Just off the heels of winning big at the One Voice Awards, Rebecca Lee is set to serve as the Keynote Speaker for next year’s VO Atlanta.
VO Atlanta is billed as the world’s largest and longest-running conference for voiceover artists, and will run next year from March 18-21 at the Hilton Atlanta Airport. Lee was announced as the keynote speaker back in September, just after winning the Commercials Best Performance – Female Award and the Voiceover Artist of the Year – Female Award at the 2026 One Voice Awards.
Lee said VO Atlanta was the first big networking event that attended when she first made the switch to voiceover work. She’s done work for companies like Progressive and Nike, and also voiced characters in games like “World of Warcraft” and “Raid: Shadow Legends.”
“That set me on the path, so it feels really full circle to get to come back now and speak,” she said.
Lee always wanted to be in the creative world, but she worked as a flight attendant for over a decade before deciding to take the plunge into voiceover work. I recently spoke with Lee about her journey. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
To start, I’d love to hear a little bit about you and how you kind of found your way into this industry.
Rebecca Lee: I think I always wanted to be some sort of creative. I was a ham from an early age. I think that to find your way into this kind of industry, any kind of performing, you have to have that spirit … I was a flight attendant for 15 years after reality set in, and I realized I was not headed to Hollywood – or I thought I wasn’t. I was the person on the PA making the announcements. So I’m in the back of the plane saying things, and folks always thought it was a recording. Then when they figured out that it was a real person back there, if I might make a comment that had nothing to do with the script or something like that, then folks are turning around like – oh, it’s a person! You should do something with that voice! I literally heard that for 15 years, and I kept thinking, “Well, that’s great. Do you know somebody? Do you have the hookup? What am I supposed to do with it?”
But then finally, someone did hire me – actually hired me because of my announcements, just straight off the plane – I want you to do some voiceover work for me. [Laughs] It was pretty freaking cool. That happened twice. The first time, someone was like “Your voice is so smooth. Do my voicemail message on [my] phone.” He just handed me his phone and gave me like, $100 to record. I was like, “What’s your name, John? Okay!” [Laughs] … But then I had someone later on come and say, “I love the sound of your voice and cadence. Can you do this product release that I’m doing? Will you do the ads for me?” At that point, I was like, this is a viable thing – I need to look into this. I had never thought about the person on the radio or the person that’s talking, the disembodied voice on TV, until then.
I started training and coaching furiously, and then built my studio space, built my website. This is all from, let’s say 2012, when I got my first gig working with that guy. And then 2014 is probably [when I] started coaching and doing stuff like that. 2017, I actually hung out my shingle, and it wasn’t until 2020 that I went full time, because COVID forced me to leave the airlines. So that was the big thing that kind of pushed me over the edge. While I was meeting some success before that, COVID was like – time to go.
You mentioned that you threw yourself into training. What does that entail when you’re making that switch?
Lee: You want a coach, because I think everyone – myself included, I’ll just speak for me – [thinks] that if [I] have a pretty voice, I’m in there. I’ve got it. But voice acting is still acting. And it’s acting, acting. You have to be able to convey all of these emotions. Unlike on screen, where you have the ability to use facial expressions and posture and things like that, there’s nothing we have to convey everything just through the intonation and vocal tone. That was something to learn.
You just find a voiceover coach that specializes in what genre you want. So commercial, animation, promo, documentary work – there’s a kind of coach for a person that specializes in each genre. I ran the gamut, because I wanted to try everything. And still, to this day, I do a whole lot of coaching just to stay sharp.
How do you differentiate between those different modes? Do you have a favorite, or one you prefer over the others?
Lee: The genres are all so different, the way you have to show up to them. I’ve had the most success, I’ll say, in promo and commercials. Commercial is the most lucrative … But the most fun [are] video games and animation. Those are a freaking blast. And show narration or documentary narration. When I started voiceover, that’s what I imagined – like Nat Geo, and stuff like that. And I’ve done Nat Geo now, so I met that goal of being able to do that.
Are you from Atlanta or did you move here?
Lee: I moved with the airlines.
Obviously, there’s a large film industry in Atlanta, but voice acting, it seems like you can really do that from anywhere. Is there a community for voice actors here? What does that look like?
Lee: There’s a pretty large one in Atlanta, absolutely. I think even before film – from what I understand, on-camera film is getting big in Atlanta, but I think that voice actors were here or prominent before that. We’ve had VO Atlanta … that’s been there for years. So I think the voiceover community was kind of popping here before film and on-camera started picking up. You can do it from anywhere. But there are certain places that are hot zones … L.A., New York, Atlanta, Chicago, I would say probably are the biggest areas. Even now, I have to fly to go do work sometimes. They want you in their studio pretty often.
So even though you have your own studio, they want you in theirs?
Lee: Yeah, in animation and video games, which are very prevalent in L.A., they want you in their studio so that they can make it all sound perfect.
I know you just won a couple of awards, so there’s been some recognition. How did that feel, being recognized by your community?
Lee: So weird … This is such a faceless [industry]. There’s nothing. So you audition into the ether … You usually don’t hear anything back. I guess that’s the same with on camera and everything. But there’s just nothing. Then, if you land a role, it could be a big, huge, lucrative commercial – you can be getting paid – but no one will ever know who you are.
