefits and everything. I, I said goodbye to that and pursued voice acting and got maybe one or two jobs a month. I just. Barely covered the life essentials rent and everything, and taking care of my two kids too.

So I would take care of them, voice act, be up all hours of the night and just kept at it for months. Then, you know, eventually work found to me, I got a few more, I got a little more work, made another demo, saving money for that, and here I am today and I never stop learning. I, I think the second you think you're the master of your craft, like you're done learning, that's when you're gonna fail.

You, you never, I've talked to voice actors who've been in the industry for 40 years. Who said, who? Just, who learned new things? Bob Bergen's one, Rob Polson, Steve Bloom. Uh, just some, like the big names who, like, they, they, if you ask them, they never stop learning. They constantly, you know, go with different coaches or they learn new techniques and everything.

They stay up to different trends or what have you, and. I know, um, I could always, maybe this is my military, uh, my, my family's mil. I come from a military family. Just thinking like, you could always be a little better. Like, not like you're a piece of garbage or anything like that, but like you could always do a little better.

I like more like, I think you can improve a little bit. So I just always have the mindset like, I think I can improve a little bit.

Rob Valincius: Yeah, I think that's, um, that's a good mindset to have because especially in today's day and age, and hopefully, um, it sounds like you, you're kind of bestowing that on your kids too, which is good because we live in a very, our culture now is very like trophies for nothing.

Chris Dattoli: exactly.

Rob Valincius: you cater to my look. I got my ass beat if I, if I wasn't acting right.

My dad, like, I'll never forget, uh, my dad listened to this podcast, so he'll probably remember this. And I, when I, I talk to him every day. Um, I was, I was in the backseat of his car with my brother and him and my mom were in the front seat and I didn't like the answer He gave me for something. I forget what it was.

You know, I'll be 40, right? I'm the wife, he's behind here. She's gonna probably gimme crap. 'cause I say I'll, I'm 40, but I'm, I'm 39. I just turned 39, uh, last

Chris Dattoli: Oh, congrats man. I'm right behind you.

Rob Valincius: yeah. We're, we're getting there. You know, it's

Chris Dattoli: Yeah,

Rob Valincius: one year closer to death. Um, but so I'm, I'm, I, me and my brother are in the backseat, my dad and mom in the front, and my dad always had eyes in the back of his head, so I don't know why I did it, but he said something I didn't like, so I mimicked him. And he turned around and did the backhand slap right into my face. And he's like, don't you ever fucking mock me? And my dad never really, like, he didn't, my dad did hit me a lot.

Chris Dattoli: yeah, of course.

Rob Valincius: twice my dad hit me. One was with the fucking workout. You know, those thick ass workout belts from the nineties that you'd

Chris Dattoli: Oh, yeah,

Rob Valincius: one was with that one was the backend.

That was the only time I remember my dad ever hitting me and I deserved it.

Chris Dattoli: yeah,

Rob Valincius: But kids aren't getting hit like that these days. But I tell you what, did they ever mock my dad again? Not a damn time. Not ever again did I mock my dad. Um, but it's good to have that and instill it into your kids because, I mean, I feel like if it we're quick to give up.

Chris Dattoli: yeah.

Rob Valincius: And I think what shows us as human, um, and who you are as a human being is who you are when you get back up. If you get back up, some people don't, right? They just say, ah, fuck it. Um, it's hard to make the decision that you made where you said, fuck this good paying job where I'm miserable. I'm gonna go do something I enjoy.

And I, I think I have potential and, and I'm gonna do well at. Um, because I think sometimes by the time people realize that I work with, I work in the senior market, so I deal with a lot of older people. I think by the time people realize that it's too late

Chris Dattoli: Mm-hmm.

Rob Valincius: and not necessarily too late, right? 'cause we can always be something different, but. Too late in life. You realize I've been miserable for 40 years. Yeah, I made money, I paid my bills, but now I'm just angry all the time when they could have pursued the things they really wanted, and I think that's admirable. It's, it's tough to do.

Chris Dattoli: it is. Uh, and probably the best success story I have from me doing that was actually my brother's best friend who's essentially like a brother to me. Um. His mom and my mom had been best friends for, I, I wanna say like frigging 60 years, I guess. I dunno, I dunno, something like that. But he actually was an X-ray technician and one day he quit and became a barber.

And I'm like, what's a big change? And like as he was cutting my hair, he was telling me, you know, you inspired me Chris, when I saw, heard that you quit your job and you did voice acting. You actually made me quit becoming an X-ray technician and pursue like becoming a barber. And like, I wanna say thank you for that.

I'm like, that's probably if I never make it, if I never make a big paycheck in my life, if I never get a double a triple A or single a video game cast or whatever, that is the best thing I could ever hurt here in my life. Ju just, that was really impactful and that also inspires me, inspires me to this day.

And now he's a damn good barber. He's a barber To the celebrities, he like cut. Uh, if you ever saw Blink 180 twos, um, went recent, not recent. Um. Oh God. Was it edging? That music video? He cut his, he cut, uh, Todd Frazier's. He cuts like the celebrity's hair. Now. He's, he's, he's a big guy. He's a big guy, and he's like, and he's damn good too.

So I'm like, that's awesome. Look at him. Like, I'm really happy for him. So Kevin, if you're listening, you're doing a great job, man. Thank you for giving me the kind words. So,

Rob Valincius: That's, yeah, and that's the other thing too. You never know. And, and look, whether it's, I've been doing this podcast for, it'll be three years next week that I've been doing this

Chris Dattoli: wow. Congrats

Rob Valincius: Thank you. Um, and it's tough sometimes I get not many listens, not many downloads. Some episodes that I think are gonna do really well, don't, some episodes that I think aren't gonna do well, do really well.

