‘It’s Just Not Impressive If A Robot Is Doing It:’ Soundalike Voice Actors On AI

In June, SAG-AFTRA video game voice actors ended a nearly year-long strike when they reached an agreement with a handful of major companies. While the new agreement offers considerable AI protections, soundalike voice actors have been and continue to be particularly impacted by AI and its growing influence on the industry.

Voice match acting before the dawn of AI

Soundalike, or voice match, actors are performers whose job is to imitate the speech pattern of a famous actor or celebrity. These actors can be used for many reasons. One well-known example is when Square Enix and Disney couldn’t secure Tom Hanks to reprise his role as Woody in Kingdom Hearts 3, and so cast his brother, Jim, to step in to voice Woody in his stead.

BAFTA-winning voice actor Cissy Jones has done her fair share of voice match acting, as well as being a renowned voice talent in her own right. She describes honing the craft as something similar to a musician tuning an instrument to match the cadence and tones of celebrity actors. 

“It’s a lot like hearing musicality. I used to do a ton of voice matching. I did Charlize Theron, Rebel Wilson, Penelope Cruz, and Emma Thompson… [E]ssentially, it is hearing the musicality in a speaker’s voice,” Jones told Aftermath. “What I like to do when I get a script is, usually there’s an MP3 file that comes along with it [that] they want you to match and see if the timbre and the cadence are correct. I will often shut my eyes and listen to the file multiple times, play and repeat the music of it. That gets me right in the spot.”

When an actor excels at impersonating celebrities—like Eric Bauza’s uncanny voice match of Antonio Banderas in Puss in Boots—they often become a go-to substitute, much like a reliable understudy in a theater troupe. These voice match actors are called upon whenever the original star isn’t available, whether due to scheduling conflicts or budgetary constraints. 

"If you look at Kung Fu Panda, they can’t afford to have Jack Black come in and do Po for the entire series, so Mick Wingert does it, and he’s amazing. He sounds exactly like [Black], and he makes scale,” Jones said. “[Companies] used to do it where they would swap out curse words for non-curse words, but they would have a [voice match] actor come in to do it. For games and animation, doing soundalike is definitely more cost-effective.”

Voice match actors’ work is especially valuable during the production of scratch lines—temporary audio placeholders used in trailers or early film edits. Producers may also rely on them in post-production to record additional dialogue or ADR (automated dialogue replacement) that the original actor can’t return for. In some cases, voice match actors are tasked with resurrecting the vocal essence of a bygone performer, preserving their signature twang or cadence for nostalgia and continuity. Audiobooks often require narrators who can channel a specific vocal style. For example, Jones narrated the audiobook of The Nightmare Before Christmas in the breathy, high-registered, Mid-Atlantic accent of Catherine O’Hara.

“[Producers] would have voice actors come in and do a voice match for Charlize Theron to say, ‘We gotta get out of here,’ or whatever. They would have us come in and do things for the trailer so that it could go to air without having to pay her rates to come in. They paid me scale, but it was a good living,” Jones said. 

Scale is the minimum wage for an actor. Once they join a union like SAG-AFTRA, a union job will guarantee a performer's base pay—which is the scale—for that contract, plus pension, health, and an agent commission scale. Jones says celebrities often receive multiple times the scale, where only a rare few prominent voice actors can demand double without it being a big deal; otherwise, most voice actors work at the standard scale. Depending on the contract, Jones says video games typically pay $950 for a four-hour session, plus pension, health benefits, and an agent's commission. Animation, which is also offered on a four-hour session basis, can pay an actor $1,100 per session. Other work, like commercials, which offer the highest payouts, is a completely different ballgame in terms of rates and residuals for rebroadcast. 

Voice matching isn’t just a subgenre of voice acting for up-and-comers. It includes prominent voice actors, such as Jennifer Hale of Mass Effect fame. When I reached out to Hale to discuss the work, she was actually on her way to a voice recording for soundalike work. While she couldn’t disclose for who or what her soundalike role pertained to, she reaffirmed that her soundalike sessions are about the human connection between the producer, the performer, and the role. 

“They’re pulling me in. They’re not using AI, and it's because they truly value that beautiful human spark, which is what uplifts anything,” Hale said. 

How AI has impacted voice acting

Before AI entered the scene, voice match actors I spoke to said they were already starting to see fewer opportunities. The general feeling was that unless they were doing the voice match for a celebrity in a video game, they weren’t getting much work. The main source of income for voice match actors has traditionally been commercial work, such as movie trailers, but even that is decreasing.

“For trailers, I used to get 10 to 15 voice match movie trailer auditions a week. Now, I might get three in a year. It’s died considerably—at least from my point of view,” Jones said. “Granted, I also used to work with a manager who had a lot more access to movie trailer companies and would get very specialized auditions. But even before I let that manager go, I really wasn’t seeing those kinds of auditions coming through anymore. It is crickets out there.”

