Imagine
feeling that you're in the right place at the right time for a voice
acting breakthrough, only to have the deal seem to fall through, but
have things work out right anyway. That's the story of Laura Bailey's
voice acting career. After studying acting in college, she learned that
Funimation was recasting Dragon Ball Z when the dub was moved from
Canada to Fort Worth. She auditioned, and months later, Bailey was told
she got a role because another similar-voiced actor had disappeared.
Bailey recorded the lines, only to be told later that the missing actor
had returned and had redubbed all of Bailey's lines. Much later, Bailey
got her real Funimation break with the role of Chibi Trunks. Later,
Bailey's patience paid off when she was cast as the dub Tohru Honda in
the fan-favorite Fruits Basket series. "When I was cast in Fruits
Basket, I went out on the Internet and downloaded as much as I could,"
Bailey said. She's also gotten the deep-voiced role of Marlene Angel in
Blue Gender and Kayko Ukimura in Yu Yu Hakusho.
Laura Bailey - Anime Convention
Personality of the Week - June 20, 2004
