Read Me A Nightmare

Inked & Interview with Kristi Stewart

July 28, 2021 Kristi Stewart Season 1 Episode 8
Read Me A Nightmare
Inked & Interview with Kristi Stewart
Show Notes Transcript

Lily, a tattoo artist, has a crush on the HOTTEST biker. 
Snake just isn't that into her. 
That is, until she needles him with some very special ink...
Hold on to your Harley Davidson, INKED brings SONS OF ANARCHY fantasies to life, with a twist or two...

Voiced by Kristi Stewart, the voice actor that brought you THE GOLDEN FALCON in episode 6,  hang in for an interview after the reading with Kristi Stewart. Learn about her career through the NBC Newsroom in Oklahoma, hanging out with country music stars like Garth Brooks and Charley Pride, and doing national commercial work. 

Inked was written by Angelique Fawns and first published in Jolly Horror's anthology Accursed. 

To learn more please visit the show notes at www.fawns.ca/works/podcast.



Angelique Fawns  0:03  
The gold here is how Christy nails all the different characters. I hope you enjoyed this reading of inked. And now let's chat with the talent that brought this story to life. Christy Stewart's career started on stage acting at the age of 14, moved into the CBS newsroom in Oklahoma after college, had some wild times with country music promotion, and then settled into years of high profile voicing work. Let's get to the interview. By the way, thank you for the job you did on inked Oh my god, you're welcome.

Kristi Stewart  0:35  
I went out on a limb. But I said, you know, this guy is, you know, he thinks he's sexy, but he's really a nerd. I mean, that's the way I looked at it. And I said, He's gonna sound like a nerd. And I said, if I make him sexy, it's gonna be no, I loved it. I loved your interpretation. So Oh, well, that's good. Oh, that's good. I'm really, I'm really happy about that. How did you get your start as a voice actor? Well, the The funny thing is because the first job I had in the media, I was working at a television station in my hometown of Tulsa. I got an internship on my senior year in university, and working in a newsroom because I was a journalism communications major. And this is way back 1980 or so. And I worked there for my last semester in university. And they hired me right out of school. So I was very lucky. And one of my favorite shows was Mary Tyler Moore. I mean, a lot of people listening to this will go anyway, and she was an associate producer. So I thought that'd be fun to be an associate producer news. So that was one of my, my lofty goals at the time. But

Unknown Speaker  1:47  
hilarious what you got that from watching a TV show? I do it my way. Are you kidding?

Unknown Speaker  1:54  
Anyway, so I and the characters on that show were not far from the characters. I worked with him in the TV newsroom where I was and it was it was hysterical. And it was a great learning ground. And one of the gentlemen that went quite far, who started out with me is Anthony Mason, who works on CBS News, and he does the morning show with the CBS with with Gayle King, and all that. So he was one of the first guys I worked with, which is kind of cool. But to answer your question, that's an indirect way of doing so. The lady who used to do the credits at the end of the newscast, she got sick one day, and somebody came up to me and said, you have a nice voice. Do you mind running into the audio booth and doing our credits for the end of the newscast? And I said, No, that but I think that'd be great. So I ran in there. And I did I did the you know, tonight's a newscast brought to you by, you know, that kind of thing. And, and I said, this is kind of fun. I like it. I like it. I said, so I got hooked, you know. And that was really my first taste of it. And then I kind of pursued it further on down the line. And I worked in radio and in Oklahoma City, and I got to do an entertainment segment, which appeared on a weekly basis and in one of the afternoon shows. And so, yeah, and I just I started pursuing it more and more, but I did it on the side. Because I always had a job that would pay me money. And then it Yeah, yeah, one of those kinds of things. So

Unknown Speaker  3:37  
it's always was there any sort of form and then you moved into Country radio, right? Like you were country Country radio, I