Um, and for me, I'm gonna leave a legacy behind. And I'm not gonna probably have kids. We're we're dog people. So we have

Chris Dattoli: Hmm.

Rob Valincius: those are our kids. Um, but it's like the things I put on YouTube are, are still kind of gonna exist when I'm gone. Right. And maybe things I put out, maybe in 10 years someone finds it and it changes their thought process.

And to me, that's good enough.

Chris Dattoli: Yeah.

Rob Valincius: I don't have to be Joe Rogan, you know, I, and that may be cool. It'd be

Chris Dattoli: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I, it would be awesome to be, uh, to be like, to reach that level. Um, but you know what, uh, there's certain things that you do that leaves you satisfied if you're satisfied and if you're happy. Okay, man, that's awesome.

Rob Valincius: Who is, who is the, the voice actor. And I'm my, I mean, my favorite voice actor probably of all time is Mark Haml. But I'm, I'm biased because I'm a huge Star Wars fan. Um, and a lot of people don't

Chris Dattoli: I knew we were gonna get along on this. Same for me.

Rob Valincius: how many, just how many things that he voices. Um, but who is your, I don't, I don't know if it's Mark how or not, but who's like your, the person in your industry that you would die to like, you know, meet or get to do a gig with?

Chris Dattoli: Uh, so there's a couple. Mark Hamill's, definitely one, uh, mark Hamill, Steve Bloom, Rob Polson, uh, Frank Weer, but I, I don't know if you, I don't think he retired. If you don't know who Frank Weer is, he is every single cartoon character in the eighties and nineties. He's, he's Fred everyone, uh, star Scream, um, Dr.

Do from, um, inspector Gadget, uh, sound Wave. I think. I think it was sound wave, the tape recorder and Transformers, I love do project with him. And, um, oh my gosh, why am I drawing a blank, Steven? Am I drawing a blank? Another one. But it's gonna come to me. Um. Just to kind of do, do like, work with them or to, you know, meet them on a professional level.

That I think that was awesome. Oh, Peter Collen too. I, I like his, uh, always admired his voice and everything. Um,

Rob Valincius: mark Hamill's just, uh, his joker is, no one beats his joker. I don't care

Chris Dattoli: I know. And to think Tim Curry was actually, CAS was a joker beforehand.

Rob Valincius: Really.

Chris Dattoli: Yeah, it was Tim Curry. He was, uh, he was the voice of the, and if you, he did a different, like, um, approach to it. And I forget the reason why. Uh, like he wasn't like, he did a few episodes, I forget the reason why he wasn't chosen. Maybe like a conflict or maybe they went a different direction.

But, um, yeah, it was just his joker was like an interesting interpretation of it. I'm like, that's pretty, pretty cool. And Mark Hamill. Yeah. Again, I'm a big star War. I grew up around Star Wars. Um. You know, when I took my family to Disney a few years ago, it was like the first big family vacation, uh, we went on, um, and I said, listen, I I will buy anyone anything they want.

I will do any ride. Go on any ride, whatever you want. Just when we get to the Star Wars area in Hollywood Studios, just let me be, let me be. And they did, which was awesome. I got to drink the Green Milk, I get the Blue Milk, I got to go. And you know what, they actually had a blast too. 'cause no one in my family's a nerd like me.

Um, I, I, I, I nerded up for everyone, so it, it, it was pretty like they left me and they had a great time on the rides and everything. So yeah, I grew up with Star Wars. Love it. To this day, I would love one day to work with like Mark Hamill or, you know, Steve Blooms and, you know, definitely work with him and the other ones I mentioned too.

Rob Valincius: What did Steve Bloom do?

Chris Dattoli: Steve Luma. He is a lot of voice actors. Uh, he was Wolverine, he was Star Stream again, and Star Wars Anim, uh, animated. He was Spike from Cowboy Bebop. Uh, he was also Tom from tmi. Uh, if you heard him, you would know

Rob Valincius: I was gonna say, I, I, I definitely can, I feel like I can hear him now. Um.

Chris Dattoli: you, um, I think it's for Rodi. Kenshin. Uh, he was one of the main antagonists in that we went into a different name.

Uh, there are so many. If, if you, if you heard his voice, you know, you, you would know who it is immediately. Oh,

Rob Valincius: I, I, I'll say this. So the closest I got to meeting Mark Hamill, so I used to work for GameStop. I was a, I started as a holiday person and I moved my way all the way up to, I was a district manager in

Chris Dattoli: okay. Cool.

Rob Valincius: Um, and, uh, we ha I was a store manager at the time and, uh, GameStop back in the day, they were making tons of money.

You know, they were, they had over 4,000. They, they had like, I think over 5,000 stores or something crazy Then, um, and this was when Batman Arc of asylum came out. Oh, don't mind me, my. Dog has seizures. So we give her, uh, seizure, medica seizure

Chris Dattoli: Okay.

Rob Valincius: at, at, uh, two, two intervals every day. To what? Eight?

Eight in the morning, eight at night. Um, she's okay. She's this little psychopath, but she's, she's, she's been dealing with it for five years and just six years now, something like that. Um, but so I was at the, uh, they would have these big conferences for store managers and district managers and regionals, basically everyone from store manager up.

It was a way for like the store managers to feel part of corporate. Right. Um, and they would have these hall meetings where they would all of the, the, uh, big companies would announce major games there. Like, it was almost like our games con or, um, what was

Chris Dattoli: Right, right.

Rob Valincius: that they got rid of? Um, what was the big gaming convention that they got rid of?

Chris Dattoli: Uh oh. Oh my gosh. Uh, my brain's fried.

Rob Valincius: Oh my God. E three, my, my

Chris Dattoli: Oh yeah.

