Meet Tara Strong: The voice of your childhood

Gulf News

Legendary voice actress Tara Strong talks to Gulf News tabloid! about her kookiest version of Batgirl yet, some of her craziest convention memories and the joy of watching girl-centered cartoon shows.

Transcript

00:00Hi everybody, this is Bubbles for Gulf News and you're hardcore, but I wish Cosmode Wanderer

00:09here as Raph Metreon Zinthos.

00:12My father had a World War II museum and he collected old comics, so I grew up reading

00:17a lot of the old comics as a little girl and I loved Batman, I loved Batgirl, my sister

00:21was a big Wonder Woman collector.

00:24As a kid I preferred to read funny comics, I loved the Archie and like Wendy the Witch

00:29and stuff like that, I used to love the more comedy stuff, but I've certainly always appreciated

00:34geekdom and consider myself very lucky to be sort of geekdom royalty.

00:40Well I knew when I was 3 or 4 that I wanted to be a singer, dancer, actress.

00:44When I was 13 I got an agent and I got my first on-camera job which was a show with

00:48Mr. T and my first musical and my first cartoon which was Hello Kitty.

00:53Once I create a character they sort of live up in my mind and when it's their turn to

00:57come down and play they just do.

00:59I'm basically a crazy person.

01:02So I don't confuse them because they're their own entity, you know a lot of people think

01:06oh you're just reading, no you actually become these characters.

01:09I visualize myself in their worlds, in their roles and see what they're seeing so that

01:15I can portray that to the audience.

01:17Lauren Faust who I worked with on the Powerpuff Girls asked me to do the show so of course

01:21I said yes and I love playing Batgirl, anytime I get a chance to play Batgirl and she initially

01:27told me that I was not going to be Harley because they wanted Batgirl to be in that

01:31higher range and they thought maybe it would be too much but then I said let me try and

01:36so we found this sort of higher pitched, even crazier version of Harley and I have so much

01:41fun doing that show.

01:42It's a real gift that show and it's nice to be empowering to young girls and friends of

01:46young girls.

01:47I know that it's a tremendous responsibility, I know kids learn so much from animation about

01:52inclusivity and you know animated characters are from every part of the world, they're

01:57every religion, they're every age group and there's no judgement on any part so it's a

02:04wonderful place to teach children about being accepting of everybody.

02:09You know I really love doing social media and I'm quite good at it, I do my own.

02:13I think the only challenging thing for me is sometimes to not get too political or too

02:19riled up because I have to remember that children follow me but especially with the

02:23bullying stuff it's hard to not you know just get really emotional around some of the stuff

02:31that we're seeing today and what's acceptable and of course you know in America we've got

02:36a problem, our president is a big bully and I think it teaches children that you can still

02:40succeed even if you treat people badly and I try to combat that as much as I can in a

02:46kid friendly way so I'm very grateful to have that platform and I use it to raise a lot

02:51of money for sick kids and for animals and for the immigration problem so I just think

02:58it's despicable that kids are being separated and there's so many amazing organizations

03:01that are help bringing them back together so I use my social media to raise money for

03:05them.

03:06My last convention I was at a con in Kansas and there was a boy who came to meet me who

03:11was deaf and he was a huge fan of Harley and his mom said it surprised him that he was

03:16such a big fan of the voice actors and so I signed language to him and I said do you

03:20feel the vibrations of the characters and he said yes so I put his hand on my throat

03:24and I did Harley for him and there's video of it online and he's so happy that was very

03:30moving.

03:31All the time I hear thank you for my childhood, you got me through my parents divorce, you

03:34got me through a depression, there was a young girl if you were at my panel you heard me

03:37talking about that she was autistic and hasn't spoken until she knew I was coming and I would

03:43never have known so to be able to give back to the fans is the main reason I do cons because

03:48really we're nothing without our fans.

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