By Keith Brunson
There are very few people like Sean Letourneau. Home-schooled, Sean is accustomed to being WITH himself. And he likes it that way.
Sean Letourneu as a child.
“At around ten years old, I began to wonder what it would be like to be around people.” His childhood went fine. No negative childhood experiences. And so it was in these early formative years that Sean pondered what he could do to illustrate his alter ego. He wanted to work in a business opposite to his solitary educational upbringing.
Fast forward to three years ago, and Sean got his fill of the public. Working as a barista, Sean began to get enough of people and their coffee quirks. “People really love their coffee, and I’m an introvert. I’m not social; I’m inward.” So, the experience of making coffee became a whole new world for the little boy that wanted to do something creative that did not involve a team effort. Enter Voice Over. Sean, who had never worked in any form of show business, got himself a voice coach and began to study the art of the voice. He had no experience.
Sean smiles for the camera while voice acting in the studio.
“Studying the voice brought me into an entirely different world than what I thought was possible,” says Sean. And that’s when Sean learned to take an interest in extreme voices.
“When I walk in that booth, I leave my body behind,” Sean explains; for a quiet child with limited social access growing up, voiceover offered him a chance to spread his wings.
“I do well with loud, angry characters, and in fact, it is my favorite character to voice.”
Naturally, you’d think an introvert would become an introverted voiceover artist, but the reaction was the opposite for Sean.
These loud, obnoxious voices have a place in the voiceover work. They’re typically voice used in anime and character work. “And that is exactly where I was headed until it happened.” Sean was chosen out of hundreds of voices to be the voice of Microsoft. The work is anything BUT extreme.
“OF all the places I could have wound up given my ambitions, I would never have thought that Microsoft would want that soft, calm voice that I hear in my head.”
At 23 years old, Sean is a paradox. To be in his early 20s and voicing for one of the most distinct brands in the world, one would think that Sean would have never been considered. “I enjoy scumbags, raspy voices, characters that upset the scene, but then suddenly, I’m voicing that mellow voice I would hear in my head as a little kid when I was homeschooled.”
So, what’s going on here? “I have no idea,” he says. I always thought Microsoft would require years of training and auditioning, yet it just showed up…with no warning.” Sean goes on to say, “All I did was look inward, and from it came a very outward experience.”
“I’ve only been in this for three years, and I can say that it is a LOT of hard work and vocal coaching, but to do well, you can’t do it for the money.” Sean alludes to voiceover as something that wannabees want to do because they think there is a lot of money in it. “And there isn’t good money in the beginning,” says Sean. “You must simply audition daily, stay true to yourself and keep on studying.”
Sean sees the prospect of getting into extreme characters as a matter of time. “It’s true. I keep to myself that I am quiet and inward, but to become an extreme character is my destiny.” And to become that, Sean will continue his daily practice of audition, study, rinse, and repeat. But until then, Sean celebrates three years in voiceover, he’s heard by millions, and the style is anything But extreme.
