Actor and audiobook narrator, Jason Culp, is with us today. Jason was born in LA and played the original Julian Jerome on General Hospital. He's been an actor since he was 10 and narrator since he was 35.
Onto the interivew...
Jason, you have been in a few soap operas prior to your voice acting career, can you tell us a little about that?
I have been an actor since I was 10 years old -- I played a small part in a film my father, the actor Robert Culp, directed, entitled "Hickey and Boggs", and I never stopped acting after that. I did a slew of plays at school and then trained for the stage at the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco and then studied at HB Studios in New York and with John Lehne, an admired acting teacher in Los Angeles, in the 80s. A couple of my early jobs were the soap operas you mentioned, "General Hospital", in which I created the role of Julian Jerome (a role which has now been revived and being played by another actor), and then did about six months on "Days Of Our Lives". Soaps are pretty hard work -- there are a great deal of lines to learn on a daily basis and you get very little time to prepare -- you really have to trust what you are doing and keep it simple and not get too attached to the way you think the storyline should go because it can be changed at a moment's notice!
Do you have a favorite genre that you like recording?
I started recording audiobooks in 1996 -- my very first one was a Danielle Steel, and I'll confess I went to my first audiobook session without having prepared too much because I had a lot of confidence in my ability to read aloud -- I'd been recording myself reading aloud literally since I was 10 years old and had recorded several of my favorite books (by the likes of Charles Dickens, J.D. Salinger, James Thurber) just to amuse myself. But I soon realized, after starting to read that Danielle Steel title, what hard work it was and how much I had to be conscious of to make a program dynamic and consistent, and I really started to sweat! For books after that one I started to prepare very carefully and did my best to teach myself (and to learn from the wise and experienced directors I worked with) the craft of audiobook narrating.
I have narrated virtually every genre I can think of (Thriller, Horror, Mystery, Crime Noir, Young Adult, and all kinds of non-fiction), but I have a very soft spot for doing Westerns, particularly those written by Louis L'Amour, of which I have done a few dozen over the last 20 years. I love old westerns and love inhabiting those characters (the voices inspired by the western character actors I love) and relish the descriptions of the old west and of man pitted against bad guys and the elements. I tend to like doing character voices and using accents and so enjoy doing titles which are set in periods of antiquity, which require a little extra theatricality, because at heart I am a stage actor -- in other words, "an old ham"!
Have you built a relationship with any of the writers of the books you’ve recorded for?
I have gotten friendly with a couple writers of non-fiction I have done books for -- Bryan Denson, who wrote a wonderful book called "The Spy's Son", a true story about a father-and-son who sold American secrets to the Russian government, and David Priess, who wrote a fascinating book about the history of the PDB (The President's Daily Briefing), called "The President's Book of Secrets". The fact is, really famous authors are usually "buffered" from the narrator and don't get too involved with the audiobooks of their work. But there are exceptions.
You have also recorded for David Baldacci and Clive Cussler, do you remember having to do research for any of their novels?
There is always research involved in almost any book -- in the case of Baldacci and Cussler, who write Thrillers which are either political or involve espionage, there are often characters of other nationalities (British, Italian, French, Russian), and it's important to know how to pronounce names of places and people authentically, and if an accent is required, to bring it off successfully without drawing too much attention to it. There is generally nearly as much time spent at home preparing to record a book as there is actually recording it.
Are you working on anything now?
I have been pleased to be working with my old friends at Penguin Random House again, now that I have relocated to Los Angeles from New York less than a year ago. I've just completed a political thriller entitled "The Washington Decree", written by Danish writer Jussi Adler-Olsen, and an interesting non-fiction for Brilliance Audio called "Dark Star Rising", which examines the possible influence of the occult on politics!
In addition to doing audiobooks, I am "full steam ahead" in restarting my acting career, after a pause of about 15 years. To that end, I have made a web series for myself called "Actors In Cars Rehearsing Classics" (which is a very transparent nod to Jerry Seinfeld's wonderful show "Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee") and you can find the pilot episode here: https://vimeo.com/259039576
The second episode is scheduled to appear in a couple weeks.
I also have a soundcloud page with a variety of tracks on it, featuring my poetry, some narration, and songs (I am a cabaret singer, from time to time).
And my Facebook page for my professional work is here: https://www.facebook.com/
No comments:
Post a Comment
Comments