We were lucky to catch up with Valentine Stokes recently and have shared our conversation below.

Valentine, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Are you happy as a creative professional? Do you sometimes wonder what it would be like to work for someone else?

I had very low expectations of myself once I became an adolescent teen, a hard family life made me overly aggressive, told by the schools my intelligence was below average, diagnosed with learning difficulties (ADHD)

And as it became more and more apparent, I would never become the Firechief, Policeman, Astronaut, video game dev who moonlights as a super hero I would always confidently tell everyone I would become.

or a long time I was aimless, unmotivated and scared of the wide world before me.

One day though I grew rather tired of myself, I didn’t want to settle for immersing myself in the world of entertainment as much as I loved it, video games, anime and cartoons were a solace for me during my parents torrid arguments.

But now I was 18, my family life with the departure of my father had greatly improved and I found myself longing for more purpose during my first year at college’s summer holiday (not university)

August 2014 I began voice acting, it’s been 10 almost 11 years since then.

There are times where I am very…disappointed with the industry, community whatever you want to call it.

Brenden Blaber, a talented voice actor and online content creator came under a lot of fire for intentionally sobotaging and undermining the translation of Lovely Complex, an anime that I minorly featured in as background characters.

He worked for free on the project, and expressed a deep vehement dislike for the work, the characters and fanbases stemming from his personal opinion that the story was somehow phobic.

A much more succesful actor Aleks Le, recently spoke about losing out on a gig due to having less followers than someone else in for the role…

This is an issue that has been rather obvious to me for a rather long time now.
I voiced in Tribe Nine in 2022 and to sound cadence’s credit, thye made a good move in casting an at the time popular and relevent twitch streamer known as “CorpseHusband”

He voiced the main villain in the show, and although I would say that his voice quite well suited the role, his overall lack of experience in voice acting was fairly apparent.

Later in the season many of the the streamers friends were included as extras in the final stretch of the show.

I had auditioned for anime for a few years at this point, with remote work gaining a massive boom and opportunities for international talents growing exponentially due to isolation in 2020.

Yutaka in Tribe Nine was my very first named character in an anime at the time, I was ecstatic, and loved every minute of recording.

But in some way my excitement was stifled due to the E-celebrity casting and the anime would also go under many radars over that season in 2022, the only thing you would find of relevence in searching the show would be the inclusion of “CorpseHusband” and many other Twitch streamers.

I hold no ill will towards sound cadence for this decision, it was a marketting strategy and a rather good idea in theory, but in english terrirtories the anime’s reception was very lukewarm.

The popularity contest taking pressident over raw talent and passion was disheartening.

there are also many discussions on race and our physical being influencing casting in voice over…And as controversial as this topic can be

in the realm of voice over things like race, sex and gender should never matter, MY voice is not a white voice, an ADHD voice, a Bisexual voice, it’s simply Valentine Stokes’ voice

I saw a fellow voice actor be upset about how they auditioned for a black character…It was a tweet a while ago.

They were confronted with the potential client in question, supposedly accusing them of not sound “black enough” which disheartened them understandably, becasue they are black.

People’s voices are not binary or sound distinctive based on race, now regional diallect that is important.

I bring this up because I can actually relate to this…I am English, born and bred. I have a distinct accent, raised by a londoner, brought up the Black Country (Westmidlands UK) and watched an awful lot of american television.

I have picked up a range of prounciation and emphasise certain words in different ways that can really throw people off when I’m speaking normally, in acting though my range in accents from american to a variety of european accents is a large draw for clients.

I have actually been accused of, insisted upon that I am not infact english. One time I was even thretaned in a pub by a particularly inebriated customer, that if I were to insist I was born in Birmingham, he would have to glass me becaue I was clearly a liar.

These accusations and questions all over the place throughout my life made me hesitant and for a time outright stop auditioning for English cahracters and roles until very recently, through the support of fellow actors.

All that matters is how genuine the actors can express the emotions and character in question, regardless of physical appearance, save those values for the on screen acting where I feel it truly matters, people’s voices are not coloured, they are a personal and unique aspect to ourselves beyond our physical beings.

That is my genuine opinion on the matter, but if a casting requests that people of specific ethnicity and sex exclusively apply to certain roles, who am I to tell them that they are wrong to in their own project, it’s an interesting topic in the medium.

Overall I am very happy being a voice actor, my mind does wander as it tends to what with my adhd, thinking about different life paths, potential new avenues to explore, but regardless of what I do in the future, in some way I think I will always voice act, because it’s truly what I love.