Rob Valincius: How the hell did you remember that? I used to get asked to work it all the time. Oh, she, so she's a, she models she models and they used to ask her to model at it. Uh,

Chris Dattoli: Oh, that's awesome man.

Rob Valincius: yeah. She worked some pretty fucking cool events. And I told her, uh, they, they asked her the one time to do the Super Bowl and I was like, if you go to the Super Bowl and you don't bring me, I'll, I'll fuck, I'll kill you.

I'll kill you. Um, but yeah, so, um, they would bring Xbox and PlayStation and they, they'd actually make announcements at this, this meeting. It was cool. So we, and we, we did Vegas multiple times. We did, uh, San Antonio, we did Houston. Like they would do some pretty big venues and uh, mark Hamill was there for Batman Arch Asylum.

And when they announced, uh, I dunno if it was the second one, might've been the second one that they announced, and he came out on stage at the Joker. And everyone. Now I didn't have good seats then. 'cause they sat you based on your rank. So our district sucked that year. So we were pretty, we were pretty high up.

Of course, the next year we were on, we were in the front row on the floor. I would've freaked out if I got to see Mark Haml that close. 'cause obviously Loose Skywalker, I would've been freaking out. Um, but his, his joker's just next level man.

Chris Dattoli: Absolutely.

Rob Valincius: Um, what all goes into, and I, you know, obviously voice acting's a little different, right?

Because you just kind of have you, yourself and I,

Chris Dattoli: Mm-hmm.

Rob Valincius: how do you get into to your role? Like, you know, what, what's your, um, creative process look like on that side of things?

Chris Dattoli: So there's a few ways, uh, if I'm reading, like if it's like. Commercial or like e-learning, something like that. What I do is I have five pictures. I took 'em down right now, but there's five pictures I put in my studio, one's my wife, one's my best friend, one's my kids, one's my mom, and one is someone who I absolutely hate with a passion.

And what I do is if I'm reading something, I'm, I look at them and I read the script. Uh, you are not really, like, you get to a point where like eventually you're not gonna have to read the script. You can just like look at it and like go back and forth. So I'll like the reason, so, and I'll pull different emotions.

Looking at those pictures. The way I talk to my kids is different. The way I talk to, um, my wife, the way I talk to my best friend, it's gonna be different the way I talk to my mom and the one I talk to someone who I hate is different than someone I than I talk to my wife.

Rob Valincius: Now, hold on. Is the person you hate? Is it someone that you know?

Chris Dattoli: It's someone that I know. Um, it's just,

Rob Valincius: That's awesome,

Chris Dattoli: I know. I just hate the piece of shit with a passion. Um.

Rob Valincius: That is, that is a great, great thing. Like if you're listening to this, you're gonna be a voice actor. That is a, that is a good tip right there. I like that.

Chris Dattoli: And I, I like it. So I'm always, I'm always talking to those pictures 'cause I pull different emotions out. Uh, if it's like a character and everything. Usually when they have, um, they have give you a script, they have like a breakdown of the character. A lot of it's kind of bullshit if you'll, uh, like, oh, they were, you know, from this planet, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

All right. I'll look at the picture and I'll kind of study it a little bit and I'm like, all right, if they're an assassin or if they're, um, a young fighter or someone with a dark pass and they kind of brush it off. So I'll decide, all right, maybe I'll go mid range, maybe I'll go high range, maybe I'll go low range, like, kind of like mid range is how I'm talking right now.

High range is, are kind of like how I'm speaking right now. Low range is, you know, TM talking to you right now. And I also put my body into it too. I, I like to kind of take my body. I squiggle around a little bit. I'm like, all right, I'm ready to let go. And I'll kind of open my eyes slowly. I'm like, and then I'll just get into character, depending what it is.

Sometimes I'll go as far as, now everyone doesn't have to do this. I don't believe in self-harm, but maybe I'll scratch my nose or I'll squeeze something to kind of gimme a little pain. Um, I'll sometimes like hit myself from fighting and everything. I'm like, so I kind of feel that pain a little bit. Uh, I'm a a little method.

I'm also a low psychopath as

Rob Valincius: Now, hey, I mean, look, if it, oh, of course, of course. My damn fucking alarm.

Chris Dattoli: that's alright.

Rob Valincius: I keep, I keep hitting the damn snooze and not turn it off. Um, yeah, look, I mean, if, if it's what's getting you in to character,

Chris Dattoli: Yeah,

Rob Valincius: as long as you're not like, you know, taking a razor blade, you know, I think

Chris Dattoli: no, no, I haven't, I haven't done that yet, but like, I'll just kind of, um, I have to re, I have to remember that no one can see me, so they have to hear the anger, they have to hear the smile. Some like, what a great piece of advice I got from one of the coaches I worked with was let them hear your smile. I'm like, well, how the fuck can they hear me smile?

And now I get it. I'm like, oh, okay. Um, they're gonna know whether you're reading a script and you're smiling, they're gonna know whether you're just kinda like, I don't care, the next job, whatever. So people aren't gonna understand that you can't, you can't bullshit people and, and when it, when you're trying to sell a product.

So, and especially when it like comes to video games and anime, you know, and I just go, I go full into it. Like, you know, no matter what I, I, I go, I'll take the script and I know, oh, this is what else I do. I know everyone's gonna read the script a certain way. Everyone's gonna approach it and go, oh, I'm gonna go this way.

So let's start off like, oh, hey guys. Oh, hey guys. Oh, hey guys. Oh, hey guys. I think, I think, alright, if everyone's gonna go right, I'm gonna go left. So if I could do it correctly, like, oh, hey guys, everyone goes, oh, hey guys. Oh, hey guys. I'll go, oh, hey guys. Or something like. Stupid like that. And I also have a lead in, so whenever I'm in a commercial, I kind of look at the picture and be like, Hey girls, you know what's funny?