Carin Gilfry, who has done voice matching for celebrities like Kate McKinnon, Scarlett Johansson, and Brie Larson, feels that much of the reason voice acting as a profession has declined is due to reckless, unregulated use of AI. One way this is manifesting that several voice actors I spoke with brought up is how many synthetic voice websites claim to have been approved with consent, but often aren’t. For a quick buck—money actors will never see—fans can pay for soundbites of actors in character saying funny, off-color things for internet memes. Hale warns that sharing reposts of AI-generated content helps spread unauthorized AI voice videos of their favorite actors.  

What’s more troubling about the rise of AI is how it can restrict new voice actors from breaking into the industry. Gilfry and voice actor Michael Scott told me beginning voice actors can no longer depend on voice matching as a way to get into the industry or land union jobs. Furthermore, situations like when Epic Games used a generative AI model to digitally recreate James Earl Jones’ voice (who signed away his likeness to Lucasfilm before he died) for their Star Wars Darth Vader event feel like a chilling effect legitimizing AI voice models over voice match actors. In the past, Jones said a company might have hired a voice match actor to mimic James Earl Jones. To Gilfry and Scott, AI voice technology has cut off a route for actors who, through their hard work and growing reputation as reliable voice matchers, would have moved forward—all because a c-suite executive saw using an AI prompt to replicate a celebrity’s voice as cheaper than finding someone with the talent to match a performer. 

Most people today get into voice acting not through SAG-AFTRA union jobs, but through online casting sites such as Voice123, Voices.com, or Fiverr. Unfortunately, AI has taken over many of these seemingly entry-level roles, such as creating training videos, local commercials, or phone system recordings. When companies use more robotic AI to record full commercials, it takes away what could have been an entry-level job for a budding actor, especially since some companies claim that humanistic acting isn’t necessary.

“What I've seen every single one of my sessions for the past two months, [producers] say, Hey, so here's a scratch track. Here is the audio that we have that we want you to match, or we put it into the video so we can see what it sounds like with voice over—every single one of the sessions that I've been in so far has used an AI scratch track. Every single one,” Gilfry said. “That did not used to be the case before two months ago. I've kept track of the past two months. Every single one's an AI scratch track.” 

Scratch voice-over is a gateway for many voice actors to break into the industry, serving as an entry-level opportunity for actors to gain work. It's how actors like Scott, who's done voice match for actors like Kid Cudi, broke into the industry. 

“Kid Cudi is in the show Young Love [and] I voice-matched him, literally reading the whole script as scratch, and the producers fell in love with me and gave me a role,” Scott told Aftermath. “Before I knew it, I was 10 characters in the show, like a series regular, because that scratch was the pathway to get into that ongoing work. I wouldn't have had that opportunity with AI as a barrier.”

One of the most well-known examples of a scratch track leading to an actor securing a major role is when Disney was so impressed with Coco actor Anthony Gonzalez’s scratch performance as Miguel that he was cast in the film. 

“You form a relationship with the production team, with the directors, with everyone who's working on the project, and they start to know you,” Gilfry said. “When that opportunity is given to a robot instead of a human, that human doesn't have the chance to make those connections.”

Now, Gilfry says human scratch tracks are no longer used as much as AI because AI is cheaper and quicker, and producers no longer need to go through traditional casting. Instead, they are asking people to imitate an AI’s scratch performance.

“The production team starts to fall in love with the sound of the scratch. Then you, an actor, are being asked to mimic the timing and delivery of the AI voice—to bring your humanness to it, because they don't want the AI on the final product. But they want you to match what's there,” Gilfry said. “It's really a weird time.”

How voice actors are trying to deal with AI as ethically as they can

Unlike NFTs' fleeting life cycle that quickly shifted from a buzzword-worthy trend to an ethered tech bro venture, AI's influence on the creative industry is complex. It cannot be simply put back in the proverbial toothpaste tube. For actors, solutions aren’t as all-or-nothing as some online have made them out to be. One such solution is for actors to find ethical ways to utilize AI in a manner that ensures they have consent, control, and compensation for their voices being replicated. 

Before the strike began, Jones said she often encountered platforms where producers praised the ease of using AI programs and the fact that they didn't have to call actors in for pickups — a sentiment she finds “incredibly violating.” To avoid that uncomfortable feeling, she co-founded Ethovox, an AI voice startup where she also serves as CEO. According to Gilfry, Ethovox works by having a company working on a film request the use of a digital replica of a performer’s voice for that film only. Performers schedule a recording session with Ethovox, where they collect data, making a digital copy of their voice. From there, clients pay a generation fee, which is passed on to the human actor, to use their digital double for voice over on commercial or entertainment projects. With those parameters in place, a performer can expect to hear their voice used only for approved projects. 

SAG-AFTRA’s contract sets out rules for consent and pay around voice replicas, but some voice actors I spoke with still had suspicions around the idea, fearing that it is a concession to AI. Additionally, desperate performers just starting their careers might be willing to sell their voices for less than they’re worth for the promise of passive income, potentially harming themselves and their colleagues by having their synthetic voices eliminate them from commercial and entertainment opportunities down the line. Scott also mentioned a potential nightmare scenario hanging over actors: a client might cut corners by violating the terms of the agreement for voice replicas on projects beyond the scope of their approved usage.  

