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

Tucker, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. If you could go back in time do you wish you had started your creative career sooner or later?

I began my voice-acting career when I was in second grade, just barely cognizant of the things I could do in the world. I was aware of my brother’s voice acting, which took him places like Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network. I didn’t think much of it… until, for fun, my dad had me hop in our recording booth and read for a Life Cereal audition. And I even had a cold while doing it! My sickness must have made my seven-year-old voice even more raspy and adorable, because I got the job, and that started a domino effect of getting more and more ads and small characters. A couple years later, I found I had gotten a job on a new series about young zoo animals (Alex in Madagascar: A Little Wild). Then, a cutesy series about cats (Pandy Paws in Gabby’s Dollhouse). Then, an experimental series about mindfulness with a giant panda (Michael in Stillwater). And lastly, I took the helm in a series about birds delivering babies ( Pip in T.O.T.S). My elementary school years are something I look back at with a full heart, and I feel voice acting and the people I met through it contribute to my memories of it. If I had started any later, I would have been more aware things I was doing, but, as a drawback, my voice would not have been in the tip-top and lofty place it was then. I loved the people I worked with, I loved the near-infinite M&Ms I could get during breaks, and I loved talking to the receptionists when I got to the job. I was a kid with a constantly turning mind, and every aspect of voice acting helped my brain get acclimated to working hours, meeting a situation with preparation, and the payoff afterward, seeing the final results being animated onscreen! Looking back at everything, I wouldn’t change a thing.

Tucker, 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?

I started with no knowledge on voice acting, doing a few small jobs here and there, and ended up, 8 years later, looking back at working as series regular roles for Dreamworks, AppleTV, and Disney. Everything from the first commercial I did, to getting an Emmy nomination for my work in Madagascar: A Little Wild, feels like a big fat fever dream. Discipline is a tricky thing for the time in my life I was voice acting. I was a 7-year-old with a huge imagination, and being forced to stand in a soundproof booth for 3 hours and saying things into a microphone seemed like a death sentence! But, once I got into the groove of the flexibility of voice work, I realized that I could put my own spin on every single piece of dialogue, give a lot of possible choices to the recording engineers, and come out of every studio a few lines wiser. I still love voice acting, and even now that my voice has changed, I still want to take my work beyond, and implement it into many different creative outlets throughout my life. Seeing all of the projects I’ve worked on come to fruition has inspired me to create no matter where I go, and seeing the new generation enjoy the things I’ve lent my voice to makes me happier than anything. I hope I’ve inspired some to lead a life of positivity, and maybe some of them to want to want to take up voice acting as well!

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

Throughout my creative career so far, I’ve found the thought of inspiration for others to be the most rewarding aspect. Working towards a bigger project artistically can seem daunting and hard, but whether you’re lending your voice to something, or posting some art online, or even just just coming up with concepts for whatever movies/games/stories you may want to spread, the most rewarding goal to picture is how you may spark something in someone new. I think often about the voice actors on my favorite childhood shows, like Adventure Time and Steven Universe, and how they’ve sparked my voice acting style, perhaps even subconsciously. I’d love to meet them, and ask them what they find rewarding someday… but all I can do for now is think about what I’m doing artistically, and imagine how I make my target audience feel.

Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?

When thinking about where I want to be in the future, I don’t really care about how many people know my name, my goal is to do as much as I can in a creative field, less so I can reach the top of a metaphorical mountain, but more so I can reach a place where my progress is clear to me, and I have no regrets as to what I haven’t done. I have some checklist markers, like designing a video game, working with some childhood heroes and such. But, to be completely honest, the main thing driving me to do what I do is boredom- as in, finding my own creative ways to escape it!

Contact Info:

• Instagram: @thetuckerchandler