You gotta really try this new milkshake from McDonald's. It's incredible. Just kind of like, 'cause I, that lead in helps break down the script, helps to get into character, and also kind of makes that transition a lot more smoother. So that, those are a few things that I do. Um, and always, no matter what, I always, I always say like, I hope I get this project, but if I don't, there's a four letter word that I use that I absolutely love, and that is next.

Rob Valincius: I was gonna say, fuck.

Chris Dattoli: everyone always thinks it's fuck, but it's just next. I'm like, all right, I'll send the, uh, audition, excuse me, and I forget about it. I keep the files and everything, you know, I don't like, really, I'm like, all right, it's in, it's in God's hand. 'cause they're getting like hundreds if not thousands of auditions.

So, you know, I'll be like, all right, you know what? There's always another project. There's always another project, especially right now. 'cause my wife and I just had a baby. She's 10 months old. Uh, so I'm not doing as many. Thank you. Thank you. Not doing as many projects as I used to because I have to take care of, you know, her and my wife.

Uh, my other two daughters who are teenagers, God help me, but, know, uh,

Rob Valincius: All

Chris Dattoli: so all girls

Rob Valincius: Oh man. You're in for, you're in for a tough one, brother.

Chris Dattoli: oh, what's, what's the tough one? You'll appreciate this. So I'm sorry. Don't, don't shoot me. I am a Giants fan, so.

Rob Valincius: listen, if you're from New York, New Jersey and you're a Giants fan, I get it. If you're like in Chicago when you're a Giants fan, that makes sense. I'm gonna make fun of you. I'm from Philly. I'm an Eagles fan. That's just, you know, it is what it is. I have, I don't hate the Giants. I actually don't really mind the Giants.

I, I, I don't even really hate, no, I hate the Commanders, but we all hate Dallas. We all hate Dallas, right? I mean, it's

Chris Dattoli: Yeah, we can agree on that. We, we all hate Dallas. Yeah, there we go.

Rob Valincius: Um, I feel bad for taking Saquon from you guys. Kind

Chris Dattoli: That's okay. You know, but, uh, what, what was really evil is my wife is an Eagles fan and she made my daughters fans too. And I'm like, you don't even watch frigging football. Why are you an Eagles fan? Oh, I'm so happy to won the Super Bowl. I'm like, stop talking about shit. You don't know, man. You're just doing this to piss me off.

Rob Valincius: Uh, that doesn't shock me in any way though. Let's be honest. Right.

Chris Dattoli: I'm like, you know what? I don't, I, I don't mind the Eagles. I don't, I I don't mind the Eagles, I don't mind the Steelers. It's sometimes with the fans, they can get a little, what's the word? Crazy.

Rob Valincius: Our fans get a bad rap. Okay. I will. SII. Alright.

Chris Dattoli: all of 'em, because I met some wonderful ones.

Rob Valincius: I feel like it's like the 1% that's wasted 'cause they've been drinking since midnight and they're the ones that give us a bad rap, you know, throwing batteries at Santa Claus, all that. I've, I've been hearing about it for fucking years, but we're all not too bad.

Just look, here's the thing, I wouldn't wear an Eagles jersey. Two of the Giants Stadium when we're playing the Giants, because I am smart, I would just wear normal clothes. If a Giants fan is coming to watch the Eagles at Lincoln Financial, I recommend Don't wear a Giants jersey. You're gonna get heckled.

And some people take the heckling to like borderline harassment.

Chris Dattoli: Oh, I got such a, when I was in college, my roommate, um, I went to Stockton, which is in Southern Jersey. Um, he did a mean thing. He goes, Hey man, let's, let's go to a bar. It was a nearby bar, my treat, I got you. And, um, just so happened, like the Giants were playing that night. He goes, oh, put on your, like your giant skier.

So I put on my giant skier, had the shirt and hat went to the bar, all Eagles fans. And I look at him and the hostess goes, you're brave. And I look, I'm like, you are an asshole, Joe. Why? Why? Oh,

Rob Valincius: get you killed, bro.

Chris Dattoli: you, you, you, oh my God. I went to the bar and bartender goes like, I'm not serving a Giants fan. I'm like, well, my money's green.

Does that count? I don't care, man. Get away from me. I'm like, dude. He's like, all I got you. He bought my drinks and food. I, um, the looks I got, I'm like, I, I'm gonna probably die.

Rob Valincius: A North Jersey. Are you in North Jersey?

Chris Dattoli: I'm in, I'm in Central Jersey,

Rob Valincius: Okay, so you're like, what? Freehold dish.

Chris Dattoli: exactly. Free hold times. Yeah.

Rob Valincius: Yeah. All right. That's not, that's not terrible. I mean, you could go either way there as a

Chris Dattoli: exactly. Yeah. So,

Rob Valincius: We have a lot of South Jersey Eagles fans here.

Chris Dattoli: There are, yeah, there are, and

Rob Valincius: I mean, I don't blame 'em 'cause they unfortunately, I mean, at least the Giants have won Super Bowls over the past, you know, 20 years. Whereas the Jets are, ugh.

Chris Dattoli: Exactly.

Rob Valincius: It could be worse. It could be

Chris Dattoli: could be worse.

Rob Valincius: Um, Ooh. Yeah. That, I mean, look, you have a team that good, that just, they, I mean, they crush in the playoffs. It's just the same thing with, um, Dallas.

Dallas is the same way. You know, they could, they could go 14 and two now, right? With the, is the bot with the extra, I don't know. I, they added that extra week and it fucks me up. Um, they could go, they go losing the first round of the playoffs every year. It doesn't matter.

