Part 8: Voice Actor Spotlight: Hynden Walch (Viridi)
It's Saturday and I have nothing better to do!!! help
Mrs. Walch has a naturally high-pitched voice, so over the years that she's been voice acting she's been primarily cast as younger or "cutesy" girls. The most well-known of these is obviously Starfire of Teen Titans, whom she has voiced on the show proper and all relevant spin-offs. Her good relationship with the other voice actors for that show also landed her a guest appearance in Justice League. Other roles she's played include Batman supervillain Harley Quinn and an anime.
Compared to her TV Show credits, her video game resume is less exciting...but it does include tiny roles in two Final Fantasy games (VIII and XIII-2), and the dubious honor of a main character in the Dead or Alive Xtreme Beach Volleyball series.
Back in the 90's she also did some live-action acting, including cameos in NYPD Blue, The Drew Carey Show, and Jerry Maguire. She's stated repeatedly that she prefers voice-acting work instead, however.
Five Fun Facts about Hynden:
- She worked together with Antony Del Rio in The Super Hero Squad Show as X-Man Jean Grey
- Disney has made her the new official voice actress for Alice (from Alice in Wonderland) and Wendy (from Peter Pan)
- She's an environmentalist (go figure) and founded a Produce Cooperative to encourage people to grow and share garden-fresh fruits and veggies with their neighbors
- She's written one children's book and is currently writing two novels
- Even she doesn't know whether Viridi is actually good or evil
- Full Name: Heidi Hynden Walch
- Born in: Davenport, Iowa
- Birthday: Feb. 1st
- Age: 42
- Has acted in: 70 Titles
- Twitter: @HyndenIsHere
Written Interview with Toon Zone News
quote:
TOON ZONE NEWS: You started your schooling at the North Carolina School of the Arts, is that right?
HYNDEN WALCH: Yeah, that’s right! I went to high school there for music. For singing.
TZN: So it wasn’t for acting?
WALCH: No, at the time they didn’t have an acting program for high school, and I just really needed to get out of where I was living. It was great. And I’ve always been a singer, so it was great training, a great school. Go NCSA! (laughs)
TZN: You’ve also got a degree from UCLA for American Literature, I think…
WALCH: Yeah, that’s right, I just went back much later, and I went for fun.
TZN: So this was already after you started acting?
WALCH: I just graduated 2 years ago. So I just went for fun, to do something different, focus on something different. Use a different part of my brain.
TZN: What kind of training have you had as an actress, then?
WALCH: I do by doing. I hear so many actors go, “Oh, yes, it’s so important to take classes.” I don’t think so. I feel like if you want to bone up on your skills, go do a play. The audience will tell you what’s going on, better than somebody else who might have maybe an agenda of their own (laughs). I went to the University of Cincinnati’s College-Conservatory of Music for about 10 minutes when I was 18, and that was because my parents really, really, really, really, really, Really, really, REALLY, REALLY wanted me to go to college (laughs). NCSA is a professional school in just every sense of the word. There, you’re assessed on your ability, not on your age, so you can go right into college music classes as a sophomore in high school, and it’s just fine. But going to Cincinnati was a different thing. It was different people, it was very different teachers. It was funny though: when I told my parents I was leaving, they said they were surprised that I had hung around that long.
Written Interview with Media Mikes
quote:
Mike Gencarelli: How did you get involved with doing voice work?
Hynden Walch: I always knew I was going to be an actress my whole life. I have been doing professional theater since I was 11. So the natural progression to that was to go on and do film and television, which I did. But I always loved the idea of doing voice over for animation, a lot! But I was never in the right city for it. I lived in Chicago and there is no animation work there at all. Then I lived in New York, there was a tiny bit of work but I think I got my first animation job in that city the day I was moving to Los Angeles. So I didn’t end up doing. So finally, I ended up in LA and I had built up my resume and told my agent and manager out here that I wanted to do animation voice over. They said I would be perfect for it but it would be very hard to get into. They were not kidding about that. I got an voice over agent quickly but then came the very slow process of auditioning for roles. Literally it took years. It is such a tight knit group of people that do every voice. After a while, I felt like my auditions were going into a black hole. So I went out for the weirdest role I could and I ended up getting it. This was Penny for “ChalkZone”. The craziest voice ever came out of me when I went to the call back at Nickelodeon. I also started getting cast at the same time for the animated movies at MGM like “The Secret of NIMH 2” and “Tom Sawyer”. So that was how it all started.
Audio Interview (Clipping audio warning! They discuss her career origins and the roles she's played. Kid Icarus: Uprising gets mentioned around 12:27)
Video Interview (mostly about Adventure Time and Princess Bubblegum):