Voice acting is the art of providing voices for animated characters (including those in feature films, television series, animated shorts, and video games), doing voice-overs in radio and television commercials, audio dramas, dubbed foreign language films, video games, puppet shows, and amusement rides. An individual who performs such voice-only roles is known as a voice actor or actress or as a voice artist. Voice acting may also involve singing, although a second voice actor is sometimes cast as the character's singing voice.

Broadcast media

For live-action production, voice acting often involves reading the parts of computer programs (Douglas Rain; Majel Barrett), radio dispatchers (Shaaron Claridge), or characters who never actually appear on screen but who give instructions by telephone (John Forsythe in Charlie's Angels), or mailed recording (Bob Johnson in Mission: Impossible). "Stunt double" voice actors are sometimes employed; if a voice actor or actress loses his or her voice, someone who sounds similar can step in. For example, when Jeremy Irons's vocal chords became strained during the recording of the Lion King, Jim Cummings was called in to finish the recording.

It is not unusual to find amongst the ranks of voice actors people who also act in live-action film or television, or on the stage (see e.g., J. Scott Smart, an "old time radio" actor). For those actors, voice acting has the advantage of offering acting work without having to bother with makeup, costuming, lighting, and so on.

A common practice in animation is to cast a woman to play the role of a young boy. On The Simpsons, for example, Nancy Cartwright plays Bart Simpson and several other juvenile males. Another voice actress who would fit this criteria is Veronica Taylor, who for several seasons voiced Ash Ketchum in the North American version of the Pokémon anime. This casting practice goes back to at least 1939, with Bernice Hansen as Sniffles the Mouse, and continues with Elizabeth "E. G." Daily as Tommy Pickles on Rugrats and All Grown Up! today. June Foray, even as a senior citizen, can still faithfully voice Rocket J. Squirrel. Casting adult women for these parts can be especially useful if an ad campaign or a developed series is expected to run for several years, for while the vocal characteristics of an adolescent male actor would change over time, the voice of an adult female will not.

A notable exception to using women to voice young boys' roles is the Peanuts animated features, in which boys were actually cast to read the boys' lines (e.g., Charlie Brown, Linus, Schroeder). [1] In South Park the authors Trey Parker and Matt Stone are also voice actors of the most male roles, especially the boys: Parker voices Stan, Cartman and others while Stone is the voice of Kyle, Kenny, Butters and others. South Park kids voices are pitched up a little in order to seem more "childish"