Chris Dattoli: Yep.

Rob Valincius: And there's just teams like that.

Bills fall apart in the playoffs too. Um, I would not like to have to face the chiefs in the a FC championship game every year as much as I

Chris Dattoli: I know.

Rob Valincius: the chiefs. Uh, but it was nice watching us destroy them. And I'll tell you this, I was scared that we, they were gonna come back up until. Probably eight minutes in the fourth quarter.

Chris Dattoli: Hmm.

Rob Valincius: I, I like, I, I have the utmost respect for the chiefs. I assumed they were gonna come back and make a game of it and the Eagles just never let up. And

Chris Dattoli: Yeah.

Rob Valincius: that's not their mo Normally we let up and then the other team comes back and it's always a two minute race to see who's gonna fuck up first.

Chris Dattoli: No, the eagle said, fuck no, if we're crushing you.

Rob Valincius: that, that dagger throw from, from fucking Jalen to Smith Schmitty, uh, the Slim Reaper as we like to call him here.

Um, uh, beauty thing of beauty man. And um, you know, we leaned on Saquon all year, except that game we fucking, he threw the lights out. So,

Chris Dattoli: There was extra

Rob Valincius: this year? Probably not. 'cause it's, it's tough too, but it'll be in, I'll be interested to see. 'cause we lost a lot of people on the defense,

Chris Dattoli: Yeah. Yeah. There was extra, only one Super Bowl I ever turned off and said, I'm done watching this. And that was with the, uh, Broncos?

Rob Valincius: Oh yeah, that was a bad

Chris Dattoli: Like the first, what, 30 seconds They got a safety and I'm like, dude, I'm like, turn it off. Like turn it off. I'm done. I don't even wanna watch the commercials.

Rob Valincius: the commercials suck anymore, dude. They're just not good. I mean, there's, there's always like one or two gems, but especially this year, it just, they're very lackluster.

Chris Dattoli: yeah.

Rob Valincius: Um, and who knows? I mean, they, they could cost what It's like

Chris Dattoli: Probably 'cause of the strike

Rob Valincius: True. Yeah. The strike did, did

Chris Dattoli: the, I mean, yeah.

Rob Valincius: Um, let me ask you this. So how difficult for you is it to get in and outta character, right?

Because, um, your studio is at home,

Chris Dattoli: Yep.

Rob Valincius: so, you know, is it tough when you're playing a bad, like an evil bad guy to get outta character and go into your, your loving. All female family like is, is there a line there sometimes that is difficult for you?

Chris Dattoli: Yes, uh, it is. 'cause I, I get so into character sometimes I actually will like, meditate and I'll actually, uh, there's a few therapeutic ex exercises that I do to kind of decompress, just to be like, all right, I need to get outta that head space. You know, I'm not this person. I'm back. Um, and then, um, you know, I'll see my kids and then I'll be like, oh, cool.

Or my teenagers will do something stupid. I'll be like, maybe I'm the evil character. No, uh,

Rob Valincius: You,

Chris Dattoli: just kidding. Like, I, I'll just, you know, I'll just decompress or I'll go up and my wife will see me. I'll be like, just, I'll go like this. Just like, gimme two minutes. Meaning like, I just gotta decompress. Like, she gets it.

So she'll take the baby away and be like, all right. Okay. I'm good. I'm all right. Everything's fine, you know.

Rob Valincius: Now, what's the preparation look like for like, do you prepare the same way as if you're doing a car commercial? Because I watched some of your YouTubes, which, which was cool. Or being the, the baby voiceover or like what, what does that look like to you? Like, you know, from video game to commercial? Like do you prepare differently or is it kind of all the same relative preparation to get into the head space?

Chris Dattoli: I look at it as more, uh, like with video games, anime, like that type of things. Cartoons, it's more theatrics, if you will. Like, I'm, I'm doing like a really crazy extension, like this is the evil side of me. Uh, like brought up to a thousand. This is the heroic side of me, brought up to a thousand. This is the crazy side of me brought to a thousand.

Whereas like commercial's, another thing, the key word you're, you're gonna always hear is keep it conversational. So I just like it, like I'm talking to someone, you know, like you are right now. That's exactly how I'm speaking in my commercials sometimes, you know, they'll say like a relaxed tone. So I'll kind of like sit back, put my hands in my pocket, be like.

All right, let's do this. You know, it just like, depending on like the tone they need, you know, a lot of times, you know, I, I just keep it conversational when it comes to other things. Uh, like if you're talking to your best friend, it's what they always say in every single frigging breakdown. You know, keep a conversational non announcery, keep a conversational non announcery.

I fucking get it.

Rob Valincius: Now, um, one thing before I started doing podcasting and it's, it's what I hear a lot is obviously audio is k

Chris Dattoli: Mm-hmm.

Rob Valincius: Now, I'll tell you this, I didn't spend a ton of money on my stuff. Um, you know, I, I think my mic is a hundred dollars mic. It's not a thousand dollars mic. My mixer is a $75 mixer. It's not a crazy expensive mixer, but it's tuned.

Well, 'cause a buddy of mine that I work with is an audio guy.

Chris Dattoli: Ah.

Rob Valincius: he plays like 19 different instruments. So I brought it in. I'm like, Hey. I need you to tune this for me. So he, he, he's like, you know, I have fucking 30 dials over here, and I'm, I'm not an audio, I, I know how to edit audio, but I'm not an audio engineer.

And he's just like, boop, boop. And I sound great. So now I just mimic it. Anytime I get a new one, like, if this one dies, I'll get the same one and I'll just mimic everything that he has set. Um, how important is it for someone that's getting into your space, maybe as a voice actor to get some next level audio gear?