Unknown Speaker  3:43  
moved from Tulsa, Oklahoma, from news from the NBC affiliate up to Oklahoma City, and working in at W ky radio, and it was country, and I got hired for the promotion manager position. And loved it. It was great time. And that's when radio was radio. It's changed so much nowadays. And you know, most of its automated and there's not a lot of live jocks on the air anymore, that kind of thing. So really interesting personalities on the air, a lot of fun. The station I worked for was owned by Gaylord Gaylord broadcasting who at that time happened to own the television program, he ha prelab Opryland hotel and the National Network which was in existence at that time, TN n which is no longer you know, grand old Opry, all those kinds of things. So lots of opportunity adds an amazing old school world, right? We went to the Oh, no, no, it was fabulous. It was fabulous. So I had the opportunity at that time to meet a lot of people in the industry, and the fun times we had. I think that I enjoyed really meeting up and comer And one of those up and comers was Garth Brooks. He met Garth girth, and he was so much fun anyway, you know, and he's still he still lives in Oklahoma with his wife and he came to the radio station, I guess to promote his first single. And he was on the afternoon show. And we decided to put posters up around the studio. And what we did was say, Go Garth, go, go Go girth go all around the studio. And he came in, he was just, he was so sweet. And he was so outgoing and, and he just said, Oh, my God, I love this, you know, this kind of thing. Yeah. He was he was adorable. I think he was on Jackie Elliot's show. And Jackie Elliott, and a former co host of his Ron Williams. They both have a podcast now, which is interesting. And it goes nationwide. So and it airs on Mondays, which is kind of cool. So he's made his remaining in the industry for a long, long time. But yeah, birth was one of the fun ones. And then I have a great memory of meeting Charlie pride who just recently passed away. And he had a record promotion at that time. You know, it was records, it wasn't CDs, it was you know, it wasn't a download. And he had, we had set up a promotion for him at a local record station, or record store. And we flew him in via helicopter. And I got to go with him, which is kind of cool. So I was as escort for the day. And we flew in and landed outside of this record store. And people weren't lined up waiting and in and out of the store. And then we find out that there's a tornado warning. In Oklahoma Tornado Alley, right, right. Yeah. So there's, there's a tornado warning and we're like, oh, my gosh, what do we do, you know, and they locked down the store. And they waited till after the weather had passed. But hundreds of people came in, you know, to meet him and to get autographs and to buy his album. And what a nice man, he was so sweet. He was so outgoing, and you know, took time with everybody. And, you know, I won't forget that time in my program director. Our manager was there, Ted Kramer. And he drove us I think away after all this storm and everything had to hit but yeah, we just we had a really, really great time and I met a lot of fun people BJ Thomas, Lyle Lovett, just you know, the list goes on and on and on. So love that job.

Unknown Speaker  7:46  
And then you sort of I know you started skewing more towards voice because how I know he was of course is the voice and prime TV and global TV. Right, right. My favorite voice to work with I tried to do I used to write my promos. With your voice in my head. Oh, actually, like I always have Christy's voice in my head as I was creating my commercials. So um, do you have any hints? let's say somebody is interested in a voice career like Do you have any hints for them? For

Unknown Speaker  8:18  
I get I get asked that a lot. It's it's really the, the industry itself seems like there's a lot of people out there wanting to get into voice work. And it's almost hard to give them a 123 and you're, you know, you're going to be in the industry. I think it's so important to have a background in acting, or theater, and being able to determine what the character is of the read if the if it's a product if it's a person, you know, look at the tape, take time to look at the script, figure out where's this going and even if there is a direction from from somebody that has written the script or the director just you know, find your sweet spot. Not everybody is suited just to read a narration not everybody is suited just to to read a commercial and take your time practice. Also, sit in on voice classes, you know mentors, get tips from as many people as you can in the industry because you never stop learning. And it's it's important and listen to commercials try to try to pick up intonations and voices but most importantly Be yourself. Be yourself because so many people try to imitate other people and it doesn't work. And today when I receive a script for a commercial most people are asking for they want conversational boy next Girl. Boy Next Door.

Unknown Speaker  9:52  
Boy Next you Oh.

Unknown Speaker  9:55  
Then you get into the he she scenario but But you get all kinds of directions from people and you can't look at it and go, Wait a minute, what do they really want? Yeah. So in essence, look at the script and interpret it the way you would

Unknown Speaker  10:12  
just by being yourself.

Unknown Speaker  10:14  
Yeah, that doesn't make sense. Because then you can get I mean, this is what's interesting. Even podcasting, and I am not like, thrilled with my own voice. I'm not a voice actor. I'm not. But I have learned. It seems to work if I'm just myself because you know, doing the podcast for Big Brother Canada. I don't know if you knew that or not that we have that big podcast? No, No, I didn't. That's great. Yeah, launched it. And I didn't want to be a voice.

Unknown Speaker  10:39  
But you're sure that you have a nice voice? There's nothing wrong with your voice. It's friendly, I guess. But I don't know. That's awesome.

Unknown Speaker  10:48  
Once again, it was one of those situations where nobody else was going to do it for me. And I started right. Karen and Karen's actually got a beautiful voice. So yeah, it worked. So we're now two seasons in I'm sure we're coming back next season. But it's it's interesting. You're right, everybody's voice can have something interesting in them. But then I think it's the next step for you to like, have a career and that like you. And then you do have to have a range, you have to be able to act you have to be able to interpret. And those are all correct. skill set. Right. Correct. And and it also helps to, to network with people. And it also helps to have a terrific demo, and find somebody that's going to represent you,

Unknown Speaker  11:28  
you know, get it get an agent once you can. And if you're really serious about working in the industry, you need that. You really do you need somebody out there fighting for you. Right, so

Unknown Speaker  11:38  
you've done lots of different things you've done, right? marshals, I think you've narrated books, right? Have you done it? Yes. You're doing these short stories for me and you've even been like, the voice prompts on us reading IV like the voice prompts for companies?

