You could hardly ask for a better debut film from a writer/director/star with a low-key sensibility than Lake Bell‘s In A World…. Set in and around the world of a family in the voice-over business, with Bell playing Carol, an aspiring voice-over artist and her father, Sam (Fred Melamed), who is the reigning voice-over artist after famed artist Don LaFontaine’s passing. Interpersonal relationship dynamics, the new, young potential mother-in-law who seems to be after the money, sexism, and even French-kissing of noses are all fair game in this very funny yet very honest film.
A few days after seeing the film, I had a chance to sit down with Bell to talk about her film. Knowing that she had done a ton of press for the film already, I attempted to follow up on many of the more interesting questions I had read and others that I still had lingering with me. We talked about how close the film was to being finished before she submitted it to Sundance, why her own character has the Tomboy style, whether voice acting and voice-over work holds similar sway for her, achieving scratchy voices, and how she faked a character’s voice in the film. Read on for my full interview.
The Film Stage: You’ve mentioned in interviews that this film is extremely personal to you because you’ve longed to do voice-over work. But I’m curious what the difference between voice acting and voice-over is for you? They’re obviously two different realms, but do they hold similar pull?
Lake Bell: It’s so funny because I don’t think of them as a grand distinction. I wanted to make this movie because of a myriad of things, but the voice-over industry is really just a blueprint or an umbrella to tell the story that offers all sorts of colorful ins and outs, sounds, and textures for these characters. But it’s really a comedy about interpersonal relationships. But voice acting and voice-over are brothers and sisters of each other. My interest in them is equal. [Laughs].
There’s a few scenes where Ken Marino, who plays a rival voice-over artist, loses his voice, and a couple of scenes where you have a scratchy voice and I’m wondering how you got to those voices? Did Ken scream into a pillow?
Oh, no. What’s so cool about voice manipulation is that you’re in utter control of it. And perhaps that comes from British training because in American training it’s interesting where they encourage you getting to a place where you emotionally are so rattled that you can perform in an interesting way. While British training is more physical into emotional and requires a ton of control and focus. So for me, at least, I mean Marino is just putting on a voice. It’s not really that hard. In fact, you don’t want to do it for too long or else you’ll hurt yourself. But you would hurt yourself in a very irresponsible way if you just sort of screamed in a corner. Training is very much that. It’s musculature of all the vocal mechanisms in order to do any sort of [in baby voice] ‘manipulation or anything’. It’s a muscle. So you’re tuning it or flexing it or pressing it in a way to change quality.
One thing that you’ve brought up in a few interviews is this idea that you can play any race, religion, nationality, or social status. But one thing that you did mention was gender, and I was very curious about how that is not necessarily possible but something anyone would want to do. Then I read that you’re the voice of Gustav’s agent — which is hilarious. I heard you turned it down a couple of pitches.
We pitched it.
To sound more masculine.
Well, also to not sound like Lake. Sometimes you have to manipulate a little bit otherwise you would hear my voice.
Since you’re hearing it throughout the entire movie…
Yeah. I would hate for that one thing to take someone out of the movie. A single character to take them out of the movie. So you do things that are, if anything, insurance policies so the ear isn’t distracted.
I was also reading that there obviously haven’t been a lot of female voice-overs. But apparently there was one for Gone in Sixty Seconds.
Yeah, Melissa Disney.
Oh, OK. I was going to ask if you knew about her.
Oh, yeah. I always talk about that though. She was in the movie. I wrote a part for her but then it got cut out. So she’s going to be in the DVD extras. She was great.
Very cool.
Another woman who did one is Alicia, who did the Volver trailer. She recently reached out to me and said, “Oh, I did the TV spot for Volver, when it came to America.” So those are the only two I know of.
Another thing I’m noticing is that looking at you now, you don’t seem to have the tomboyishness that your character has. What was the inspiration for that character’s look?
Any character that you write, you write with what you know. So Carol is an amalgamation of many people I know in my life and parts of myself. But all of those slivers sort of jumble up and mash together over draft after draft after draft. They turn far away from non-fiction and much more into fiction.
You mentioned that you love radio.. What are your favorite radio programs?
Yeah, I’m an NPR junkie but I also grew up listening to Garrison Keillor. That was something that was highly influential to me when I was a kid. I think that’s sort of where it started. Then when I went to drama school I studied it. The idea of radio plays was very interesting to me. That plays into voice acting and characterization.
I was reading that you hadn’t had a lot of experience with post-production. You had directed some episodes of Children’s Hospital and even did a short film. You didn’t realize it was going to take longer than two months. Instead, maybe five or seven months.
Yes.
One thing I know is that for an independent film, film festivals are a huge deal. So how close were you to getting into Sundance and was it a madhouse?
I think post-production is always a rush. Especially when you’re trying to get into film festivals. But I had wrapped with enough time that I could submit to Sundance pretty much a finished product.
Wow.
The only thing I hadn’t finished was color correction.
Very cool. So it was pretty smooth sailing?
Well, it was a madhouse. But it wasn’t to the point where I felt I was submitting…
A rough?
Yeah, I was submitting a cut that might shift ever so slightly but ostensibly the movie was there.
In a World is now in limited release and expanding.