Jennifer Hale
Jennifer Hale is a Canadian-born American voice actress.[2] She is best known for her work in video game franchises such as Baldur's Gate, Mass Effect, Metal Gear Solid, BioShock Infinite, Metroid Prime, Halo, Overwatch, and Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic.[3] In 2013, she was recognized by Guinness World Records as the most prolific video game voice actor.[4]
This article is about the voice actress. For the sportscaster, see Jen Hale. For the unrelated film, see Jennifer Hale (film).
Jennifer Hale
Hale is featured in animation such as The Real Adventures of Jonny Quest, The Powerpuff Girls, Codename: Kids Next Door, The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy, Brandy & Mr. Whiskers, Totally Spies!, Avatar: The Last Airbender and its continuation The Legend of Korra, Star Wars: The Clone Wars, and Where on Earth Is Carmen Sandiego? She also voices Thorn of the Hex Girls in various Scooby-Doo movies and TV episodes, as well as Cinderella and Princess Aurora in various Disney Princess media of the 2000s and 2010s. She is also known for voicing Jean Grey in a variety of Marvel media. [5][6]
For her role as Commander Shepard, Hale was nominated for "Best Performance by a Human Female" twice at the 2010 and 2012 Spike Video Game Awards, as well as "Outstanding Achievement in Character Performance" at the 16th Annual D.I.C.E. Awards. In 2022, she has been nominated for "Performer in a Leading Role" at the 18th British Academy Games Awards, as well as "Outstanding Achievement in Character" at the 25th Annual D.I.C.E. Awards, for her performance as Rivet in Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart.[7][8]
Early life[edit]
Hale was born in Happy Valley-Goose Bay.[2][9][a] Her mother was what she called "a wandering master's degree pursuer" and her stepfather was a microbiologist. She later told Tom Bissell of The New Yorker that her biological father, James Learning, was an outdoorsman[2] who was also a prominent NunatuKavut elder and environmental activist.[11][12] She would later call for support to free her father, who had advanced cancer, after he was imprisoned for refusing to sign an injunction to stay away from Muskrat Falls in 2017.[13] Hale has a paternal half-sister, Carren Dujela, who works at the University of Victoria.[14][15] She moved to the U.S. as a child and grew up in Alabama, mainly in Birmingham and Montgomery.[16]
When Hale was a teenager, she got a voice-over spot at a local radio station, being paid $35 just to talk.[2] In 1982, she graduated from Alabama School of Fine Arts,[10] where she was in the theater department and was interested in being in a rock band. She stated, "I started doing voice-over to pay for life and a PA system and everything else, and ended up that just sort of took over, acting took over."[16] While in high school, she did more voice-over work for commercials, and also worked as a production assistant at age 17.[9] She attended Birmingham–Southern College, where she found the program's style was broader than what she wanted to do,[2] and realized that she was more interested in film acting than theater acting.[17] She graduated with a business degree.[2] She began working as an actress and continued doing voice-overs, commuting frequently between Birmingham and Atlanta, Georgia.[2][9][16][18]
Influences and reception[edit]
In an interview with The Geek Forge regarding her influences, Hale cited voice actors such as Dee Bradley Baker, Grey DeLisle, Phil LaMarr, Tress MacNeille, Kath Soucie, Frank Welker, and April Winchell, with emphasis on LaMarr. She also admires the work of actors Judi Dench, Edward James Olmos, and Mary McDonnell.[16]
Hale's peers and critics have noted her versatility in her roles: Michael Abbott, a professor at Wabash College who blogs about video games, said that she has made herself "untraceable" despite having voiced dozens of roles. Journalist Tom Bissell noted that she has been referred as "a kind of Meryl Streep of the form".[2] In an interview, she said, "I love the anonymity. I could walk through Comic Con, and no matter how many people who might be a fan of what I do, we're in proximity and no one knew. I'm invisible. If I'd have done as many on-camera roles as I've done voiceover, I couldn't go to the grocery store in peace." She stated in the same interview, "As cheesy as it sounds, the player is the star of the game. That's the beauty of games—that it's you that inhabits it. It's not about someone else, it's about that you get to be that person, and if I do my job right, I as a person disappear. Your experience is primary."[36]
Personal life[edit]
Hale lived in the Los Angeles area, but since 2020, she has relocated back to Canada and now resides on Vancouver Island where she continues to do voice recordings from her personal home studio.[37] She has a son.[2] She has several pets and enjoys the outdoors, stating that she might have become an architect because she likes to redo houses.[16] She has said that she was not allowed to watch cartoons as a child,[29] and had not played any video games until her 2011 interview with Tom Bissell for The New Yorker, in which she played Mass Effect for the first time.[17] She likes horses and has mentioned being part of the local evacuation response team that rescues horses from advancing wildfires.[21][38]