Unknown Speaker  11:55  
Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah, I've worked for a company called on hold marketing for more than 20 years, and I've done many voice prompts for them. And primarily, I'm the voice for Toronto hydro now. So if you're, you know, if your hydro, or they raised the rates, and you're not happy, you'll call in and you'll hear my voice is the voice. That's right,

Unknown Speaker  12:21  
I know. That's your favorite. So what's your favorite sort of work to do?

Unknown Speaker  12:27  
Um, you know what, I really enjoying these short stories that you've done? I think they're great. I love promos, as you know. And I like and I like doing commercials. I really, I think they're fun. And they're not not too long. And it's some of them are very, I think what I like more than anything is a challenge. When you go in and you see something new, hmm, how am I gonna do this? And I don't want me to do this in 30 seconds. And you know, or 15 seconds. Okay, well, let me see I can do that. But But I have to figure it out my brain, how I'm going to tackle that. And I really enjoy that. And I've even done some overdubbing or talking on top of, you know, actors that they don't like their voice. And they've had me come in and say, Well, do you mind doing this? And it's so much fun. It's difficult. But you're sitting there watching the person talk. So basically, you're reading their lips, and you're trying to match your voice with them speaking, which is very hard. Interesting. It's very hard, but I like it. It's fun. It's fun. I guess I like a challenge. Let's just put it that way.

Unknown Speaker  13:41  
Fair enough. That's interesting. I never even knew that they did that. But yeah, I guess I do. Can you give us like, can you tell us when you've done? Is there? Is there a or is it a thing?

Unknown Speaker  13:53  
I'm trying to think? Yeah, yeah. It's four different, like, corporate videos. There was one that was a short film that I did. And it was a lady. They really did not like her voice was kind of a high. And I don't know the name of the video, or the mean or the film. So alright. Yeah. But it was quite interesting. It took it took us a while I was in there. I had to do a couple of scenes. So it probably took us a couple of hours to do it. But yeah, but I enjoyed it.

Unknown Speaker  14:28  
Well, that's good. It this is interesting thing you're bringing up how you like like the promos and the short stories. I wonder if you're sort of like me. So the reason why I like promos, obviously. Yeah, people know I'm a promo producer as a career. Right. I love instant gratification. That's all I like cutting promos and short stories instead of a novel because I like to know I like to see my results instantly. I like that feeling of pride I get once again you get a challenge. They want you to have how much information in 30 seconds. Right? Right. Right. You managed

Unknown Speaker  14:59  
no i agree with that. I agree with that. And, and you do see it at the end and you kind of go, wow. And the stuff that you wrote was fabulous. It really was. And and it's nice to hear that you wrote it for my voice voice because I always felt comfortable reading your stuff. It's not interesting. You have a career that you want. You have to you have to love it. You have to love it. And I tell people all the time, I said, if you don't love what what you're doing, find something else.

Unknown Speaker  15:22  
So how do you take care of your voice? Christy, like what do you do as a voice actor to? Well,

Unknown Speaker  15:29  
that's a good question. Usually, if I have a session, and I know I have to record something, I certainly don't drink coffee right before because it really dries you out. I drink tons of water every day. And I think and I also if I if I do have something like my throat is scratchy, all like have a tablespoon of honey. Yeah, which is nice, or you know, hot tea or honey, that kind of thing. But I stay away from the caffeine. Because it does dehydrate you and I drink tons of water every day. And I also think it's so important to stay physically in shape to exercise. Because if you feel good, you sound good. You look

Unknown Speaker  16:14  
good. Right? Yeah, that makes sense. That's probably good advice for life, not just your voice. I think so.

Unknown Speaker  16:23  
I think so. Yeah. Yeah. But a lot of people, I think they they overtax their voice. And don't rest it. And it's important to rest your voice as well. I find that early morning and late afternoon, early evening are the best times for my voice if I'm going to do something.

Unknown Speaker  16:42  
Because I know you never stop. You're always doing something looking for something new, which is why you're doing this just

Unknown Speaker  16:47  
Yeah, exactly. You know what, I don't know, I really, I don't ever want to quit doing voice. I don't ever want to quit acting. Because I love it and enjoy it. And I never know what's around the corner, which is exciting for me. I'd like to travel a bit since I am getting older. So I'd really enjoy that. So I'm looking forward to doing something like that. And I also might pick up the pen which I used to do all the time and do some writing of my own. Where can people find you online? So just you know, Chris Stewart comm basically.com

Unknown Speaker  17:25  
and I'll put it in my show notes so people can find Okay, that's great. Can't hidden need somebody for their own voice project? professional, I can tell you that. Oh, well. I appreciate that a lot.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai