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Voice Actors
and the art of being cut off–

Continuing the discussion about voice acting tips to make your performance stronger.  You can check out the previous two blogs: Read the Script and Acting is Reacting.  I’d like to hit a tiny moment in dialogue that needs some help.  Because you will inevitably have to do this at some point, and when you are recording alone into a mic, it’s not as easy as it may seem.  And that is, having your speech cut off by another character.

When you are performing with other actors, whether on stage or in front of a camera, having your dialogue cut off by another character is easy. They teach you to keep going with what you think your full line would be, and then the job of the person cutting you off is to jump on top of that and, well, cut you off. It sounds more natural to continue with your sentence so if the person is late on their cue, you aren’t left hanging with a “but–” and dead silence.  But how can you accomplish that when you are recording at home and there is no one there to cut you off?

In the audio drama scenario, do NOT continue with the rest of your sentence as you imagine it. The reason being, in the situation where someone is actually present to cut you off, whenever they jump in, you would, instinctually, have a cut off reaction. Stop for a moment and think of someone cutting you off in real life. When they jump in over your talking, you hit the brakes to give them the floor.  You pull back on the last word you said and yield to them.  So it is NOT the same inflection as if you had just said your sentence without being interrupted. There is a different inflection when you realize, “Oh, I need to stop, they’re talking now.”

Another mistake I hear voice actors make when they know their line is supposed to be cut off is to go the opposite and OVER do the “Buuuuuuuttttt–”  They unnaturally draw out the last word making it hang there in the air.  As if they are waiting for the cut off that never comes.  So the word being cut off is overacted.  Not believable to a normal person’s speech.  It’s the voice actor anticipating the cut off.  This is a very important acting tip.  You should NEVER anticipate the next person’s line. I don’t care what kind of acting you are doing.  Yes, you know in the script the person is cutting you off, but your character was in the middle of saying something and was not expecting to be cut off.  That is the key.

So what do you do? Deliver the line up until the word the writer has given you as the place where you’re cut off. Then imagine you WERE going to keep taking, but instead are yielding to someone else. A “halt” to your word. Like you’re about to form the next logical word in the sentence, but you are stopping yourself. So maybe only a grunt of the next word. Like one of the common words that is cut off is “But.” When someone might be trying to protest and saying “But–” and the other character jumps on them and stops the protest, right?  Instead of saying a full “But” try a “buh–”  or a “But, I–” making the “I” stop short of fully saying “I”  I hope that makes sense in text!

Of course having one character cut off another doesn’t place all the burden of performance on the one being cut off.  The character jumping in on top of the other character should give a performance of either talking louder — as if the person were vocally shutting down the other. Even if it’s just the first word or two. Or maybe the person is rambling on, focused entirely on themselves and what they’re saying, so oblivious that they’ve cut the other character off.  Whatever is appropriate to the scene and the character motivation, there should be a different inflection when they cut the person off.

And, lastly, it’s up to the dialogue editor to overlap the two characters appropriately.  Sadly, I have listened to some audio dramas where the one actor cuts themselves off, but the dialogue for the other character doesn’t overlap and there’s a huge gap of silence.  Ouch.

You might have to call upon your imagination.  But if you find yourself delivering the cut off line in a way that you would never speak in real life… reexamine the moment and play it real. This is a great place for your three takes for your dialogue editor.  Try three different “cut off” moments. Making them as true to the moment as you can.  That should give your editor plenty to work with.

-Chrisi (aka Madison)

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