Because obviously, you know, if you have shitty gear, it's, it's, it's gonna hurt your stock. Right? It.

Chris Dattoli: exactly. I look at the same way as my father was an electrician. I look the same way. You know, it doesn't matter how. Talented or skilled. You are, if you have shitty tools, you're gonna get shitty results. If a pair of pliers are rusted or they don't work, doesn't matter what you do to them, like what you do, how skilled you are, your work is gonna come out.

Crappy. It, it's the same way. Now you don't have to go ahead and just dive in and spend like thousands of dollars. I always say first do research, then get coaching after coaching, make the demos after the demo, then get the equipment. There's actually a, a Facebook group called VO Gear Exchange. And uh, the microphone you see right there, that's the Sennheiser four 16.

Mike goes for a thousand bucks. I bought it for $400 because a guy was selling them 'cause he had five of them. He's like, I, I don't need five. Who wants it? 400 bucks. I have another one is the Noman t, LM 1 0 2. That usually goes for like 1300, sometimes $2,000. I got it for $600 because again, like they're like, it's in a smoke-free home.

I don't need this mic. I wanna go to a good home. All the equipment you see here is all aside from the blankets. Point right there, like everything's secondhand. Even this booth I bought, 'cause someone was like, I don't, he was a, um, a guitar player for a band, and he's like, I don't need it anymore. Uh, anyone want it?

And I'm like, yes. And I think we sold it for like 800 bucks. And this booth itself actually goes for like over four grand.

Rob Valincius: Wow.

Chris Dattoli: So yeah, it was a steal. I, it was actually driving up to, to, uh, Pennsylvania, like a good six hour drive. I had to go and lift that this heavy ass studio by myself. So I'm like, all right, I'm gonna do it.

I, I, I'll drive the six hours to go pick it up. So I asked my wife, it was okay. Yeah.

Rob Valincius: look, man, you know what, look, I was always brought up, um, my mom is a thrift, thrift store shopper,

Chris Dattoli: Mm-hmm.

Rob Valincius: yard sales shopper, and I'm a sucker for a deal, man. And, uh, this is the level of nerd I am in last December. I got back into collecting trading cards. So I started with Pokemon and uh, 'cause it just is a vintage feel for me.

I also like to build businesses, so I'm selling it, right? So, uh, it's kind of a two for, I get to open the cards 'cause it's gambling, right? For kids. Um, and then I also get to build the business and sell. So I start, I did all that, you know, created the logo, did, you know, started selling that stuff. But, um, I, a lot of the things that I learned, I either learned from other people, but also, uh, found deals for things.

And also when I go to trade shows, like, you know, we go to, I, you know, me and I drag the wifey with me. I just give her some, some booze. She's fine. Uh, but we'll go to trading card shows and I haggle, you know, I'm, I'm a haggler man and I got that from my mom. So like, you know, if it's, if it's 60 bucks, I'm like, Hey, you take 50.

And then they're normally like 55. All right, cool. Still cheaper than what, you know, what, what, what they were asking. And if market price is 45, but I paid 55 instead of 60. Yeah. You know, it's, it is what it is. They make a little, I make, I pay a little less. Tell 'em how you, how you like to buy them all.

What's that? I like it when you buy them all. She likes it when I just buy everything at a cheaper price. At a cheaper price. Like, like that. So, so, so I'll haggle a little bit. So a lot of times, like, you know, um, a lot of people my age, our age got back into Pokemon when, uh, it's called Pokemon 1 51. That, that that set came out.

The original 1 51, the chase cards charge guard, right. We're all very sentimental about that. Um, so I got into the hobby pretty late, so, so, um, a lot of the 1 51 stuff was pretty pricey. Um, so I went to this one trade show and the guy had, I think, uh, and there's a lot of stuff. Did you collect Pokemon when you were younger?

We all did. Right? Um, well,

Chris Dattoli: aard. I got a, I got a, um, blast and I never a.

Rob Valincius: there it's a lot. The hobby's crazy dude. It's right now, it's like the stock market. It's like insanely high. Um, like if you're to look at trading card values, you know, uh, sports cards are like up a hundred percent, 200% Pokemon's up 3000%, right? Um, so, but like, so I get to this show and the guy had a, they're called booster bundles.

So, um, there, there's, uh, six packs in a booster bundle. And the guy I think had four. And I, and I'll walk up and the wife, he's with me and I'm like, all right, I'm gonna try to buy these now. I'm gonna try to do $5 less for each, but I'm gonna buy 'em all. And she's like, I, I like that. Let's, let's go for it. I always bring cash too.

'cause they love cash. I'm like,

Chris Dattoli: Absolutely. Yeah.

Rob Valincius: I will give you 55, but I'll buy all four. Right now for cash, take it or leave it. And the guys were like, let's do it. I'm like, yeah, let's fucking go. You

Chris Dattoli: Yeah.

Rob Valincius: um, I, I just love the haggle, man. There's something it, mom, if you're listening, watching, it's, it's, it's 'cause of you that I'm a haggler.

Chris Dattoli: it's kind of like gambling and winning,

Rob Valincius: Yeah. Well, I do love, love me Some do love me some gambling. I'm not gonna lie. I am, uh, I do love to do some sports betting, fantasy football. It's all encompassing. And I got the wifey doing it. So we got her in some fantasy leagues. Are you a fantasy guy at all?

Chris Dattoli: I am, but I stopped. Um, I only did it one and done. And I only bet on sports once. And that was during that fucking Bronco game that,

Rob Valincius: She's like, fuck it. I bet on the game. It sucked. I'm done. Never

Chris Dattoli: yeah. I was just like, no, no. And someone won, I think like $1,500. I know what Mark Cuban won, like something like $20 million because he bet like the first play was gonna be a safety and the odds were so against him. And he won something like 20 million. He won. And I saw, like, one of my roles says, win 1500.

