INTERVIEW WITH NICOLA LANCI — Time for the applause
◆◆ EPISODE CONTRIBUTORS ◆◆
Gamerland — Interviewer
Want Some — Design
Nicola Lanci— Special Guest
✵✵ ABOUT SPECIAL GUEST ✵✵
My name is Nicola, born in 1987, and I am an actor, voice actor, radio host, and commercial announcer. I was born with a passion for dubbing and voiceover work; ever since I was a child, I spent my days with old tape recorders, having fun announcing songs, recording commercials, and telling stories.
I “launched” myself into the rewarding paths of theater and music, achieving great results and gaining experiences that were crucial for my personal and artistic growth. Who I am…Italian voice actor, commercial announcer, editing services, warm and versatile voice.
At 20, I was introduced to the world of dubbing through a small local production company specializing in documentaries, e-learning, and event presentations. From there, I continued with live readings and recording small local commercials.
These experiences fascinated me so much that I made a decision: I will work with my voice!
It wasn’t easy at all: I thoroughly analyzed my limitations and worked hard to overcome them: diction, professional theater, internships, dubbing courses, experiences in innovative and emerging fields (web radio), apprenticeships, sweat, technical preparation, and a lot of determination, interpretative reading, presentations, until I finally got to experience firsthand (and test with my voice) the environments of professional dubbing.
This is my job!I have a baritone voice, capable of ranging from warm and mature tones to fresher and more youthful ones, very versatile and adaptable to any context. During my “musical” years, I had the opportunity to work side by side with several services, some very good, who managed to put aside their prejudices against me (I was their “natural enemy,” the guitarist) and showed me the best ways to use compressors, equalizers, preamps, which, when set up properly, could achieve a spectacular sound even from an inexpensive guitar and microphone.
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I have applied all these skills acquired over the years to my field and my work, managing to provide high-quality material, complete services of mixing, mastering, and if needed, video editing and subtitle addition — all to maintain a high standard and achieve 100% client and collaborator satisfaction!
In this episode, we had the pleasure of chatting with Nicola Lanci to learn more about him. His insights were incredibly impressive, and we extend our heartfelt thanks to Nicola for his engaging and thoughtful responses during the interview. We hope you enjoy reading it as much as we enjoyed conducting it!
You’ll find all the essential links and sources at the end of this article. Don’t forget to follow our and Nicola’s social media channels and visit our websites for the latest updates.
Please share your comments and thoughts about the interview below. Your feedback is important to us, and we look forward to bringing you more captivating interviews in the future.
▬▬▬ INTERVIEW ▬▬▬
1. What inspired you to become a voice actor, and how did your journey begin?
It’s hard to be brief… Is it presumptuous to say I was born for it? At the age of 8, I played with a tape recorder, spending afternoons recording myself as I brought my favorite comic book characters to life with my voice. I imitated my favorite TV superheroes and “dubbed” movies and cartoons recorded on VHS tapes, often including commercials. I would sync the video from the TV with the audio on the cassette. Ingenious, but my voice was terrible and shrill, and I received no encouragement at home, especially from my father. One incident particularly stands out: in 1996, my father bought a cassette answering machine and said, “If you’re so good, record the greeting message.” I did, but was later insulted for sounding like an awful woman with a terrible voice. This made me abandon the idea. Throughout my life, I encountered many negative people, including at home and school. My teachers in a small provincial town would prepare us for school plays. I often had various roles and tried to add a personal touch to my characters, deviating from the typical school play recitations. I would change lines, improvise, and try to prompt my peers, but they stuck rigidly to the script. For the teachers, I was always the worst. This led me to withdraw into myself during a delicate age. At 12, I joined a theater company to “come out of my shell,” but felt hindered by my terrible voice. I couldn’t stand listening to myself, and it caused me distress. I developed tics and psoriasis. My emotional struggles were not considered important at the time. However, theater helped me immensely. During adolescence, my voice changed, but I still disliked it. One evening, after a play, a man approached me and asked if I could narrate a documentary for him. I decided to face my fear, and this reignited my passion for voice acting. I began practicing diaphragm control, diction, and sight-reading. I took interpretative reading courses, read extensively, and repeatedly performed Cyrano de Bergerac’s monologue. Gradually, I became comfortable with my voice. I harnessed my emotional experiences, channeling them into my expressiveness, which worked well. I could make people laugh, cry, and feel emotions, truly believing in what I did.
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2. How do you prepare to voice a character with a strong or distinct personality like Chuck in Brawl Stars?
