We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Charles Nguyen. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Charles below.

Charles, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. How did you learn to do what you do? Knowing what you know now, what could you have done to speed up your learning process? What skills do you think were most essential? What obstacles stood in the way of learning more?

So a bit of backstory:

• I’ve been voice acting on and off for more than 10 years
• Been in the professional world for 2 years
• Took several classes (Richard Horvitz, Crispin Freeman, etc.)
• Been in games like Genshin Impact and other indie games

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

I started voice acting around the latter end of 2010. It honestly started off on a whim. I already was an avid anime watcher during that time, and I loved the characters. So I figured, “why not?” Fast forward a few months, I joined an amateur voice acting group called Universal Blade Productions, and that’s where I really worked on my voice acting skills.

Voice acting, to me, is my way of telling the story through the characters. Hearing these characters come to life through me is what made me fall in love with the art. I put a lot of pride in the level of effort I put into making that a reality. There have been times where I take 1-2 hours to do an audition for one character, because it’s really important that I get it right. Even though that’s not optimal for more “natural” reads, it’s what I enjoy.

If there’s anything I want people to know about my work, it’s that I always give it 110%.

Is there mission driving your creative journey?

Simply put, to inspire others through these characters. Anime and video games are filled with resilient characters who overcome the bad hands they were dealt. If I could help even one person pull themselves out of their darkness and kick ass like the characters I look up to, then I did my job.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

That sounding “perfect” is a fallacy. I needed to learn be okay with messing up. I spent so much time trying to get the “perfect” take, when honestly, there isn’t one. Being authentic and sounding less “rehearsed” is what’s sought after by casting directors nowadays.

One of the casting directors that I voiced for told me that my best takes were those where I didn’t think so much. Hearing their words created a shift in my paradigm. This was during a recording session too. As an actor, you *have* to not make sure your nerves don’t have control over you.

Contact Info:

• Website: charlesnguyen127.wixsite.com/website
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/charles.nguyen.129/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/CharlesNguyenVA