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

although I am an english voice actor, I am better known in american produced works, my ability to swtich into an american accent of which a lot of people believe, I’ve had mentors outright question why I do English accents at times not realising I am in fact english, which for a while made me very apprehensive about auditioning for english roles, but I’m over that.

I would like to say my passion for any and all roles I am given is a great aspect of my appeal, I make myself available regardless of time, having recorded a fair few projects from late at night to the wee hours of the morning, till 3-4am in the past.

my voice is…rather deep, with a good range and flexibility, form older grizzled battle hardened old men like a recent role I can talk about “Emperor Leonid” from “Dark Deity 2” to a cool and calm character like “Zib” from “Lackadaisy”

some other notable characters of mine are Ambrosius, “RWBY”, The Minotaur “The Legend of Pipi, Yutaka Gotanda”Tribe Nine”
The dual personality of Al/Alfonso Rhundi “Black Desert online” and much more from both past and the near future!

I look forward to being able to comment on and announce even bigger and better roles as my career has lead me to more large scale industry projects

in my interactions with fans and followers I try to remain open about answering any questions people have to the best of my ability, about characters, my recording sessions and any advice I can give to people who are also interested in pursuing the career, but I also like to keep myself relatively private especially on social media.

I definitely need to come out of my shell more though!

I just want people to understand my passion for what I do, I get worried quite often about coming across as egotistical or big headed, I’m rather self concious in that way.

I think sometimes it gives the opposite impression where people may think me a little cold or unapproachable, but when people do get to speak to me at events like the “Anime and Gaming conventions” hosted by Anime League, I’m always told how easy it is to speak to me and how down to earth I am, which I am very proud of.

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

The little voice that tells you, you can’t do something or that you are embarassing yourself can be so hard to ignore, I think the lowest I’ve felt creatively and generally was in 2018, every day I felt a pit in my stomach, I got worried that somehow I had peaked in my voice acting and that no one would ever care about my craft ever again, that I might never get a new role again or do something that I felt genuinely passionate about.

It sucked. I think it was exemplary of a time I just needed to give myself time to heal, to find my confidence again and feel good about myself, it wasn’t something that could be forced, but I also think something that helped me was in finding probably my best friend in the world Luke, someone who’d always been around as a friend, maybe more acquaintance.

But then one day we just started hanging out together, I learned more about his values and perspectives and he really cheered me up, a genuine and sincere friendship that just through being around him really reignited my motivation for life, and my career.

Is there something you think non-creatives will struggle to understand about your journey as a creative?

With voice acting, it’s really difficult. You’re trying to sell people your voice…It’s weird to describe, but there’s sort of…Not really a manual on the subject…I mean there kind of is, and I think that even other type’s of creatives won’t quite understand this.

A lot of people do not like the sound of their own voice, you’re with it every day 24/7, to you, no matter who you are. Your voice is not special, it’s a tricky mindset to get over.

Unlike painting, or with an instrument for a good example that also relates to sound I suppose, your voice can be absolutely nothing like what you hear on tv.

And that voice, is all you have, you can’t change it for a different voice, you can only hone and better appreciate what you have.

With a guitar, you can tune it, and learn chords and songs, you can learn to paly “separate ways” by “Journey” one for one with time and patience.

But you might not be able to hit the same notes or sound quite like Steve Perry, and that’s okay it really, really is.

This is probably one of the earliest hurdles that you need to get over in voice overs, because to reference one of my older answers your voice is a unique aspect of you, and as hard as it might be for you to envision yourself in the role of a mighty hero or a villain at times, I can guarantee you if you just focus and maintain the course if you truly love voice acting, you will find a role or even a character archetype that’s right for you.

And in the mean time you can still always audition for the hero, the main villain, whatever.
Even if you don’t get that role you’re still making strides, and who knows, to someone out there, you could be their favourite character.

Sure some people have the ability to do any and all kinds of voices with relative ease, but that will never take away from your uniqueness.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.valentinestokes.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/viewtifulvalentine/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/notifications/?filter=all
• Twitter: https://x.com/ViewtifulVal
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/feed/you

Image Credits

Valentine Stokes, Benni Latham, Ivan, Freddie Heinz, Mike, Micahel Kovach, Lindsay Jones, Barbara Dunkleman, Kara Eberle, Arryn Zech, Zib, Yutaka Gotanda