Another crucial factor for this profession is creativity and imagination, the logical ability to connect the dots and create a beautiful picture. There are two types of people in this field:
· Technicians, who follow instructions to the letter and cannot think “outside the box” (often working in sync on films and translations, perfectly adhering to a character already created by others).
· Creatives, who need a character’s background and reference characterization (for Chuck, it was Alex Brightman’s Beetlejuice from the musical, not Michael Keaton’s film) and can connect the dots to create a unique and personal interpretation. I am somewhat in between, pushing the boundaries where needed. For Chuck, I didn’t even know the game was Brawl Stars. We recorded live sessions, and I only imagined the final result. It was incredibly fun, and I was given creative freedom, resulting in a fantastic outcome. I believe if I had seen it beforehand, I wouldn’t have been able to replicate it the same way.
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3. Is there a specific role you’ve voiced that resonated with you on a personal level?
Unfortunately, not yet, and it may never happen. I think the only way is to create myself a movie, I’ve got some ideas that resonate with my emotions, but I don’t know if I ever get time to write it. Voice acting has its limitations: I often voice characters depressed, maniacs, strong, or vaguely villainous characters, which is contrary to my peaceful and reflective personality, but it must be said that if you get too involved, you risk appearing fake. A good thing is to do sate the right, without get too involved.
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4. How do you approach voicing a character in a language that isn’t your native tongue?
I’ve never been good at English, a common trait among Italians. Some blame dubbing (though dubbing uses perfect Italian, unlike everyday speech). I believe the Italian education system has flaws in language teaching: English is studied only in specific courses, often resulting in basic phrases like “the cat is on the table.” I learned English on my own, participating in sports events with peers from across Europe. With practice and work, anything is possible. Now, whenever I have an English job, I feel anxious because it’s not just about words and grammar but also intonations. Italian intonations sound odd when translated into other languages. There’s a stereotype that Italians speak English like Super Mario, but it’s not true. Regional accents and intonations carry over into any language, often sounding terrible if not the well-known ones (Neapolitan, Sicilian, Roman). Usually, a native English speaker imitates an Italian or vice versa to achieve the desired result. For Chuck, they specifically wanted a native Italian, regardless of accent. I incorporated the classic Italian-English style in some of Scorpion Chuck phrases, like “Sandsational,” pronounced more Italian: “Sandesationalle.”
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5. What are the challenges of adapting your voice to fit the tone and mood of different genres, like video games versus commercials?
The key is to convey the right intentions, switch them on command, and detach from daily problems, serving the product being created. The voice is the sound, and emotions make the difference. If you set the right emotions, the voice follows naturally. Often, I might be a train in a children’s cartoon in the morning, a World War II soldier in the afternoon, and an ancient Carthaginian in the evening. Each character has a different background and way of speaking. The instrument remains the same, but the score and music change. For commercials, instructions are often less detailed, focusing on the target audience. Sometimes, you have audio or video in other languages to match as closely as possible. In these cases, the voice’s sound is crucial, and intentions are often overlooked. If you’re skilled, you can add a touch that stands out, but usually, two factors are considered: voice sound and final price. For many productions, you’re just a speaker, and one is as good as another
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6. Can you share a moment from your career where improvisation played a key role in bringing a character to life?
I could mention local examples or theater performances, monologues, and other occasions where I acted fully (including physically), but vocally, Chuck is one of the best-known examples. In dubbing, you often have to match someone else’s intentions. Years ago, there was more room for creativity because it was harder to compare with the original. Characters were made more comedic (like Inspector Clouseau in The Pink Panther or scenes from Young Frankenstein). Today, it’s harder to deviate from the original due to the web and platforms, making dubbing a faithful translation, including intonations and character quotes. However, with Chuck, we had the freedom to create fantastic and fun tracks in both English (with my incomprehensible accent for some) and Italian. If a technician had done it instead of me, the character wouldn’t have had the same charisma.
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7. Have you ever had to voice a character whose values or actions you disagreed with? How did you handle it?
In dubbing, I enjoy these characters as they are my exact opposite, and I interpret them well, so I accept them willingly. In commercials, however, I’ve always politely declined ambiguous products or those that seemed fraudulent, inventing excuses without judging. It’s a dangerous situation early in your career, where you risk accepting anything out of necessity. We get told “no” a lot, but sometimes we can also say “no” politely and respectfully. The amounts involved are rarely life-changing, but dignity is invaluable.
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8. What role has technology played in shaping your career as a voice actor?
