As far back as I can remember…I liked performing, I liked being at the center of attention, I always liked acting. Whether or not I was any good at it is another story. Sure, I always had a fair amount of stage fright in me, but it really never deterred me from performing. In any case, when I was 21 and living in Milan, I started to get acting jobs in commercials; don’t ask me how because I’ve never been with an agency and never really had any intention in being an actor, so I can’t remember how I got those gigs. I guess, I just always made sure that everyone knew I existed. Without really knowing what I was doing at the time, I suppose you could say that I gave a great deal of importance to networking. That, anyway, is how it all started. Thanks to word of mouth, studios started calling me for voice over work. At first, I was just winging it and having a blast, but one thing I do remember is that there was a certain feeling between me and the producers because compared to other ‘actors’ in the studio, I had a good understanding of what they desired and how to deliver it. In the details, you’ll see that at the time, I was singing in a few bands, studying music and attending audio school, so walking into a studio with people talking to me about dynamics, expression, intention, inflection, rhythm, voice control and modulation all felt like home. In fact, I felt we spoke the same language. I’ll paint you a picture: you’re used to writing lyrics and singing over various instruments and focusing heavily on a harmonious sound in your voice that compliments the mood of a song, all while staying on the beat and hitting each note just the right way, then following those principle tracks with backing vocals which means that you’ve just added the need to be perfectly in sync, to the syllable. The next day, you walk into a studio, and they tell you to read something at a flexible pace and basically free hand it from the first word to the last, just making sure it’s believable. Obviously, your first thought is, “Is that it?” People always say that I’m oversimplifying it. I’m not trying to say that any singer can hack voice over work, but that’s just how it worked for me.