So, you might think you’re seeing a brat throw a temper tantrum. You think you’re seeing a little kid having a meltdown. Truth is, you’re not. You’re looking at a 20-year-old man who’s often mistaken as a child. I certainly thought so. Have a look at his X profile picture.
This is Mr. Ellis Bertrell from Englewood, California. A prodigy of the arts who knew at a Very young age, that he wanted to be in the performing arts. “And at 6 years old, I began to pester my parents to take me in for an audition,” he says. And in that audition, Ellis was cast in his first on-camera job as a working actor at 7. The show was NBC’S “Parenthood.” “I have always had a grasp on who I really am,” he says. “I was eccentric and a ball of energy,” he says. “But I had identified with making people happy when I watched Disney shows, and I wanted to be that person.”
So, the first show led to another show and then another. “I think I belong in front of the camera, and that’s where I want to be.” His influence was his mother, “because my old man is a musician and has to go far away to do his job, but Mom was in education and was always there advising me on the difference between right and wrong.”
Ellis and his family.
During middle school, he took a break from the performance arts. But in high school, he re-ignited in theatre and started with the show Hairspray. “I was super stressed at the idea of performing theatre because I had no idea what I was doing,” says Ellis. But things went off without a hitch, and Ellis would perform in several plays until COVID hit.
All productions were shuttered, and Ellis thought, “I can’t go to set, and I’m losing my mind, and then the option of voiceover entered my life,” he says. And so, he was given an audiobook to narrate, “and I was hooked,” he says. So, at 17, Ellis began in voiceover. “It’s still acting, only in front of a microphone.”
“Oh my gosh,” says Ellis, “This voiceover thing is a real thing. I got my first audition, and that led to my first part in voiceover.”
However, a slight detour to explore the world derailed Ellis for a very short time by moving to Vegas with two other guys, “and it was three of us in one room sleeping on air mattresses.” In doing so, “It just didn’t work out, and it was Never a party, so I took the money I had made doing shows and returned to Englewood and installed a home studio in my parent’s house, and that has absolutely worked out.”
And that’s when the voiceover bookings began to escalate. “I just kept getting hired.”
The bookings he was getting evolved into video games and animation. He could do any character effectively and was seen early on as a video game man-behind-the-mic extraordinaire.
“I just kept getting booked and booked and booked,” Ellis says. www.ellisbertrellva.com
And all the while, Ellis is attending voice workshops. “I do two classes EVERY week and if I’m feelin’ rowdy, I’ll add a third.”
Ellis attending a voice workshop.
“Constant training is absolutely necessary, because this isn’t easy, and training helps you to understand the role and how to voice it, and you get honest feedback.”
And uncharacteristic of a twenty-year-old, Ellis does not drink alcohol at all” because it’s against the law at my age.” In summary, Ellis is a man who looks like a child but behaves like a highly seasoned middle-aged man. “VO gives me the opportunity to be who I am, and my looks don’t matter.”
“I haven’t had one bad experience,” says Ellis. “No bad people, no drug addicts, no bad anything. It’s all been good experiences.”
So, Ellis is the opposite of what you’d first assume. It’s though he’s lived a hundred lives before the one he lives now. “It’s my hope that this will be my life’s work,” says Ellis. And one thing he is not…is a little kid.
