We recently connected with Vikram Rajan and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Vikram, thanks for joining us today. Do you have an agent or someone (or a team) that helps you secure opportunities and compensation for your creative work? How did you meet you, why did you decide to work with them, why do you think they decided to work with you?
Yes! I have multiple agents in VO. One in my home country, New Zealand (BigMouth Voices), one in San Francisco (Stars the Agency) and one in New York (DDO Artists Agency).
They are incredibly lovely people to work with and I’m eternally grateful for them. It’s like having a big team looking out for you and supporting you in different sections of the world and they’ve been able land me a lot of opportunities to audition for, especially the US agencies as since NZ is so small, being able to get a load of exciting things to try out for is very fulfilling, even if I book the role or not.
My NZ agent I met way back in person in 2019 in a class, around my first year of when I started. I was very green at the time but she saw potential in me and when I got the opportunity to make a professionally produced demo in 2021, I reached out when I finished it and got signed.
For both my US agents, they are different stories entirely. With Stars, I sent the Head Agent an email in late 2023 and in early 2024, she got back to me and they signed me. With DDO, I took a class with the head agent in late 2023 and the day after the class, I reached out to the agent via email and they agreed to freelance me for a little while and then in May of this year, I was officially signed with them.
I’m really grateful that we’ve been able to hit things off successfully and I’m especially grateful that they took a chance on me and believed in me and they’ve been a monumental step in my VO journey and I hope I can keep making them proud!
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
Hi there folks!
I’m Vikram! but you can call me Vik!
I’m a professional voice actor of 7 years. I’ve done a wide range of work from Animation, Video Games, ADR, Audio Dramas, Corporate Work and more! All from within my Professional Home Studio in little ol New Zealand. I have also dabbled in voice directing and casting as well!
I come from a background of Indian and New Zealand culture and it’s always nice to know that there is a place for all different cultures and ethnicities in the world of the arts industry.
I am very proud of where I came from and where I am today. There were definitely challenges in my life to overcome, both societal and personal but at the end of the day, I always come back to my passions and I believe in myself to do my best to make it work in the longrun while also having fun in the present.
Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?
My goal in the end is to make both Indian and New Zealand voices heard more frequently in media, whether that’s mainstream or indie. It definitely is a task that will take many years to achieve but I believe we are getting closer and closer to achieving that each day.
When I first started out, there wasn’t an established space for Indian and New Zealand creatives in the VO scene and while it’s not a huge space nowadays, it’s definitely a lot bigger than it used to be and I hope one day they’ll be more people in our communities to take the leap of faith and follow their passions as well.
How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?
This year has probably been the most important year for me personally. Since late March, I’ve been spending a lot of time confronting and talking about my past, present and future worries and concerns more openly. Without going into too much detail, I had a falling out and lost a lot of friends (seven of them to be specific) who I was really close with at the time and that was the first time I have ever lost friends before and it was because of my anger, resentment and bitterness at the time (due to post uni stress and other things) and I still take full accountability for my past mistakes. Losing people like this was a first, and a completely different and scary feeling to me. I tried my best to make amends and seek forgiveness but it was no good. Suffice it so say, I just don’t know if I can repair the damage but I’ve done what I can to fix things but rekindling that friendship is just not in the cards right now or maybe ever. After accepting that, I then decided to take a little break from VO to detox and try to understand who I was, what I truly wanted, where am I going wrong and how I could be better as a person overall.
I spent a lot of time thinking, reflecting and asking questions/advice from others who have made the same mistakes as me, which helped me learn to both understand and identify my personal flaws but instead of tearing myself apart for it, I learned to forgive myself and be better. I started going to therapy more frequently, taking medication, becoming more close in communication with my family, learned how to truly make friends again without repeating the mistakes of the past, learning and understanding my own and other people’s boundaries and overall develop a more healthy, compassionate and positive mindset for myself, my friends/family and community. And honestly, I feel great!
Since early May, I’ve been back in business and I’m really proud of the progress that’s been made so far but there’s still a lot of work to be done and I am more than happy to play the long game with this and take my time when it comes to my health. As of me writing this I just turned 22 and while I am grateful that I’ve been able to take action for myself emotionally in the early stages of my life, I feel like there’s a lot more living and experience I need to do as well try other things as well.
While I have forgiven myself for how my past self behaved and reacted at the time, I haven’t forgotten about it and losing those people will still keep me up at night sometimes and while I am holding onto hope that someday in the future, maybe in 3, 5 or 10 years I can reach back out and ask for forgiveness from them and start over, the fact is that I cannot bank on that happening so the best I can do is keep putting in the work in both my life and career, fill those creative voids, hang out with the people that love and care about me, heal and move on. I’m still trying my best with that last one. I’ve done all I can do right now but time in this life is unpredictable so I’m going to continue living my life with this newfound knowledge, experience and confidence of myself. No regrets. Ever.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://vikramrajanvo.com/
- Instagram: @itsmevikkiva
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/vikram-rajan-60126a219/
- Twitter: @VikkitheVA
