For anyone familiar with My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic (like this intrepid columnist, whose 6-year-old is an aficionado), it can be downright disorienting to chat with Vancouver voice actress Andrea Libman over the phone.
On the hit animated series – which recently wrapped its sixth season and is gearing up for its first feature film release in 2017 – Libman voices two ponies that sound entirely different from one another: the soft-spoken Fluttershy, whose voice is sometimes barely louder than a whisper, and the perky, party-loving Pinkie Pie, whose every word drips with unbridled enthusiasm.
On the phone, however, Libman sounds like an unlikely confluence of both ponies; her voice is cheerful like Pinkie Pie’s, but there are also hints of Fluttershy’s more dulcet tones.
"When I auditioned for [My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic], I hadn’t been one of those actors who would do multiple voices on shows,” says Libman. Her lengthy credit list includes Maya the Bee and Pac-Man and the Ghostly Adventures. “I was really known for, as you can probably hear, having a young sounding voice, and doing that little girl voice, and that’s still my specialty. Pinkie Pie and Fluttershy are two different placements, and it was a work in progress to develop them.”
Even now, six years in, it can sometimes be challenging to move back and forth between the two characters, according to Libman. “Every show is different, but if I have an episode that’s really heavy for my characters, I’m exhausted after,” she says. “You have to put all of that energy into them, especially Pinkie Pie.”
But it’s a challenge that Libman enjoys, and it’s one that’s now being recognized by her peers. Libman has been nominated for a 2016 UBCP/ACTRA Award for Best Voice for an episode of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic entitled “The One Where Pinkie Pie knows Pinkie Pie and Fluttershy.”
With a self-stated mission to “build the BC star system,” UBCP/ACTRA annually honours five members for on-screen and voice work done in the past year. It’s the only peer-adjudicated performer awards show in BC.
Libman’s nomination is an impressive milestone in a career that began with on-camera work when she was six-years-old (her first role was as Lynda “Wonder Woman” Carter’s daughter in a television movie), tapered off when she was in high school (“I stopped doing on-camera when I got braces,” she chuckles), and then kicked into high gear after earning an engineering degree from the University of British Columbia.
“At the time, I was planning on doing [engineering] as my career, but I was still working part time in voiceover, and right when I graduated, I booked My Little Pony, and that’s been the show that’s changed everything for me,” says Libman.
No discussion about My Little Pony is complete without some mention of the series’ massive fanbase. My Little Pony’s fans include children and adults of all genders, and the fandom has been the subject of a number of documentaries, including Bronies: The Extremely Unexpected Adult Fans of My Little Pony, and A Brony Tale by Vancouver filmmaker Brent Hodge.
Libman remembers the moment she first learned about the Bronies.
“We were recording season two, and season one had just come out, and the animation director Jayson Thiessen came in and said, ‘there’s all of this talk about the show online and in forums, and there’s this big group of guys who like the show,’ and we were like, ‘what are you talking about?’”
Libman is the first to admit that the concept of male fans “sounds abstract, and people don’t understand it when they first hear about it, but when you go to a convention and you meet these fans, it really does click,” she says. “They’re drawn to the message of the show, which is that friendship is magic, and it doesn’t matter what your flaws are or who you are, friendship is accessible to everyone.”
So, between Pinkie Pie and Fluttershy, which character is most representative of her temperament? “Neither,” she quips in that distinctive fusion of both voices. “I’m somewhere in between.”
The UBCP/ACTRA Awards will be handed out in a gala ceremony at the Vancouver Playhouse on Nov. 12; the ceremony will be hosted by actor Lochlyn Munro (A Night at the Roxbury; Scary Movie). Peruse the list of nominees at http://www.westender.com/arts-culture/reel-people/ubcp-actra-announces-nominees-for-2016-awards-1.2347233, and follow @UBCP_ACTRA for real-time results.
MORE FROM ANDREA LIBMAN
On the upcoming feature film release, My Little Pony: The Movie: “We went about the process for the feature in a slightly different way. We had a lot more freedom with it, and the script was flexible. The producers would ask for our input; if we had jokes or if we had something that we knew about our character that we really wanted to add, we were welcome to do that, and that’s pretty cool. They were really open, which was a lot of fun, and just being a part of a project that’s going to be an animated feature film is a dream come true. It’s a pretty rare opportunity because these days, most of the roles in an animated feature go to the big name celebrities, so to be a part of that is incredible.”
On looking after her voice: “I feel like a bit of a germaphobe sometimes. I also teach piano, and I’m really strict with the kids I teach and the parents. I say, ‘please cancel your lesson if you think you’re getting sick.’ I feel like a bit of a freak, but that’s our livelihood. I try to wash my hands as much as possible, eat healthy, stay healthy, exercise. That’s all you can do really.”
