We got a chance to speak with Lisa Ortiz, known for her roles as Amy Rose in some of the Sonic the Hedgehog games and the voice of Oshawott in the Pokémon series. She was also the director for the English adaptation of the Pokémon X and Y anime.
OR: How are you doing Lisa Ortiz? And thank you for coming out and speaking with me. To start this off, I want to ask you something I keep hearing about you and your origins. That is, apparently, you started voice acting due to the fact that your car was stolen?
LO: Yes, my brother stole my car. My car battery was actually dying. I was home from school at the time and my brother wanted to borrow it, and I told him “don’t take my car, the battery is dead.” I woke up and my car was gone. And then my brother calls and says “hey, you know your car battery is dead?” I told him “yeah, that’s why I told you not to take my car,” and he responded “ok, well it’s dead…and I gotta go.” I spent the whole rest of the time searching for him, and my friend came to pick me up—my friend Rob helped me out. He was interning at a place called Central Park Media at the time, and they were like “do you know anyone who would be interested in voice acting?” And that’s sort of the “abridged” version of how that happened. So yeah theft started my career—good times!
OR: I’m speechless at that. I have nothing to say about how a “sibling car jacking” leads to a voice acting career…WOW! One of the roles that jumped out at me was that you played Amy Rose in the Sonic The Hedgehog games, and I believe you started in the anime Sonic X. So did you have any trouble adapting the previous voice actress’s personality [pre Shadow the hedgehog] into the character?
LO: It’s funny because we kind of look at the Japanese where it was. It took me a little while to sort of wrap my head around her, but she’s feisty. With that kind of stuff, there has been a couple of different origins of that, and I always feel you sort of add a little bit of yourself to it. She was fun.
OR: That’s really cool. In addition to Amy you are also known for voicing some Pokémon, like Oshawott, which is one of my favorites!
LO: That’s my favorite too. I love him.
OR: How does it feel to voice a Pokémon?
LO: It’s awesome! I will say this: when I first voiced Oshawott I was like “what am I going to do? Doesn’t Oshawott only say its name?” If I said “Lisa Ortiz” all the time I wouldn’t know what I would do…But it was so much fun, and such wonderful personality, and I had such a blast. Oshawott was the best.
OR: To go on with Pokémon, you were the director for Pokémon X and Y. It’s kind of interesting to transition from being a Pokémon itself to actually being a director. How does it feel to have a hand in both producing the English dub for the show and also being a character in it?
LO: It’s been really, really cool. I felt really lucky on that. I had been on production for the previous seasons. It’s great—the cast is awesome. I recently got to re-watch some of it and it just feels great to be a part of it. You respect the lore a lot more and the stories going on. You see the evolution of the show and I am really proud of it
OR: To conclude this: do you have any advice for those trying to get into the voice acting industry?
LO: Take acting and voice over classes with other people. Watch a whole bunch of series. Seriously watch cartoons! Not just anime, but everything, and go out there and act!
