Recently, the English dub voice actress Madeleine Morris who’s best known for her works as such as her ongoing performance as Inca Kasugatani in Fire Force along with various other works such as Assault Lily: Bouquet, My Hero Academia, Katana Maidens ~ Toji no Miko, Fruits Basket, How Heavy Are the Dumbbells You Lift?, Dr. Stone, voice background work in various anime shows in the past and the 2019/2020 videogame Borderlands 3: Bounty of Blood DLC as Juno. Recently, Madeline has dropped in for a Reddit AMA with her fans talking about how far she’s progressed in her new career, along with translating and adapting Anime from Japanese scripts into English for Funimation and her past work in theatre and puppetry. And can be followed on Twitter.On the anime that encouraged/inspired her to pursue voice acting.Anime tells stories that a lot of other media can’t touch! American cartoons and live-action media probably couldn’t tell a story like Assassination Classroom or Fullmetal Alchemist, and they definitely wouldn’t attempt a faithful adaptation of, say, One Piece. There’s infinite creativity in anime, and while we see a lot of the same tropes, the stories and characters are never the same. Plus, I LOVE slice of life anime, and that’s a genre that just…doesn’t really exist in western media. Detectorists and Ted Lasso get the closest.And I don’t really feel like anyone encouraged me towards it! I’ve explained in other answers more in-depth, but in a nutshell: I’m a lifelong anime fan, but my intention was always to focus on live theatre. I sorta stumbled into voice acting through open auditions. Sorry for the boring answer!!!On her past work as a puppeteer before getting into voice acting for animation. YEARS before my voice acting days, I was part of a working crew on a play that Kent Williams was in. He’s been working for a marionette company forever. At the time, there was an upcoming tour out to a few small towns in east Texas that they’d lost a regular puppeteer on, so they needed extra hands. We’d already hit it off and finally he went, “Wait, Maddie, have you ever tried to do this?”He brought one of the marionettes to the show the next day for me to try out, and I inexplicably took to it really naturally. He offered me the touring position and we spend the next 3-ish months getting me trained. I wound up a staple puppeteer of the company and did tons of shows out at libraries and elementary schools and stuff. It’s been a long time since I worked with them last, though.I love Kent. I should call him. ToT*I also found and took a Jim Henson-style weeklong intensive workshop with a few Muppeteers in like…2015? That totally rocked, though I’ve never had the opportunity to work very much in that style.On the impact of COVID precautions and safety during the simul-dubbing processObviously, there’s a much larger delay than what fans have come to expect from a year or two ago, but what other challenges come with it? I know there was a large initiative for at-home recording, but I can imagine that comes with its own set of complications. How do things like directing and retakes work when you aren’t in a studio and don’t have the director immediately in front of you? (Or is the director immediately in front of you via the internet, and then how does that work? Is there audio mixing occurring at about the same time, or…?)Thanks for doing great work, and it’s cool to see someone in this industry willing to casually engage with fans on Reddit, even outside of AMAs. I know there have been at least a couple of times where you pop up when someone starts talking about Hyouka or Hensuki.On Anime she grew up watching before she started getting into voice work. I grew up on Pokémon, Yu-Gi-Oh!, and Sailor Moon, but I considered them the same as the other cartoons I watched. I was 12 or so before I realize that “anime” was its own thing. I really got into Rurouni Kenshin, YYH, and InuYasha. From there it was Fruits Basket, Kare Kano, Hikaru no Go… I never left anime fandom, but it was a very happy accident that I wound up working in the industry!On her first reaction to seeing a character, she voiced such as Inca on a Toonami bumper?I cried. I legit just straight-up started to cry. And then I showed my whole family.On being friends with many of the Funimation Voice actors and if she wasn’t voice acting, what would’ve been her dream job?99% of my industry friends I met there at Funimation! Before that, though, I was friends with a small handful of folks from having worked with them in live theatre.I’ve loved anime since I was a kid, but it was never actually my intention or goal to become a voice actor. I’m a theatre kid first and always! But I found the audition listing for a Funimation open call and I went, “huh, I’m an actor, I like anime, let’s give that a shot.” I never once would have imagined it would become such a huge part of my life. I feel really, really lucky. And Kent Williams actually did me the