Hollywood’s voice actors — one of the first groups to wrestle with artificial intelligence replacement — are battling one another over how to deal with AI.
Big, established names are using it to make more money. Non-stars say the number of jobs has plummeted and that they are being tricked into training their replacements.
Unions want further restrictions on the technology. Some actors are resisting the urge to create cheap clones to do work, but many nonunion freelancers say they have no choice.
“I’m so afraid,” said Stacy Rivera, 34, a Los Angeles-based voice actor who does voices for commercials, Netflix and others and is resisting the temptation to let her voice be used for AI. “I don’t know if what I’m doing now is going to be an option in the next five years.”
Still, AI voices are imperceptibly taking over screens and speakers.
A clone of Sir Michael Caine’s voice narrates the 13-hour audiobook of the “Odyssey.” The British actor has licensed his voice to ElevenLabs, an AI voice company in New York. Matthew McConaughey uses its technology to create a Spanish-language version of his newsletter.
ElevenLabs’ voice marketplace features clones of dozens of personalities — including actress Judy Garland, physicist Richard Feynman and popular characters such as Mr. Potato Head for creators to legally license and get compensated for their use.
Well-known actors are getting millions of dollars to allow their voices to be cloned to become a voice assistant, said David Lawrence XVII, a veteran actor who is part of the SAG-AFTRA audiobook steering committee that approves the deals.
Lawrence said actors need to push back for proper compensation and protections to avoid being replaced. He increasingly has to decline gigs when employers don’t respect those rights.
“I am a champion for the human voice, despite the reality of where we are,” Lawrence said. “I’ve always said, ‘Well, what are you offering? What are my guardrails?’ And they’re like, ‘Guardrails? That’s funny.’”
Despite pushback, authorized clones are becoming accepted in Hollywood as A-list actors and their estates license their voices for use in films and online platforms. Morgan Freeman, who once took legal action against unauthorized cloning, is open to companies cloning his voice.
But a fissure remains between those actors who stay morally opposed to cloning, and those who embrace this new reality.
One of the largest online voice acting communities on Reddit, r/VoiceActing, is full of angst and anger, but few solutions.
“On principle I would never do it for any amount,” wrote one voice actor in the forum.
“We hate the loss of livelihood. We hate the art form being taken away from us,” the moderator of the Reddit forum told The Times.
Nick Myers, a 26-year-old voice actor based in Los Angeles, previously told The Times he turned down a $100,000 offer last year to record his voice to train AI-replication models, viewing it as an existential risk. “I am not going to sacrifice my morality for a paycheck, no matter how big,” Meyer said last year.
A clone of Michael Caine’s voice narrates an audiobook of the “Odyssey.” Above, the British actor attends a 2015 movie premiere in London.
(Anthony Harvey / Getty Images)
For many in the voice business, there are signs of an implosion in jobs. The small gigs to voice things like Instagram content, YouTube explainers, online classes and budget audiobooks are increasingly being absorbed by AI voices.
Hollywood fought hard for protections from AI in the prolonged writers’ and actors’ strikes of 2023. SAG-AFTRA, the union representing about 160,000 actors and other performers, has been demanding informed consent, fair compensation, more control and transparency over the use of digital replicas.
The latest agreement, signed in June, introduced limits on studios’ use of digital replicas. The contract requires studios to notify actors before using their voices to create a replica. Even after a project is complete, actors must sign off and be paid the equivalent of an in-person performance if their replica is used.
Additionally, studios need to pay residuals to digital replicas used in reruns, and replicas cannot be used during a strike.
The National Assn. of Voice Actors, a nonprofit lobby group founded in 2022 that represents 30,000 professional voice actors globally, points out that 80% of the voice acting work on the market is considered freelance and is not covered by union rules.
The trade group has been warning freelancers that signing away rights to their voices could be career-ending. After learning that many early-career voice actors are being taken advantage of, they released a NAVA AI rider contract, a free addendum that actors can add to their contract to protect their likeness and identity in the absence of federal law.
“I don’t think that the people that are new to the industry are being given enough information to make a rational decision about whether or not to license their voices,” said Lawrence, the voice actor. “I think an awful lot of these talents are being taken advantage of.”
SAG-AFTRA has put its weight behind lobbying for a federal policy called the No Fakes Act, which would create a national policy giving every person the right to their own voice and likeness and making all unauthorized use illegal.
Still, the debate is raging with voice actors on the front lines. They want to protect their livelihoods and need to make money, so many are making moves the union would discourage.
Jessica Hepburn, 44, started narrating audiobooks in 2019 from her $250 home studio set up in Fort Wayne, Ind. She made good money doing audio commercials, corporate e-learning videos, and YouTube explainers.
“A lot of what I was doing was for the smaller people, the smaller businesses, the startups and commercials,” she said. “They’re looking for someone who’s inexpensive but quality.”
Unfortunately, that’s a sweet spot for AI voices. Hepburn’s income started to collapse in 2023.
“My income got cut in half,” she said, to less than $40,000 this year. “I’m getting desperate.”
Now she is dabbling in voice-overs in a corner of the entertainment business with less competition from AI: erotica.
Most of the AI voice-generating software hasn’t mastered high-level emotions and screaming, she said.
“I don’t think AI could ever get into erotica with what’s required,” she said.
Established actors are also selling their voices for pennies on the dollar.
Alicia McCalla, 56, a fiction writer who has been doing voice work for five years out of her home in Atlanta, decided to ignore union suggestions and clone her voice. She uploaded six hours of her voice samples to ElevenLabs to create a clone that is nearly indistinguishable from her voice.
After she put a “warm and pleasant” voice on the market, the money started coming in.
“With this digital narration, I didn’t have to do anything. I could go to sleep and make money,” McCalla said.
Although McCalla is happy with her decision, she has been surprised at where her voice has popped up, hearing it in commercials and a Michael Jackson documentary.
“That’s the problem with cloning,” she said. “When you license your voice — you have no idea what the projects are.”
More than 10,000 creators earn passive income from listing their clones on ElevenLabs voice library. The company said it has paid out $22 million, doubling its payout since November, saying creators have full control over their voices and can update their licensing terms, restrict use cases, or remove their voice from the marketplace.
“It’s scary how predatory it’s become,” voice actor Stacy Rivera said of the industry.
(Christina House / Los Angeles Times)
Still, stories of artists finding unauthorized clones have become all too common. NAVA lists more than 100 actors who spotted their voice clones online.
There are dozens of lawsuits against AI companies alleging unauthorized training of software models. Last week, a class-action lawsuit was filed in Chicago against nine technology companies including Meta, ElevenLabs, Apple, Amazon and Microsoft. Plaintiffs claim that these companies collected voice and audio files without consent.
Rivera, the voice actor in L.A., feels stuck in the middle. She has worked on the Mexican and the Brazilian audio for Netflix’s reality show “Love is Blind,” sometimes recording sessions from her three-bedroom home, which has a soundproofed recording booth padded with acoustic foam.
She wants to stick to union jobs, but they have been scarce. Last year she landed one; this year, three.
When she had a chance to procure a big payday — a five-figure payout from a major tech company that is not bound by SAG-AFTRA rules — for training AI, she refused.
“I immediately said ‘Hell no,’” Rivera said. “It’s scary how predatory it’s become, and it’s becoming a new normal.”