And I'm like, no, I'm done. No, never again.

Rob Valincius: So, you know, um, we talked a lot about kind of your journey and some things. Can you, can you give me some, um, maybe some best practices for maybe someone that's, that's newer, thinking about getting into voice acting? You know, we talked a little bit about the gear, right? You know, you, you don't have to spend full money on that, but talk a little bit about, um, maybe someone that's looking to get into the craft.

Is there anything that you would like to bestow upon them? Um, you know, and whether it's how you do it, uh, getting, I know getting an agent's not easy, you know, certain things like that.

Chris Dattoli: So one thing is you have to have, be able to have thick skin. You gotta take constructive criticism and you have to be open. Two, you have to take direction. If you could take direction, well, you are worth your weight in gold. Gold. I'm very happy to say, like, one of the things about me is I take direction.

Well, if someone, my first take I give may suck completely, but if they say, Hey, read it this way, this way, I go, oh, okay. And I read it. I'm like, oh, that's really good. Like, Hey, you take direction. Well, that's great. Third, please do your fucking research on coaches. I, I hear ever since the freaking pandemic, right?

Million people say, oh, I'm a coach, I'm a coach, I'm a coach, I'm a coach. And it's mainly the people who just only done anime. Now, don't get me wrong, a doing anime's fun. I've done anime. Um, but it, um. The, the pay is not that great. It, it's nice, but it's not that great compared to, you know, other work. But they think like, but it's the most popular.

They get invited to conventions. It's a wonderful marketing tool to, to voice anime. Now they're say like, oh, I could be a coach. And I would ask them like, oh, like, what are, what is your, like, gimme your resume of a coach. You know, I, I wanna know like, what have you done? Oh, I've done this, this, this, this. I'm like, well, let's just anime.

Have you done commercials? Have you done this? Oh, I did one of these. And then they kind of get offended like, why are you questioning me? Like, what's wrong? Like, you are the one who works for me. You don't. I'm like, well, I'm interviewing you just like you're interviewing me, so you gotta do your research.

'cause I've seen so many people got ripped off by people pretending to be a coach. One recently, I'm sure you could look it up, allegations against one voice actor who people were like, I gave this guy money to make a demo and I haven't, it's now six months later and I haven't gotten anything. And I'm like, ah,

Rob Valincius: Hmm.

Chris Dattoli: do your re like just because they're popular doesn't make him a good coach. I mean, I, I'm gonna throw Steve Bloom, I think like for 30 years he just decided to be a coach. I could be wrong, but like that's the first time of him seeing, like opening up to coaching people one-on-one. And I'm like, well he's been doing it for over 30 years and a lot of voice actors who've been doing it for 40 years are not coaches.

'cause they just, they just want a voice act.

Rob Valincius: Yeah.

Chris Dattoli: I said, look at their, you know, there's a quote from Wolf on Wall Street. You know, don't judge me by my winners, judge me by my losers, because I have so few. Look at all. Like, look at the coach. What have they done? They should have a variety of fields. They can focus on One thing, like their only coaching audio books.

They only coach commercials, but they should have a well real, uh, a well-rounded wheelhouse of work that they've done. And this should also be represented by several accredited agencies. Not like Joe Schmo for the bar over in the corner, who like got them a job here and there, but let's say ka um, Atlas talent.

Not, not those, but like other good, like those are like the top agencies, but other good like voice acting agencies have been around for a while and they booked some work with that. And they should at least be in the voice acting field for a minimum of 10 years. And I say that because 10 years is a well-rounded number.

'cause when you go into voice acting, you're essentially starting your own business. And the first thing they teach you in business school is you won't make profit till about three to five years later after you've been in business. And once you do that, like you, you, you're around, I think it's gonna take a good, like, you could be like the few rare talents that knock it out of the park as soon as they start.

I, I know a few, uh, Gabriel Kda was one. He just hit the ground running and he was extremely successful. Still is. Um, and there's other people who've been at it for over 20 years and they just made it big. You know? Um, overnight success takes 20 years to accomplish. Um, and you just gotta make sure, uh, I got a little off sidetrack a little bit.

I'm sorry. Just like make sure like they like 10 years, that's enough experience that they had, you know, in the voice acting field and, you know, uh, interview their students, you know, do research on them. That's nothing. And another piece of advice I have is it's very easy to have imposter syndrome or a feel defeated by looking at other people's success.

And there's gonna be times where like you're gonna audition for months, years and get nothing. And you're going to easily get deflated. That happens just like if you're starting to, you know, stream video games or starting a podcast, you know, it's gonna take some time to build a momentum. Some, some days are greater than others.

Some days aren't. You know, you gotta remember it is a marathon, not a race. It's gonna take a while for you to start. When I started I to, I took a good three years since I really started making money, and even then I got lucky. And there's times where like, hey, my profits are really good. Other times my profits are really, really bad.

But you know what I, it's just a matter of, you know, not losing the momentum and be like, I'm gonna stick with it. I'm gonna stick with it. I'm not, I'm not losing. So you have to, you know, realize it's a marathon, not a race. You, you can audition, audition and get nothing and nothing. Because I talked to a lot of people.

Um, just this year, um, I'm starting to do coaching because, uh, one of my mentors and coaches said, Chris, I'm teaching, guess what? You're coaching my next class. Deal with it. Oh shit. Okay. And he's like, you have the experience, you have the expertise, you know, more than any other people, you know, more than these people.

Just do it. I'm like, all right. You know, I just, you know what? Sure, why not? It could be fun. And I, I, I like coaching students. I like helping them out again. I got sidetracked. I'm so sorry. So,

Rob Valincius: You're good, dude. Um, so that, that's a good, I think, starter kit for people. Right.

Chris Dattoli: there's so much more and anyone wants, they could always reach out to me and I'd be happy to, you know, sit down and explain like an hour's worth of time because just so many people get ripped off so many, they want instant gratification. A a lot of people nowadays they want that, you know, I blame social media, but you know, it is what it is.

You know, they.

Rob Valincius: percent social media's fault.

Chris Dattoli: know, they see people on TikTok and you know, they see a guy doing voice imperson impersonations of Tommy Lee Jones, of Robin Williams of like all the famous actors out there, and they like, follow him. I'm like, well, that's great. He do some, he does impersonations. What else can he do?

Like, you know what I mean? Like, it's such a small wheelhouse and people see like, oh, this person, you know, this TikTok does this, or he looks out a window and makes fun of people's cooking things of like that nature, you know what I mean? And then like they get thousands of views and like, I want that, I want that instant success.

And it's not gonna happen. It might, it it is. It's very, very, very rare. Like you might a week later get represented by a major agency and boom, you start making money like crazy and you start like rising to the top. But it is rare and y you won't get that instant satis, satis, uh, satisfaction that you want. And you gotta be okay with that. You gotta realize, like I said, it's a marathon, not a race.

Rob Valincius: Yeah. And it, and there's a lot of the other stuff too, right? Getting an agent,

Chris Dattoli: Mm-hmm.

Rob Valincius: and then eventually getting enough work to actually get into the actors, the Screen Actors Guild. I mean, I know those two things are, both of those things are really difficult. 'cause I've had a, a couple actors on my show that have told me just how difficult that is to do.

Um.

Chris Dattoli: um, and I'm also about like, you also need to take like a business class, a marketing class, because you're marketing your voiceover services. You gotta know how to like talk and negotiate and understand your rates and make sure, and most importantly, I will say this and I don't give a fuck what people think.

Stay the fuck off voices.com and Fiverr. That's what I'm gonna tell everyone. Stay off those two sites. You'll be okay.

Rob Valincius: Yeah, that's more like, if I were to think of things that's more of like a, uh, like a, what's the word I'm looking for? Like a, not a 10 99, but it's like you're, you're like, just like getting one job done that's not gonna like,

Chris Dattoli: W2 or W six or something, I dunno.

Rob Valincius: yeah, whatever. It's not, it's a ten nine, I think it's a 10 99, whatever, but it's, it's not getting you to the next level.

You're just, you're getting 50 bucks for, you know, saying a script for somebody to, for, you know, it's, it's not gonna propel you in your career. Um, let's end it with this. Tell me, Chris, what is your dream gig in the voice acting world and, uh. We'll end with plugging whatever you got going on. Um, you know, anything for the near future we can look forward to and, and also where we can find your work

Chris Dattoli: absolutely. So my dream job, I have two. One is to, uh, do voice, uh, character in a big, uh, animation or cartoon project. I would love to be, or at least be like a charact, a recurring character on that, let's say like a Steven Universe show or something along the lines of that. I mean, like Kurt

Rob Valincius: a SpongeBob.

Chris Dattoli: It's almost like that. It doesn't have to be a main character. It could be a small recurring character like the guy who always screams my leg, you

Rob Valincius: I just got, I just got the wifey into SpongeBob, by the way.

Chris Dattoli: Oh, yeah.

Rob Valincius: watched it. And there's a, there's just a channel that just plays, always plays SpongeBob, and it's just, it's just something you could put on and just laugh 'cause of how silly and ridiculous everything is.

Chris Dattoli: Absolutely. Yeah. And, uh, you could always find me like all, uh, all my social media, uh, pages have the same name. It's at Chris Dattoli, D-A-T-T-O-L-I-V-O, TikTok and everything. You find me and my website's, uh, Dattolivoiceovers.com voiceovers.com. Uh, big pro. I can, I can announce it. Oh, I'm sorry. My other dream project, I had to say it is, uh, I would love to do an on-camera project with my cousin.

He's an on onscreen actor, and it was kind of cool him and I talking like me being the voice and him being like an on-camera actor whenever he could talk. And then I somehow got into doing on-camera work every now and then, and I'm like, you know what? I just for one day, like, work on a project with my cousin just so I can like, hang out with him.

Like, I, I think that'd be really cool.

Rob Valincius: That's cool. It's always good to be able to like work with family to a certain degree. Not, not like be ingrained into it 'cause family's family, but you know, out.

Chris Dattoli: Yes, they can found me. Uh, other projects, let's see. I don't know. I'm, I'm trying to think which ones I can talk about. Uh, there's one, I was just on, I was a character Murrow on a video game called Identity v Hubu. It's called Hullabaloo. Uh, that was, um, I was actually like really shocked. I got that and fi figured out how big that game was.

Uh, so, uh, you could check me on that. Uh, I'm actually in September. I'm gonna be, I'm a guest at a convention called J one Con. Uh, it's down in Atlantic City at the Showboat. I'm gonna be there. And, uh, yeah, that's pretty much it. Just check my social media channels and if anyone wants to reach out to me on how to get started in voice acting, look at my website, reach out to me, my phone number's right there.

Gimme a call or email.

Rob Valincius: cool. Awesome man. Well look, uh, it was a pleasure having you on Drinking Clock Pod on all socials, drink Clock podcast wherever you listen to. It's a, it goes on fucking everything. So, um, awesome man. Have a great night and uh, thanks for hanging out.

Chris Dattoli: For having me. Appreciate it. Take care, buddy.

Rob Valincius: You too. Hanging out.

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