We were lucky to catch up with Gerald Hill recently and have shared our conversation below.

Gerald, appreciate you joining us today. Is your team able to work remotely? If so, how have you made it work? What, if any, have been the pitfalls? What have been the non-obvious benefits?

I’m lucky enough to do about 90% of my voice work from my home studio. Years ago I wouldn’t have even thought it possible to have the opportunities I’ve gotten without being in a major city or hub. I try to always find the silver lining when faced with adversity; so if it hadn’t been for the lockdown, I don’t think I would’ve pursued voice acting.

Since then I’ve worked with clients all around the world. China, Australia, Africa, and the UK is where bulk of my work comes from. It’s wonderful working with creatives from all over the world.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

A career in voice acting is something I’ve wanted for a really long time. Especially after playing the first Mass Effect video game. Fear prevented me from pursuing it. I think because I wanted it so bad that I was afraid that if I failed at it, I would be devastated and never recover.

I worked Tech support for ten years prior to this. During the pandemic I, like many others went through some hard times. Part of that was me realizing I wasn’t happy with my career. It was paying the bills but crushing my soul. All while I was facing medical issues.

I talked to my amazing Wife, Kellie about how I was feeling. I told my therapist the same. They both asked me a similar question, “If you could do anything, what would it be?”. Then without hesitation I said Voice Acting.

I’ve always been led to creative work. Me and my cousin worked on a comic book in high school. I graduated top of my class at Film School. Made a couple of short films and it was a blast. Then I was diagnosed with degenerative disc disease and severe nerve damage, from an old car accident where I was rear ended. Everything kinda came to a halt for me.

I was having debilitating pain and wasn’t able to get around like I used to. So I couldn’t make films. I needed a creative outlet, desperately. So I wrote, illustrated and published my first official comic book. It did extremely well, to my surprise. It gave me my creative confidence back, but still wasn’t my passion. So cut back to the pandemic, my wonderfully supportive wife told me to do it and I finally pushed past my fear and pursued Voice Acting. Researched and took as many virtual training sessions I could afford, purchased some equipment, and in March of 2022 I booked my first role.

I’m forever thankful for my wife for always supporting me and my crazy ideas. I entered this industry genuinely as a fan. And I never try to hide that. It keeps me grounded and prevents me from ever taking myself too seriously. Haha. I’m always a fan of the projects I work on. I mean, I’m a huge geek! So comics, animation and video games have been ingrained in me for as long as I can remember. So being able to voice in those genres is quite literally a dream come true.

We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?

I never looked at it as ‘building’ per se. I knew I needed a platform to get my name out there but I went into it as organically as I could. By just being, ME. Unapologetically me. I’m a fan first, Voice Actor second. I think this has allowed me to cultivate meaningful relationships online with other voice actors, game devs and producers.

I’ve always wore my heart and passions on my sleeve. And I always try to share positivity. There’s already so much negativity on social media and I don’t want to add to that. I want to talk about the things I love and enjoy, with others who like to do the same.

I know to some, it can come off as disingenuous or phony. Like, “No one’s that nice!” or “He’s a try hard!”. Nope, I’m just me. I love what I love and I try to get out of my own way. I used to make myself small. Trying to please everyone. Humble to a fault. That caused me to miss so many opportunities. So I told myself, never again. I see something cool, or someone I’d love to work with…I put myself out there. The worst they can say is, no.

What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?

The most rewarding aspect of being a creative to me is the process of creating something from nothing. I didn’t grow up with a lot and that taught me how to do a lot with very little. It built my imagination up. To be able to share that creativity with the world and make them feel something…it’s a beautiful thing.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.artofgee.com
• Instagram: https://instagram.com/xero_gee_comix
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/geraldhill/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/xero_gee
• Youtube: https://youtube.com/@voicesofgee?si=OxZvCE7wxwkUWfLC

Image Credits

My Time at Sandrock – Pathea Games

Lil Wild animated series – Mediacorp