I got my first taste of someone actually knowing me [from] doing video games. This is when I learned that that was addictive. [Laughs] Animation and video games, you actually get fans – like, you develop people that know who you are. My first big Triple-A game was “World of Warcraft.” I could Google myself and see a whole bunch of people talking about me specifically – not just the character, but Rebecca Lee. That was like, okay – I see why this is exciting! [Laughs] I see why this is a big deal.
For the longest time, I was really resistant to doing the award thing. I just didn’t feel like I needed it. I was kind of like, whatever – I don’t need the accolades. I need the checks. But then, I had a couple of really great commercials. My “Coke for Everyone” commercial is spectacular, and there’s a Progressive one … I felt comfortable to say, this deserves some recognition, and submitted them. Then at the One Voice [Awards] … I won Best Performance Commercial Female for the Coke commercial, and then Best Voice Actor of the Year Female. I feel like I’m a real G! The way I cried, oh dear God – I cried from the soul. I was bent over, holding on to stuff. They had to help me to the stage. I look at the videos now, [and it] doesn’t look as horrible as it felt. But in the moment, I was like, “If you don’t get your *ss on stage, get it together!” But it felt wonderful.
All of that to say – that was a very long-winded way of saying, I didn’t realize I needed that. I was embarrassed even to be that happy about it, but it feels great to get up there and all the applause and our peers and the industry is saying, you did that – you’re really good, and you deserve this. It feels amazing.
Obviously, there’s been a recent slowdown in the film industry. Have you seen that spill over to your industry at all?
Lee: At one point, I remember thinking I was feeling it, because there’s less to promo, for example, if there are no shows coming out and things like that. But then, it just shifts away from promo. There’s still political, there’s still commercial, there’s still corporate work. There are still things happening, but it’ll be less narration and less promo. That does get hit, for sure.
You mentioned doing training at the beginning of your career, and I noticed on your website that you also offer coaching services. What is the most important thing that you teach people, and how did you move into that space?
Lee: While I’m actively still very much a student, I have reached a point now where people are like, “But you’re doing the thing. Can you tell us your process?” I do seem to have a bit of a different approach to most coaches in VO, which is my vocal alchemy method. It’s about embodiment and somatic awareness – like presence. Because we’re not just the throat and mouth, and we come in and start talking – we’re whole humans with lives, and experiences, and bodies, and that all informs what you show up as on your mic. When we come in and try to put on a fake voice and start code switching and jumping on the script and just reading – people can hear that. And now, more than ever, commercials are very real. You have to sound like a real person. People don’t want to be sold to. They really don’t. You can’t have the big announcer voice.
I mean, there’s a time and place. That still exists. But generally speaking, in commercial, especially right now, they want this very natural, talking to your friend, talking to a person, kind of voice. So authenticity is a big deal. That’s probably the thing that I teach the most is, just be you. I’m serious! Drop the really pretty voice, let go of the speaking to the crowd, and talk to the person. Be authentic, be vulnerable. That starts with breathing and settling into your body, and getting really comfortable with who you are and what your opinion is about this thing.
It’s interesting you bring up authenticity – is that something you’ve seen evolve since you started doing this? Has what they’re looking for changed?
Lee: For as long as I’ve been in this industry – and that’s over 10 years – they’ve always said conversational. But, so much so that that became super diluted. Nobody knew what it meant anymore. Because you could say “conversational,” and then you see that commercial go to air and it’s anything but. Anything but! So it’s like, okay, what is this?
But I will say, more and more and more and more, what I notice is they’re not announcer-y, not commercial. [They] want someone off the street who’s never done VO. More and more, they want … they want the pauses, and the crackle in the voice. They just want it as un-cleaned up as possible. Which is very interesting. I got all this training!
For them to be like, stop – don’t do that.
Lee: Stop! Exactly. So often they really, really, really, want raw, natural – they want everything to sound spontaneous and like you just thought of it.
Does anything stand out for you as a favorite thing you’ve done since you started?
Lee: There’s a lot of really good stuff. I think I can say this because it’s out now. I’m really excited about Dolly Parton. I just got one of CMA’s promos. I love Dolly … They’re doing a big tribute to her. I’m so excited and proud. I can’t wait to be able to post it.
That’s so cool – I love Dolly.
Lee: That excited me, because it’s not just a show. It’s a person. It’s a movement. It’s a life.
“World of Warcraft,” the video game, really was a lot of fun. I get to play a blood elf. What’s not to love about that? And probably my Nat Geo stuff, both of them. I did “Secrets of the Whales,” their live concert version, which I got to go see with my family. That felt so amazing, hearing my voice coming through all these speakers while the symphony [played]. The orchestra’s live, playing up there, and this huge wraparound-type screen is playing these whales – it was tear-jerking, gorgeous to hear myself in that context. The stuff that I’ve done for them, the in-show narration, that was really amazing.
I’ve got commercials and promo as well, that I just love. My Progressive campaign that’s current right now, love it – it made me cry in the session. It’s such a beautiful message. I’m fortunate to get to do a lot of great work.
