We recently connected with William Ofoegbu and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, William thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. What’s been the most meaningful project you’ve worked on?

I have so many performances that mean everything to me: Leon in Ningen Fushin, Ethan in My Hero Academia, Pajeu in Hell Clock, Heatwave and Plastic Man in DC Universe Online, and more for sure, and there’s one that we’re currently working on right now that means so much to me. I currently voice the male lead role, Tsunagu, in an anime called “With You, Our Love Will Make It Through.”

Of course, I’m a voice actor. Back when I was pursuing mainly on-camera roles, I got my first job from my first audition and ended up signing with my first agent thanks to that too! It was a perfect series of chance encounters (laughing), and while it was motivating, I quickly learned you don’t book everything, no matter who you are. Plus, the opportunities to even try were fewer and farther between when you were of a particular persuasion.

Eventually, I decided that I only wanted to voice act if I was going to act at all. After all, it was voice acting, particularly from anime, that got me super interested in creativity and acting to begin with. Plus, the VO community seemed extremely welcoming.

Further down the line, while I was taking workshops and courses and some private coaching lessons, one of my coaches brought up an interesting point. He told me that gentlemen like us don’t really get lead roles. We have deep, attractive voices (laughing), and although folks with similar sounds have created iconic success with their leads and main roles along with those resonant voices, the current market leans heavily toward higher pitched voices and has for some time, even if it’s just perpetuating itself.

This coach of mine is one of the sweetest and most thoughtful people I’ve ever met, and he wanted to be sure that I understood the facets of the industry that I’m in. I appreciated his caution very much, and I was already pretty grounded and had resigned myself to the idea that I was going to have to find success in this industry in a particular way. At that point, I had been a professional for about nine years.

The acting industry has changed a lot in recent history. Some for the better. Some not. Thankfully I was able to accomplish a lot: I networked more and made great friends (more than I had really had before), I grew a lot as a talent, and I fine tuned my business. If it wasn’t for all these things, especially the great ones (laughing), I probably wouldn’t have gotten the opportunities that I do today. Thanks to all of this, this nice, little, perfect storm, I broke the mold.

Pajeu in Hell Clock was my first video game lead, and his message is extremely important to me and so. Many. Countless. People. And I’m happy to chat more about him and his tale. Lord knows we’ve got some similar circumstances, and at least one of those circumstances is shared with Tsunagu, my current lead role in an anime.

I did not think it would happen, but I’m so grateful it did! “With You, Our Love Will Make It Through” is a rom com about a young couple who face multiple challenges, and that is on the complete opposite end of the spectrum from character archetypes I usually get cast for.

And I’m soooo here for it.

I’m so glad I get to show folks what I can do and that I can help carry a whole IP, that I am that reliable and that folks love hearing voices like mine, that my performances are rich and excellent, and that the consumers, the fans, are gonna want more and more.

There are folks not only talking about this show, but how great mine and my castmates performances are. I’m so glad that when folks hear my performances, they stop to say “That was awesome!” I thrilled to be taken seriously as an actor, a professional, and a business person, but most importantly… As a person. A person who has tried for so long and endured so much doubt, let alone blatant negativity. I guess the joke’s on them cause that fueled my fire. (Laughing) I can’t wait for the next one.

William, 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?

Thanks for asking. I’m William Ofoegbu, and I’m a voice actor. You’ve heard me before in various anime and video games like One Piece, Dragon Ball DAIMA, My Hero Academia, Fairy Tail 100 Years Quest, PUBG Mobile, Hell Clock, and more. Feel free to check me out on your go-to social media, IMDb, Crunchyroll, Netflix, Hulu, and then some. My website’s williamofoegbu.com, and I was an actor before I was a voice actor.

That worked out well in my favor cause ya can’t voice act if ya don’t know how to act. Better put: You’ve gotta be an actor in order to be a voice actor, and when I went to San Antonio College, that’s all I could tell them: that I wanna act. I was recommended to check out the Theatre department and signed up. Once I graduated with my Associate’s, I made my first resume, got my first audition, job, agent, and pretty soon I was traveling up and down Texas from Corpus Christi, where my next school was at, to Austin, Dallas, San Antonio, and Houston to audition, act, and more! I was doin the thing! And along the way ‘Your voice. Your voice.’ ‘Your voice is wonderful.’ ‘Have you tried voice acting?’ All that.

I really enjoyed hearin all that. I really appreciated it, and at the time, I felt my voice would help my on-camera pursuits. Eventually, a sound engineer named Gary Oscar Laun said he had a job for me, if I was interested. He needed a voice actor for a project he was contracted on and loved my voice. We were both working on a film set for not much, and when he said he’d pay me a few hundred, I was like ‘Alright, I’m down.’

I really, really, enjoyed it, and he taught me a lot to help me grown as a voice actor and know what I was doing. He also stayed super patient with me and was really interested in how things were going.

Fast forward to today, and I work with productions from various parts of the world, millions of people enjoy mine and my friends’ performances, and folks actually know how to say my last name sometimes. It’s really great! (Laughing)

There are some serious issues we still face as voice actors, talent, contractors, and entertainers that constantly accost the creative economic structure. AI is one of the biggest culprits that further exacerbates our abilities to earn a living, the creative industry as a whole, and the well-being of people across the world in general. It is an overwhelming plague, and we the people have the power to do better, in more ways than one.