“If I am doing a radio commercial and they say it's supposed to run for six months, we have to put trust in the system, meaning our managers, our agents, the client, that they are ethically using our voice for the time and the term period that they licensed it for with AI. Who's to say they don't take every acting job we do and put it into perpetuity?” Scott said. “Part of the way we make money—either through residuals or through the contract terms—would go away, decimating our industry, because there is no increase in the renewal that you would typically get if the client decides, ‘Hey, I love this Christmas commercial. We're going to use it again this year, and we're going to pay you a little bit more because we love it so much.’ The amount increases slightly every year, or according to the terms. That's one of the biggest dangers with AI, is that the robot can just do the work whenever, however, forever, into perpetuity.”

Another problem with the still-in-its-infancy threat that AI poses is that there is no legislation in place to make unethical and unconsented uses of it punishable by law.

“The National Association of Voice Actors is trying to get legislation in place to make it so that every person has the intellectual property rights over their voice, image, name, and likeness. We're doing that in support of the No Fakes Act, but also talking with the copyright office, working even overseas, to make sure that that happens with the EU, and ideally, we would all own ourselves so that you can license that out,” Gilfry said. “When someone wants to create an AI version of you, there are currently no federal laws or many state laws in the United States that protect our rights to ourselves. So, it's the wild west with AI, and I am worried that this new administration in the US is so focused on AI progress that they will not regulate it in a way that provides us with guardrails to do it ethically.”

While much of voice matching’s use case in all of this is allocated to substituting for celebrities in shows, film, and commercials, it is also affected by AI’s growing influence on how the industry operates, which is limiting who can join the space as a sonic doppelganger for celebrities. Some of that relates to how AI has already become part of SAG-AFTRA’s new contract, with AI usage in ADR included in contracts. 

“With the new TV theatrical agreement with SAG-AFTRA, AI ADR is built into that contract. So if [an actor is] signing on to the new TV theatrical contract, you are already automatically agreeing to let them do ADR using a synthetic voice, because it's all considered post-production. As long as it doesn't change too much of your performance, it's allowed,” Gilfry said. 

No one I spoke with thought we’re so far gone that AI will cause irreparable damage to the industry, such as replacing actors, voice match, or similar roles, entirely.

“We’re designed to look for tigers,” Hale says. “Couple that with the notion that what you focus on grows, and if we’re all focusing on where the losses are and where the problems are, we’re going to miss the incredible burgeoning of creativity.”

Put more bluntly, the performers I spoke with feel there is a desire for human actors to reclaim the space, as the trend of AI being the flavor of the month among tech bros on Wall Street and Silicon Valley is bound to cycle out again because AI doesn’t, and can never, hit the same way as a human performance. 

“Our joke is AI doesn’t have trauma,” Jones said. “AI can’t bring the trauma to a performance like a human can, and I think there will be a middling out where a lot of main characters are going to be human actors and a lot of the background characters are probably going to be AI-generated.”

“If you think about the Olympics, we're looking at the peak of human performance. It is exciting to watch someone run 100 meters as fast as they possibly can. The same is true when I watch Fences, and I see Denzel Washington and Viola Davis, where tears are flowing down their face, I'm connected to the emotion of it, but I'm also impressed by their amazing ability to go there as people,” Gilfry said. “It's just not impressive if a robot is doing it. I feel no connection to it. I might be impressed by the technology for a second, but it's not something that is going to touch me, because I can't empathize. I can't relate to it. I know that someone prompted it to do that. It's just not impressive.”

“I suspect we'll go through a phase where we're infatuated with the shiny new object of, ‘Oh my goodness, [AI] can copy anything.’ You've seen some of the crazy videos that Google's put out where they've got ‘AI humans’ doing performances that seem quite intense, emotional and human,” Hale said. “But when you tune into your gut, there's a piece missing. I honestly suspect that creators will get through this infatuation period and begin to long for that human element—the actual, undefinable, beautiful spark of the human soul.”

While Hale admits that the indistinguishable spark is undervalued in areas where content is simply created, she believes the pendulum will eventually swing back as people crave the human element of a performance over AI-generated voices. Plus, the excitement of watching actors try their hand at either voice-matching performances for characters like Mark Hamill’s Joker and Kevin Conroy’s Batman, or putting their own stamp on characters like Roger Craig Smith with the caped crusader or Josh Keaton as Spider-Man is a sensation that fans will gravitate towards once folks grow bored of how tacky AI voices are in comparison. 

“If you look at our culture from a sort of a very wide, you know, 30,000 foot view, 

everybody's been all about chasing money for so long. I'm seeing everybody look around and realize how soulless, lonely, and disconnected that has left us. And we're beginning to seek each other, community, meaning, and connection because that shiny object—sometimes literally—is leaving us empty,” Hale said. “I believe we're gonna have the same experience even in soundalikes. With this technology, it's fun to play with, but we're going to miss home, and home is that divine spark of the human soul.”

Correction, 8/19/25, 12pm--The original version of this article misstated which Hanks voiced Woody in Kingdom Hearts 3.