The actress talks about her directorial debut, In A World…, voiceovers, and Childrens Hospital. Plus: She’s down to do another season of How To Make It In America, should the opportunity arise.
Your new film, In A World…, explores the tight-knit world of voiceover artists, and your character, Carol, is the daughter of a famous voice actor who is trying to launch a career in her own right. Is it true that you did some voiceover work when you first came to Hollywood?
No, that is actually incorrect. I tried to get into the voiceover industry, and I looked at it as an aspiration, but I was never accepted into it because it was such a damn clique, and so hierarchy-based, and there’s not a lot of ladies who do it. It was one of those things where I was like, “Oh, yeah, I know how to do voices, I’m so talented, maybe I’ll be able to break into the voiceover industry and I won’t have to be a waitress and I’ll just hit it big,” – you know, because I went to drama school, and I had this voiceover demo, and I had all these dialects. And then it turned out that you can’t just roll into someone else’s industry and think you’re gonna conquer it. I was like a crazy person – totally naïve. So, obviously, I became a waitress.
What’s the worst job you ever had before you found success as an actress?
Probably the worst job I ever had was being a promotional girl at a tech conference where I had to wear like a skimpy, dumb, space outfit and show people where the bathroom was and how to work a cell phone. Yeah, it was really lame-o. And I was kind of treated like a moron. It was not fun. I mean, it was funny in hindsight, but at the time I felt like a total turkey.
Justine Goodman 