Huge thanks to Marc Guss and his guest tonight on the Marc Guss Voiceover Club talking about celebrity VO impressions, Jim Meskimen! Jim is an actor, voice actor, and impressionist with a hilarious YouTube channel. He also has created a career-management course for actors called The Working Actor Method.
Impressions are such a fun thing to listen to and try, and to hear Jim talk about that tonight was a delight. And just in going to his channel to get the link, I got distracted by video after entertaining video 🙂
Tonight in his interview with Marc, Jim said that he attributes his success to two main reasons: that he always had a strong interest in vocal performance, and that his mom (Marion Ross from Happy Days!) set a good example as an actress and artist because he saw that she was having fun and making people laugh. Jim says that she loved to do accents and voices and point out people who had interesting voices. He described it this way:
“It was like someone saying have you ever sniffed that flower over there, that yellow and orange flower? You say, ‘No, I haven’t,’ so you sniff that flower and say ‘Wow, this flower smells amazing!’ And then for the rest of your life you go around sniffing flowers.”
Talking about impressions, Jim says that for him it’s an acting exercise, and “in acting, we try to become another person.” He tries to get the viewpoint of the character, and the impressions that he really likes are when he does people that he admires, “because you want to embrace that personality.” He added that he thinks of impressions as being a part of an actor’s tool belt. And he agrees with something his mom says, that “to be another person is just a fun thing to do.”
Tonight we heard some really fun impressions from the audience too: dueling Jimmy Stewarts, Quincy Jones stopped by, and Alan Rickman had a quick chat with another Alan Rickman. I loved Jim’s description of how Rickman always seemed to hold on to his words for a very long time before he passed them out — a lot of percussion. Of course you know it when you hear it, but to me, being able to articulate the specifics of what makes someone’s voice unique is so interesting.
Thanks so much to Marc and Jim for the amazing conversation and for the audience performances and questions that helped everyone listening learn so much! Check out the Marc Guss Voiceover Club every Wednesday night on Clubhouse at 8:30 pm ET or catch the replay later.