Barbie.

As a kid, I had one favourite toy. Barbies. I played with them until I was 14. I'm not ashamed to admit that. In fact, part of the reason I love the Sims games so much is because they remind me of playing Barbies. I actually describe them as "Barbies for adults". Oh, and I still play the Sims.

I had a lot of Barbies. I kept them all, too, for my future daughter (who knew I'd have a daughter?), and my dad moved them into his shed when I turned 30. I can't imagine why. He and my brother's godfather built me the most amazing Barbie house when I was a kid that occupied most of the space in my room. It was huge... and AWESOME! Unfortunately, it was also brown. My mom informed these two guys that although brown was a great colour for a real house, it wasn't really that great for a little girl's dollhouse, so they repainted it fire engine red (since that was the only "girl" colour that could cover the dark brown). My friends from that time STILL ask me if I have that house when we reconnect. We spent a lot of hours sitting in front of it. I would even decorate it with mini Christmas lights and cotton ball snow ever winter. And I had mini jack o'lanterns... oh, the memories!

Unfortunately, we found out that squirrels and raccoons really like Barbies too, especially when they are in sheds. My beautiful Barbie house and all my toys were unceremoniously chewed up and are no more. But I'm sure that house made a great squirrel or raccoon house too. Why not? My cat used to sleep in it. She'd pull the Barbies out of the beds by their feet and sleep in the Barbie beds in the dollhouse. I wish I had a picture of that. I'm still sad that I don't get to pass on all of my Barbie collection to Kylie, but I've been "re-collecting" it from craigslist and my sister-in-law has some pieces too, so it's rebuilding.

In any case, I got a call one day from my voice over agent saying that I had an audition for the voice of Barbie. It was pretty exciting! And it was only the first of many. I auditioned, and auditioned and auditioned... I read with different people, I got lots of direction and feedback and I tried to give them what they wanted. Then they saw more people for Barbie, and I pretty much figured it had moved on. And then I got another call, did some MORE reads for it, got more notes and feedback, and waited to hear. It was down to 2 people and it was also one day before the official recording start date and I still hadn't heard anything. I got the call later that afternoon that I had booked the job. How exciting - and how terrifying! I was going to get to record a Barbie movie! And I started tomorrow!

What a thrill. Since then, I've been privileged to record a lot of things for Barbie and it is quite possibly my favourite thing yet. And it records here in Vancouver so I can be with my daughter. I got to take Kylie to a movie theatre and watch both "A Fashion Fairytale" and "A Fairy Secret" with my little girl in my arms. I've had so many lovely emails and letters and comments from Barbie fans. I've had one or two not so nice ones too, as I am the second Barbie voice (sadly, some people blame me for that, and also seem to think that I write the movies), but I just auditioned for a job and was lucky enough to book it. Thankfully, the nice people have far outnumbered the not - something for which I am grateful.

I've also done commercials, other cartoons, jingles and more session singing. Doing voice overs is a dream job for me - regular hours (not nights and weekends), time with my daughter and a way to support her, and lots of creative fun! What people may not know about voice over, especially cartoons, is that we do many, many takes, and although the "best" or "most appropriate" take usually is the one used, we do get to play too and try many versions of the same lines.

Plus, you can wear whatever you want and you don't need make-up.