Thankfully, I’m very proud of myself for having the fortitude to do the best I can, despite all these odds, and continue to be thoughtfully and constructively critical, so that one day, hopefully, we’ll completely conquer these rough times together.

I’m William Ofoegbu. I voice all kinds of intense warriors, malicious villains, and motivating mentors. I take pride in delivering vocally stressful performances and grounded, nuanced acting! My clients know I’m the one to call for em cause folks are gonna listen when I’m spittin!

How can we best help foster a strong, supportive environment for artists and creatives?

The best thing folks can do, I believe, is still to enjoy our work. OUR work. Enjoy our creations. And by that, I mean to just watch the shows we’re in. Listen to our performances in your earbuds, on stage, and on TV or whatever screen you’re starin’ at. Share our artwork with other folks when you like it and give credit where credit’s due. Engage with your favorite creatives online (y’know like and follow) and at events. That shows and demonstrates a TON of support in more ways than you may believe.

Right now, damn near every. Single. Corporation is doing its best to invade and control every single moment of your life with little effort and overhead in order to simply drain you of as much money as possible for a handful of folks and have you say ‘Thank you. May I give some more?’

Generative AI stole from and is still looting creatives, the folks who work tirelessly and faithfully to entertain YOU. Generative AI took everything from creatives of all kinds and creeds without fair compensation, payment, or contract just to regurgitate actual slop for you and everyone around you. Everybody you care for.

Just like anime helped and inspired me when I was much younger, I and so many folks set out to do the same thing for y’all and the next generation and the ones following them. Every story has a message that the creator(s) are delivering to you. Every performance has a moral, a theme, concept, a point that the creator, that the performer(s), that everybody involved in the creative processes is fulfilling for YOU. So YOU can take away SOMETHING, LEARN something, UNDERSTAND something and GROW with it.

Some greedy freakin’ dude, or whoever, that is running a company not for the quality of the product or service and how it benefits society but for the quantity that it puts in their own damn pocket does not give a DAMN about YOU. They don’t give a DAMN about how enjoyable, understandable, or thought-provoking the creativity you consume is. They don’t even care if it’s CONSUMABLE. The only thing they currently care about is how to maximize their profit in the simplest way possible and how to control YOU SO MUCH that you keep coming back for more believing that they’re your only option.

Companies that obtusely and abundantly utilize and promote generative AI terri-bad trash will continue to force feed you soulless, thoughtless crap to leave you heartless, without anything truly worthwhile or valuable; and they will continue to sloppily manipulate you with this diseased nonsense until it’s the only choice you have for entertainment and more.

Of course, AI is nothing without us creatives. It is capped, or limited, to what WE create. It cannot truly create anything new. As a society, as a true collective, the best thing folks can do is enjoy what true, red-blooded creatives make for us. The nuance, subtleties, the message in-between the lines, intensity, the relatability only comes from the people and their hearts. Tell corporations that you do not appreciate this AI trash but that you LOVE what PEOPLE create for you! Tell them by showing them. Take away their motivator, the dollar, and they will start to listen to you very intently again (and it’ll happen a lot faster than you think)! If you want something that makes you feel incredible when you experience it, if you want to be so engrossed in a story, so enthralled by a piece of art or music, then you have to, as a collective, stand up for yourselves and say enough is enough. “We can’t give up cause things aren’t the way we want them to be.” ‘Believe in yourselves and create your own destinies… Don’t fear failure.’

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

For a good long while, there were opportunities that I was just not allowed to take part in. I’m pretty melanated, and those opportunities demanded less melanated folks. I mean, how could you shoot a generic advertisement for an everyday product unless the talent aren’t melanated too much? (That was heavy sarcasm, for those who didn’t pick it up.) Anyways, when I was young in my career and seeing how I was getting less opportunities than other folks based solely on how dark my skin looks, I… Still stayed determined. I motivated myself to do the best I could no matter what, so at the very least, one day somebody would look back and maybe say ‘Hey, this was a missed opportunity. That guy was pretty good. Maybe we could learn something from this.’

I’ve always had a lot of fortitude, which is great; but along with all the trauma, I really had myself in a pressure cooker. Then years later, when I was practicing with another one of my coaches, he told me that something I had done was not up to snuff; and he expected better from me. He explained that he knows I can do better; told me to put all the notes down and just let it go… Trust myself.

That moment changed my entire trajectory. I had to quit being so mechanical; and in order to do that, I really had to loosen up, trust that I knew what I was doing. Once I let the pressure off and took my foot off the gas, once I just let myself trust all those instincts I had built over the years and just glide… I definitely leveled up as an actor, as a business person, and just as an all-around person in general. I became more of somebody that I could be a lot more proud of, and suddenly business started growing, and it felt damn good.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.williamofoegbu.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/william_ofoegbu/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/WilliamOfoegbuVO
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/williamofoegbu/
• Twitter: https://x.com/William_Ofoegbu
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@williamofoegbuisavoiceacto3239
• Other: https://bsky.app/profile/williamofoegbu.com
  https://www.imdb.com/name/nm5438403/
  https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclopedia/people.php?id=222655
  https://www.behindthevoiceactors.com/William-Ofoegbu/
  https://resumes.actorsaccess.com/williamofoegbu
  https://app.castingnetworks.com/talent/public-profile/eb16233e-11cb-11f0-bc24-f9e30065e9bc
  https://talent.casting.com/us/8befb0e7a3

Image Credits

YC3 art by Logan Pack