The following interview for Backstage’s on-camera series The Slate was compiled in part by Backstage readers just like you! Follow us on Twitter (@Backstage) and Instagram (@backstagecast) to stay in the loop on upcoming interviews and to submit your questions.
Tomm Moore and Ross Stewart of Ireland’s five-time Academy Award–nominated animation studio Cartoon Saloon have another hit on their hands. Following best animated feature nods for “The Secret of Kells” and “Song of the Sea” (as well as the studio’s “The Breadwinner”), this year’s Apple TV+ release, “Wolfwalkers,” notched another, wrapping the filmmakers’ Irish folklore–fantasy trilogy on a high note. Moore and Stewart, who have been creating together since they were teens drawing their own comics, sat with Backstage for a virtual webinar to discuss the process of bringing “Wolfwalkers” to life, and to offer their best advice for aspiring voiceover artists and animators alike.
Just keep creating.
Ross Stewart: “It’s so easy to make short films now, to make little animated pieces now. You don’t need, like, a huge amount of equipment or hardware or anything like that. Teenagers can make animated movies now just on their mobile phones. So I think the more content that you make and get out there, the more you will learn as an artist—and also, the more exposure you’ll get.”
The Quickest Way to Break Into Voice Acting Once your foot is in the door, be wise about which department you apply to.
RS: “If you want to get into a studio that’s doing [feature films], getting your foot in the door, I think, is the hardest part. But then, once you’re inside the studio, it’s very easy to move from one department into another—or it’s easier, let me say. But I think finding what departments you want to apply for… You know, nearly everyone wants to be a concept artist or a visual development artist these days, because that’s kind of cool, and you can do whatever you want. But that means there’s so many people applying [that] it’s very hard to have a portfolio that will be so impressive that you will just immediately be hired as a concept artist or a designer. What you find is you might get hired in background, and your personal work might be shown to somebody who’s developing a project who goes, ‘Oh, wow, that’s absolutely perfect for my project.’ And then you might get into concept design or visual development for that project [more easily] that way. So, really, how you apply to get into the studio is a thing worth considering.”
There are various ways in which voice actors can get on Cartoon Saloon’s radar, even without agents.
Tomm Moore: “I think if you can get on something like Voicebank [now renamed voices.com], where there [are] more character actors—I don’t know what the equivalent is internationally, but a lot of the actors on [there] are not, like, super well-known, and all you’re listening to is their reel, as it were. The actors that we picked that way—they weren’t massively established, but they were right, [and] we got to meet them, and we would have them in mind that way.”
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When it comes to animators, Moore values collaboration as much as, if not more than, technical skill.
TM: “You learn how to draw, and you learn how to animate, you learn how to make movies or whatever, in college. But the biggest part that it all takes is working together. I’ve had partnerships my whole life, like myself and Ross working together since we were teenagers, and that has allowed me to create stuff that is more than I could ever create on my own. So I always advise people [to] team up and collaborate, because that’s what the industry is. It’s a lot of collaboration, a lot of partnerships. Very few people are making a living making their own movies from home. They’re teaming up, at least with a sound designer or an editor or something, even if they do all the animation themselves. So for me, that’s the biggest advice, because most people who want to get into it are focused on the craft side. But if you get your foot in the door at a studio, whatever the job is, if you’ve got good emotional intelligence and you’re somebody who’s good to collaborate with, you’re gonna rise through the ranks.”
This story originally appeared in the April 1 issue of Backstage Magazine. Subscribe here.
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