The Week in Voice: Four Farewells, Your Voice in Court and a Pipefitter With Pipes

Four goodbyes, three fights over who owns a voice, and an airport that found its new voice in a pipefitter. Here’s your week in voice, in about four minutes.

Hello again. It’s Friday, and this has been a heavy one. We’ll start gently, and we’ll finish in Boston, where last week’s argument got a happy ending. Mostly.

Four voices we lost

Paweł Tucholski, Poland’s voice of Simba and Aladdin, died last Friday at 57. He sang those roles as well as spoke them, so a generation of Polish children learned the Polish “A Whole New World” from him. Three days earlier, a theatre in Gliwice had announced he’d joined its company.

On Sunday, John Leeson, the voice of Doctor Who’s robot dog K9, died at 83. In 1977 his brief was to sound as if he came out of “a tiny little elliptical speaker in a cheap radio”, and he kept that voice going for more than three decades. His son wrote that the end was peaceful.

In Japan, Ryuji Nakagi, a working voice for 60 years, died at 89, four days before his 90th birthday. Anime, NHK documentaries, Japanese dubs of Harrison Ford and Twin Peaks: he did all of it, and he once said acting was “the one thing I found fun.”

And in South Carolina, Steve “Zeus” Stewart, the voice behind FOX promos and rock station IDs, died at 59. One station put it best: his was one of the most recognisable voices on its air, belonging to “a man most listeners never knew by name.” Plenty of us know exactly what that’s like.

Our thoughts are with all four families, and with everyone who grew up hearing them.

Whose voice is it, anyway?

In California, a judge ruled that the former NPR host David Greene’s case against Google can go ahead. He says the male voice in its AI podcast tool is his, and Google says it paid a professional actor. The judge’s line is one to keep: “A radio host reaches the audience through the voice.” And from 1 January 2027, California’s likeness law says a voice includes a digital replica.

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In Germany, Matti Klemm, the German voice of Jason Momoa, is suing Netflix. He’d refused to sign the new AI training clauses, then asked Netflix what it does with his data, and the answer showed his recordings had been used to train AI anyway. Netflix says its use of AI follows the law. His lawyer says: “Voices are not a freely available raw material.”

In New York, four unions asked the judge in the OpenAI copyright case to hear from voice actors, citing a NAVA survey where 21 percent said they’d knowingly lost a job to a synthetic voice.

And Pennsylvania’s new AI ad law reaches the radio spot. From 21 December, an ad that uses AI audio to mislead people about what they’re buying has to say so, at a volume and pace a listener can actually follow. So, not at the speed of a car dealer’s small print. We’ll believe that when we hear it.

A small raise and a long shortlist

In Canada, ACTRA’s tentative commercial deal offers a 2.5% raise, with more for ads that run online. It ends on 31 May 2027, it’s the fifth one-year deal in a row, and members vote from 16 to 30 November. Read the full package before you tick the box.

In London, the Speakies’ performance shortlists are out, and James McAvoy’s first audiobook is up against Simon Russell Beale’s George Smiley. Rory Kinnear recorded his whole book in a day, which is either heroic or a cry for help. Winners are named on 23 November. Good luck to all of them, and to the first-time narrators most of all.

And to finish on a smile

Last week we asked Boston Logan to pay its new voice. The winner is Chris Donisi, a pipefitter, picked from more than 6,000 auditions. Massport’s boss called him “a pipefitter with pipes”, and it was his mum who spotted the contest. “You always gotta follow your dreams, but you also gotta follow your mother’s dreams,” he said. It’s still unpaid, as far as anyone’s said, and he’s keeping his day job. Congratulations, Chris. We’re wicked glad for you.

And Rebecca Lee, a flight attendant for 15 years, will give the keynote at VO Atlanta 2027. One of her first paid jobs came from a passenger who paid her about $100 to record his voicemail. “Voice acting is still acting,” she says. Congratulations, Rebecca. Please keep your seatbelt fastened while the applause is on.

That’s the week. Be gentle with yourselves, look after your voices, and we’ll see you next Friday.

Sources: Voice Over Herald reporting this week, linked above.

Lee este artículo en español: La semana en la voz: cuatro despedidas, tu voz en los tribunales y un tubero con buenos pulmones

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