Technology has played a crucial role. As a father of two, it has allowed me to work from a home studio, achieving professional sound quality and enhancing my skills in editing and audio processing. In my area, there are no equipped studios or skilled sound engineers, and a professional dubbing studio is a dream for the entire region (Abruzzo). Today, with the right equipment and skills, you can achieve studio-quality sound from home. This allows both my partner and me to work while raising our children. My eldest has already started having fun with the microphone, not necessarily to follow in my footsteps, but to help him express himself better, play with his voice and emotions, and develop skills that will benefit him in everyday life.
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9. How do you stay creatively inspired, especially when working on projects with tight deadlines?
Professionalism involves detaching from worries and focusing on the task at hand. This is something learned through experience. Currently, I have two important projects nearing their deadlines, and I’m behind schedule. In both situations, I must remain calm. If I’m distracted by the fear of not meeting the deadline, my daily output will suffer. Therefore, I take a moment to calm down, take a break, have a good coffee, and try to clear my mind of worries. Years ago, I tried autogenic training techniques, but they never worked for me, perhaps because I never listen to myself.
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10. Are there any rituals or routines you follow before stepping into the recording booth?
Absolutely. When I wake up, my voice is a couple of octaves lower. My friends and colleagues and I have shared some hilarious voice recordings about this. Before starting work, I prefer to have a coffee, drink plenty of water, and go through my morning routine, which includes reading and responding to emails, quotes, contracts, and various bureaucracies. Then, I check my hardware for updates or new plugins to install. I enter the booth and start talking to warm up my vocal cords, often talking to myself about what I’m doing. When I feel ready, I begin. For example, if I start at 8:00 AM, this routine usually has me ready by 9:00 AM or, at the latest, 9:30 AM if there are any hiccups.
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11. What is your approach to voicing characters who are very different from yourself, either in personality or physicality?
This is what I desire most. Paradoxically, these characters are the easiest to portray. Opposites of my personality or characters very different from my physicality challenge me to experiment with different characterizations that I wouldn’t normally have the opportunity to try.
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12. Can you talk about a time when you had to voice a character with minimal direction? How did you create the voice?
This has happened with some video games. “Go ahead, do you have everything? Send me the recordings…” It’s quite exhausting, and even though many times it’s “good on the first take” (without needing revisions), I produce a lot of material, which I then have my partner or a colleague listen to impartially before deciding whether to discard or send it. In these cases, I follow my intuition and try to give the character an original personality, hoping it’s the right one. It takes intuition to nail the first voice, from which you can build the character’s personality and develop it consistently, avoiding stereotypes. I usually work this way: I propose my version as a “test,” hoping for feedback to understand the direction to take. These projects are dynamic but challenging for someone as insecure as me.
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13. How do you balance the technical aspects of voice acting with the emotional depth required for certain roles?
In theater, we often performed without amplification, so we had to project our voices to be heard. With a microphone, it’s entirely different, like acting in someone’s ear. You can’t shout “All Aboard…” coldly, or they’ll either hit you or call the police. Good microphone technique is essential to avoid audio saturation or being too quiet. I use body movement to add dynamism to my voice. I prefer to stand for dubbing roles to achieve greater dynamism and sit for narration, positioning myself consistently. For characters who are angry or often shout, like Chuck, we use “field” techniques, moving closer or farther from the microphone as needed. Over time, this becomes an automatic mental process linked to breathing, without even thinking about it. When you need more power, you automatically move away; when you have less breath, you move closer to the microphone
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14. What are some of the most unexpected or unusual voice acting gigs you’ve taken on?
You have to be ready for anything, but sometimes there are surprises. For example, imitating a scene where a man is grabbed by the neck, or someone squeezing your diaphragm, or running while being asked to do the same. Eating scenes are my favorite (bring on the Carbonara). The most unusual and least preferred gigs are those where I’m asked to voice two characters in the same product. My vocal range is hard to disguise, sometimes more successfully with different ages, but often not to my satisfaction. Nonetheless, I always hope for the unexpected, as it adds excitement to the day
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15. How has your perception of the characters you voice evolved over the course of your career?
I consider them a snapshot of the moment. I tend to avoid listening to past work or showcasing it on social media because I know I could do better today. However, at that time, it was my best. Today, my best has moved forward, and hopefully, it will continue to improve tomorrow. It’s stimulating not to set limits and always strive for improvement
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16. What advice would you give to aspiring voice actors who want to break into the industry?
