Within the past two weeks, I've somehow become a bilingual VO Artist. Sort of without my even knowing it, and certainly without planning.
A
few months ago, I recorded a
slew of commercials for Prime Outlets, a chain of outlet malls that are nowhere New York. About three weeks ago, I got a call from one of the ad execs saying they wanted to hire me to do a couple of pick-ups and "Do you happen to speak Spanish?"
Do I speak Spanish? Good question.
It was a speech in Spanish that secured me the win as Secretary of my Junior High class against the very popular Jesse Jozokos-- Puerto Rican teens made up about half the population of my class and were very excited to hear me tell them that I would make certain we had better DJs at our dances in their native tongue.
And anyone who has worked in restaurants in a major city as long as I have has to pick up at least the basics of what we, in the business, call "Kitchen Spanish". Kitchen Spanish is what you use to ask the busboy to clear a particular table, to alert the dishwasher to your immediate need for forks and to offer the line cooks alcoholic beverages at the end of a long night ("¿Hombres, cervezas?"). Kitchen Spanish is usually spoken with the most horrific of gringo accents, but it gets the point across.
But then I had to go and study Italian for six months. When I began, all I could do was think in Spanish. As my Italian progressed, my Spanish went Adios.
So when I was asked if I happened to speak Spanish, my fairly honest reply was "Well, I used to speak better than I do now, but I'm sure I could do it with a script!" Why say no to a job when all you need to do is try?
When I was actually in the booth recording, I was so nervous that the bottoms of my feet were sweating. (I like to take my shoes off when I record-- I'm always in that room alone, so hopefully this doesn't offend anyone!) I got an extra flutter in my belly when they brought Elizabeth, the account rep from Puerto Rico, on to the conference call.
But, I'm happy to report,
I pulled it off. I even overheard Elizabeth say at the end of the call "it sounds like she really speaks Spanish!"
I had an audition yesterday and was the first to arrive. The casting director asked me if I spoke Spanish. I said "uh, actually... well, I can
read in Spanish." So she had me prepare both, though I think my lack of a straight answer didn't exactly instill her with confidence in me.
When I went into the booth, she had me do a dry run in Spanish, just to be certain it was worth the disk space. I think I actually read the spot better in Spanish than in English!
I left the room and walked out to see a bench full of full-blown latinas, so I'm not holding my breath for that one.
