<em>BoJack Horseman</em>’s Diane Problem Is Now an Industry Problem
The casting director Linda Lamontagne never sees an actor’s face during a voice-over audition. If they’ve submitted a tape, she closes her eyes. If they’re in her office, she pulls what she calls a “Miles Davis”: She keeps her back to them the whole time. Over the course of her three-decade career, the strategy has helped her assemble the casts of animated series such as Family Guy, The Cleveland Show, and BoJack Horseman.
“I hear better,” she told me over the phone earlier this month. “I can hear how they’re delivering a line, if there’s movement, if I can ‘see’ their actions.” After all, she explained, voice-over is equal-opportunity work; looks don’t factor into the performance, so any actor can step up to the mic and play the part.
At least, that’s what she thought until a few weeks ago. In late June, as nationwide protests against systemic racism swelled, three white actors playing characters of color on animated shows—Jenny Slate of , Kristen Bell of , and Mike Henry of and —announced they wouldvowed to stop casting white actors in nonwhite roles, and the actor Alison Brie apologized for voicing a Vietnamese American character on , which ended earlier this year.
