Celebrity Voice Actor

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

For some reason, celebrities do a lot of voice-acting in big-budget animated movies. Maybe the producers figure more people will see movies with "big-name stars" in them. Maybe John Q. Public just loves his celebrities. Regardless, regular voice actors often get cast aside in favor of someone more famous when a big, important animated movie is made for public consumption.

Sometimes this results in the more Genre Savvy of viewers not only becoming aware of just who's voicing the characters, but mentally referring to the characters by the actors' names—especially if it's been a while since they've last seen the movie.

As it turns out, voice actors are not exactly pleased that their jobs are being poached by actors from other disciplines (Especially Billy West). Which makes sense, as it implies that the performing skills are interchangeable.

It's important to note that some celebrities are very talented at voice acting and would likely be among the most prolific at the profession if they did it exclusively. And there is a solid selection of performers who have managed strong careers in both fields and would not qualify for this trope, although becoming equally famous in both would be pretty rare.

Often turn out to be examples of Ink Suit Actors. See also Pop Star Composer for the musical equivalent.

Examples of Celebrity Voice Actor include:
  1. Namely, Soundwave never goes to Earth and Optimus dies; by the time he's revived, Ravage and Devastator were both killed gruesomely