HUGE favor of telling me once that he’d never try to recommend or bring me into the fold himself. I’ll always know I earned my stripes.On the most difficult moments translating a script to English. I have two moments: I took over writing the last two episodes of Azur Lane. That series is based on a mobile game, so there wasn’t a lot of source material to look over. But in the last two episodes, they introduce all these crazy concepts to wrap up the plot that – it turns out – originated from an in-game event that happened over a period of like two weeks, two years ago or something. I was scouring Wiki articles and subreddits and all sorts of stuff to make sure I understood as well as I could just what was going down and didn’t say anything that would accidentally break the universe if a season 2 ever rolled around. It felt a lot like this.As for FUUUUUN, I took over a couple of early episodes of Millionaire Detective. That style of the show is totally in my wheelhouse and I absolutely loved it. I wrote episode 4, and I think “grown adult men slice of life” is my new favorite genre, haha. The awkward forced friendship sleepover scene was an absolute delight. (I also ADORE writing so many of the girls in Assault Lily. They have such distinct speech patterns that always make me laugh.)On the transition from in-person recording to at home recording.It was definitely a weird one! I’m in a bit of a strange situation, as I’m living with my parents throughout all this. My original home setup was an odd little mini-booth in my parents’ bedroom, which was never gonna be ideal. I recently gutted my own closet to create a better, significantly less intrusive recording environment; Austin Tindle had a bunch of leftover materials (and great advice) that he let me have, and it was an absolute godsend.The recording itself, self-engineering included, is almost second nature at this point. I was thinking today about how weird it’s gonna be to go back into the studio someday. The biggest silver lining in all this has been that now I can submit for indie projects and work on my own demos and do other cool stuff!On what particular voice performance blows up in popularity and her general reaction. Extreme surprise! Most of the mega-popular shows I’ve been lucky to be a part of, I came in for small roles long after they were already well-loved. I knew *I* was gonna love Dumbbells, but I was so blown away by the response from fans! And that’s probably due to JaxBlade – who is JUST SUCH A DELIGHT OMG. He was so hyped about the show and had nothing but extremely kind things to say about our dub! Hensuki was a genuine shocker. In retrospect, I totally should’ve seen it coming, but at the time I was like “WAIT IS THIS WHAT THE PEOPLE WANT?”On preferring dubs or subs for the anime watching experience. Both! I obviously watch dubs as much as I can, but sometimes I wind up watching the original J track for one reason or another. And when you work in the industry, you tend to spend MUCH more time listening to the seiyuu than your own peers. (Especially as a writer.) :OAnd finally some words of wisdom for aspiring voice actors. There are a thousand different answers to this, so I can only speak from my own experience. But the thing that’s helped me the most as a voice actor: take classes and get experience in other types of performance. Stage, film, dance, mime! That’ll do two things for you.One, you’ll learn your own body. You HAVE to have a working relationship with your body, even when you’re acting with “just” your voice. You have to know your style, your limits, how to channel your physicality. That’s been an invaluable skill.Two, you’ll build a portfolio and a resume that’ll show yourself off. I wound up working as an actor with Funimation through open auditions. They had my resume and my history as a working, educated stage professional, including work and classes with actors they knew. Open calls don’t happen very often anymore (if at all), but that resume can help you in other avenues. Namely, building demos and getting ~agency representatiooooon!~ (Something I actually do not have!)I actually just finished a class with someone who liked to say “It’s not about who you know; it’s about who knows you.” So don’t be afraid to put yourself out there in a bunch of different ways! (Just, you know. Be cool and nice!)Just to wrap up all of the above points in an anecdote that’s maybe a little too nice and neat: I never intended to become a voice actor – I was gonna focus on theatre. But I met Chuck Huber, Kent Williams, and a bunch of other voice actors working in theatre and it helped lead me to where I wound up.Best of luck always!!!*Edit: Also, good lord, it’s gonna be hard. It’s gonna be very hard at times, and it’s gonna hurt. I would be remiss to forget that. Struggling is common, even among established actors. And it’s nigh impossible to make a living doing this stuff! I still have a day job! And ALL OF THAT IS OKAY!!!