I had a terrible voice and diction, and everyone was against me, but I challenged myself not to listen to what others said. Be strong and courageous. There is no precise “recipe.” You need technical skills like acting, breathing, diction, and articulation, as well as personal qualities like imagination, creativity, and initiative. One crucial thing often overlooked is that in the age of social media we only see others’ successes because people’s always show only these. We don’t know how far they’ve come from or how many “no’s” they’ve received. Be tenacious and ready to receive “no’s” or no response at all. Be self-critical but not excessively, or you’ll drag yourself down. Your goal is to reach the surface. If someone gives you advice on how to swim better, accept and follow it. Filter out useless criticisms and find the positive even in harshly expressed ones. Focus on one point at a time, try to not point to 100 starting from 0, aiming for a modest 5 or 10, and once achieved, you’ll be ready to level up. Step by step and you’ll discover an unlimited potential.
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17. How do you see the future of voice acting evolving, especially with advancements in AI and digital media?
AI has made its way with immense propaganda and low prices, promoting a message of free or cheap tools, given to the humanity for an universal philanthropy. However, behind this tools there are some big companies, start-up that must to be accountable to their investors and create profit, in fact prices are already rising, and one day, we may reach a good quality but at same market prices for a human. Meanwhile, AI is learning from us. Some colleagues have “sold out” to AI for a few dollars, participating in text-to-speech, voice cloning, and training. Others see it as an opportunity to participate in castings, do tests, or work while relaxing by the sea drinking a cocktain in a coco nut. I don’t understand this. AI has ITS intentions, not yours. It may use your voice but will still use its intentions. How can you sell your experiences and work for a few dollars? I’ve experimented with AI, creating images, videos, and voices to understand this rival better. Despite improvements, AI is standardizing a performance style that will be the same for everyone. The fidelity to the original and the dominance of technique over creativity will serve these sectors on a silver platter. Soon, we’ll have games, movies, ads, audiobooks, e-learning, announcements, calls, and videos all sounding like TikTok’s default voice. The sound may change, but the intonations will be the same for everyone. How will you differentiate your product? What will you do to “sound” different? In every sector, some work for profit and others for history. Many are currently focused on profit, but successful companies often differentiate themselves by offering original and diverse products. AI can learn everything from us, but we’ll always be ready to offer something new.
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18. Is there a dream role or project you’ve always wanted to be a part of?
One of my biggest dreams was to voice a character my children would enjoy, whether in a cartoon, video game, or movie. I’ve already achieved this with Chuck, as my son Jared has started playing Brawl Stars, and I’m helping him to “unlock me”
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19. How do you maintain vocal health during long recording sessions?
With proper breathing, you can go on for hours without straining your vocal cords. In winter (with the cold) or summer (with air conditioning), there’s always some risk, even though I rarely get throat illnesses. A cold remains my main enemy. Over time, I’ve learned to understand my limits. When I feel my voice is straining, I change my breathing or slightly adjust my vocal register to use a more comfortable voice. For example, Chuck’s sessions lasted over four hours each, always in the morning. Afterward, I had a business-to-business video and a live session for a major brand commercial, and I had no problems at all
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20. If you could voice any character from a book, movie, or game, which one would it be and why?
Let’s do one for each category. As an actor, I’d like to voice Jared Leto, my partner’s favorite actor and musician (one of the motivations cause our son is named Jared). He has always had unique roles and is a fantastic, versatile actor, sometimes a little too underrated.
For a book, I’d love to voice “The Cloven Viscount” by Italo Calvino, interpreting both versions of the Viscount, the bad one and the good one.
For a video game, I’d choose the archangel Tyrael from Diablo, especially Diablo II, my favorite character — charismatic, powerful, and the only one considering humanity’s salvation.
Lastly, I’d love to voice Cell from Dragon Ball Z Anime. I know, Frieza is more charismatic, but Cell had a powerful voice and a more accurated story, with well-developed origins and goals.
══ SOCIAL NETWORKS ══
Nicola’s social networks and links
Site — (www.nicolalanci.com)
X (Twitter) — (x.com/nicolalanci_dub)
YouTube — (www.youtube.com/channel/UCmpOgwkRcd9pknV9TDM1zpg)
Instagram —( instagram.com/nicola.lanci.voiceover?igsh=cDFlZHF5Z2IzYnY=)
All other information was taken from official Nicola’s site — www.nicolalanci.com
Interviewer’s social networks
X (Twitter) — (x.com/Gamerland469485)
Telegram (RU only): (t.me/Gamerlandbs)
