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

Raul, appreciate you joining us today. When did you first know you wanted to pursue a creative/artistic path professionally?

I had just graduated from college in 2011 with a degree in theatre. I had no idea what I was going to do with it. My parents graciously let me continue to live at their house as long as I was either working or looking for work. Fortunately, I was able to get a job at a jewelry store. However, the store was about a 45 minute commute, so to pass the time, I started listening to podcasts. One of the podcasts I started listening to was called “Talkin’ Toons with Rob Paulsen”. He would have guests (other voice actors) come onto the show and chat about voice acting and the voiceover business in general.

For some background context. When I was a kid, I was constantly playing with voices and doing impressions of celebrities and teachers. I found that I was really good at it and was enjoying the reaction I was getting out of my friends and classmates. I always liked to make people laugh. People would always tell me that I should do cartoons when I got older. I would always laugh it off. Thinking “Yeah, that’d be cool, but that would never happen.” It felt so unrealistic and intangible at the time. I was just a kid growing up in Spartanburg, SC. How the hell was I ever going to end up doing cartoons in Los Angeles/Hollywood??

Anyway, cut back to 2011. I was listening to Rob’s podcast on the regular. As the show went on I started to hear more from these amazing voice actors. People I grew up hearing and watching as a kid! I started to hear their stories and it slowly dawned on me that I had a lot in common with them. Their backgrounds and experiences. I kept saying, “Oh yeah, I’ve done that! I’ve had that experience!” After realizing this, the idea of becoming a voice actor started to become much more realistic and tangible than ever before. I started to think about it as a serious career path. The more I thought about it, the more excited it got about it. I realized that if I could do this for the rest of my life, I would be happy.

Raul, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

Once I decided I wanted to become a voice actor, I began to research and find everything I could about how to get started in the industry. At the time, it wasn’t easy to find this type of information as the industry was in the midst of a major shift. Around this time, voiceover was just on the verge of becoming a more expanded and competitive industry. Technology would soon allow people from around the country (and the world) to conveniently be able to do voiceover from anywhere.

I eventually learned that I needed to make a demo. I also learned that cartoon and video game voiceover work (the type of VO that I really dreamed about getting into) was really hard to come by unless you lived in Los Angeles. Since I was living with my wife in Charleston, SC at the time, I decided that it would probably be best to start with a commercial demo since that would be the type of work that would be more accessible to me. That would at least get my foot in the door. I’m also fluent in both English and Spanish as I am of Puerto Rican descent and grew up speaking the language. As such, I decided to market myself as a bilingual voice actor. Once I got my commercial demo made, I began to use it to find work. I shopped it around to different talent agencies and was eventually able to get some representation.

In 2015, I got one of my first major jobs as the voice of PetSmart, doing all of their ads. That was a pretty big turning point as it was the first voiceover job I had that was on a national level. Up until that point, I was only doing local ads, infomercials and such. I also did Spanish voiceover work for Caterpillar Trucking as the voice of their Spanish language ads.

Another big turning point in my career came in 2016. I was still living in South Carolina at the time, but I signed up for a voiceover workshop taught by Debi Derryberry (the voice of Jimmy Neutron). In the class, I told her that I was doing mostly commercials, but that my dream was to do cartoons. At the end of the class Debi pulled me aside and said, that I was really good. She encouraged me to move to LA, saying that I could definitely carve out a successful career in animation VO there. That was definitely a “pinch me” moment. I took it to heart and felt very validated. My wife and I eventually decided to make the move to LA. She was very encouraging and told me that if I didn’t at least try to carve out a voiceover career in LA, I would probably regret it for the rest of my life.

We moved to LA in the summer of 2017. I started getting representation and was doing auditions regularly. I eventually reconnected with Debi Derryberry and began to do coaching with her. I learned from her as she guided me on how to navigate the business. She became my mentor, and I’m happy to say that she is now a good friend. I finally started to get to bigger work. In 2018, I booked my first animated show doing a guest role as the character Nacho on “Fast & Furious: Spy Racers”. This led to many more guest roles and bit parts on animated shows such as “TrollsTopia”, “The Casagrandes”, “Baby Shark’s Big Show” and “The Boss Baby: Back in the Crib”. I was also able to land some video game work. I started doing some background voices in “Just Cause 4”. But the really big one came in 2019 when I was cast to voice some of the creature sounds in “The Last of Us: Part 2”. I also recently voiced characters for “Horizon: Call of the Mountain”.

I eventually booked my first series regular role (a main character appearing in every episode). Unfortunately, I’m still under strict NDA so I’m not able to talk about it. There’s other cool and exciting things that are still under NDA.

The most recent thing you can hear me on however will be as the voice of the upcoming CBS game show, Lotería Loca, hosted by “Jane the Virgin’s” Jaime Camil. It premieres on Monday, Oct 2nd.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

I can speak on this in more general terms. I honestly was never a self-starter. But once I decided I wanted to be a voice actor, it’s like something inside of me was unlocked. I had to do a lot of research and teach myself a lot of new things. Being a voice actor, especially now days, requires you to wear a lot of hats. You not only have to act and perform, but you have to essentially be a sound technician of sorts. Lots of voice actors work remotely from home. Myself included. As such, you have to basically do all of the technical stuff on your own. Recording, editing, processing, etc. You also have to learn how to market yourself and navigate and build your brand on social media. It’s a lot, especially if you’re starting out. It can be overwhelming at times.

I’ve also had to develop a thick skin. When you’re constantly auditioning every day, you’re going to get more Nos than Yeses. Especially with how competitive the industry has become. It’s an industry that can come with a lot of rejection. That’s just the reality of it. I’ve had to learn to send in auditions and not dwell on them too much. You might get it, but you might not. This is especially hard for me if it’s an audition for something I’m really excited about. You just gotta move on to the next audition. It’s especially rewarding when you book something that you’ve long forgotten that you auditioned for. It’s like finding a $20 bill in your pocket that you forgot about!

Lastly, the biggest thing for me was moving to Los Angeles. It wasn’t an easy move. My wife and I grew up in South Carolina. Our family is there. Are friends are there. We had to uproot our lives for this. We moved here without any inkling of knowledge whether this was going to work out or not. It’s was a slow start before I started getting the type of work I wanted to get. It takes lots of patience. There were lots of moments where I wanted to give up. Luckily, my wife was always there to support me and give me a pep talk. If you’ve got a good support system, that can really help with your resilience.

For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?

The fact that I get to do what I love and make a career out of it! In most cases I’m doing stuff that got me in trouble when I was a kid. Now, I’m getting paid for it! Also, I now have a 3-year-old daughter. It’s really cool to see her watch stuff that I’ve done. It makes me look at things from a different perspective.

Contact Info:

• Website: http://www.raulceballosvo.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/raulceballosvo/
• TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@raulceballosvo?lang=en
• Threads: https://www.threads.net/@raulceballosvo
• IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm4213072/