Brian Page has been in the entertainment business for more than 15 years.
Responding to his creative yearnings, he took several paths simultaneously, as an on-air disc jockey, a voiceover artist and as a stage actor.His on-air radio work led to also being a radio program producer and audio editor for several organizations over many years, having edited thousands of hours of broadcast radio programming as well as editing and producing six audio books.
No longer a DJ, Brian has taken his voice acting career into many areas of the industry, in addition to voicing commercials for both radio and TV, he’s busy with industrial narrations, voicing training and product videos, audio books, ADR work and has used many of his vast array of character voices for projects both broadcast and online. “I truly love using my voice to convey whatever is required of the copy, sometimes it’s a challenge but it’s always fun”. For more on Brian’s voice work check out his voice demos on-line at http://www.brianpagevoiceovers.com Also, custom demos can be supplied upon request.
Looking at his stage acting work, Brian has performed in more than 60 plays from Shakespeare and Shaw to Neil Simon and Steve Martin, even playing Gandalf in a 2010 production of The Hobbit. He has performed on many Southland stages such as The Long Beach Playhouse, Newport Theater Arts Center, Maverick Theater, Stages Theater, Curtis Theater, Rose Center Theater, Chance Theater, McKinney Theater and more. Brian has also had the occasional foray into on-camera work having appeared in two films.
His theater associations and his abilities as an audio editor have taken Brian in another direction as well, that of theatrical sound design, having done more than 20 shows over the last few years. Brian is also a member of Media Communications Association, International (MCA-I), serving on the local as well as the International board of directors.
Performing is in his blood, both on stage and in front of a microphone. He says “as the melancholy Jaques said in Shakespeare’s As You Like It “All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players…” it’s just so much fun to play”.
OCS: Where were you brought up?
Brian: I’m a Southern Californian born and bred, with most of my time spent in Orange County. It was a great place to grow up with lots of opportunities and distractions as well. I first lived in Culver City during the 50’s. My parents owned a business in Lemert Park. Eventually they sold the business and we moved to the City of Orange in the early 60’s, certainly the county was much smaller back then.
OCS: When did you first know you wanted to be in entertainment as your life’s profession?
Brian: My time with the entertainment business came pretty late in life, although I caught the acting bug back in High School, other choices in life took me in several other directions until I found myself responding to the ‘call’. I started out as a firefighter in the 70’s then breaking from that and going into the family business, which was in the home furnishings industry as an independent sales representative. When my parents retired I decided to go into the Real Estate business and quickly ended up as a loan officer in the mortgage industry. That brings me up to the mid 90’s when the mortgage business went into a very bad time and I ended up becoming an on-air DJ. That same year I had the opportunity to perform in a Neil Simon play and I fell in love with acting. My radio work led to more and more voiceovers and one play led to another and another, along the way I became a radio program producer, both local and national, as well as a audio editor and theatrical sound designer.
OCS: Do you remember your earliest professional job?
Brian: Even though I started acting in High School I didn’t make the transition to professional status until the mid 90’s. I remember once being hired to voice an employment video early on and I showed up at the producer’s office and we started recording with no special equipment and no booth. After a short while he became very frustrated with all the noise coming in through the window of his office so he just jumped up and said “I’ll be right back” and left. I was all alone in his office/workroom. He came back in about 15 minutes with an armful of his laundry, spending the next 20 minutes building a cocoon around me built of blankets, towels and coats. We got the recording and it worked well.
The first movie role I got was an opportunity to beat up a couple of guys with a pipe as the boss of drug group. And by the way it’s always fun to play the bad guy, lot’s more dimensions and angles to play, as a good guy you pretty much can only be good.
OCS: Do you have a worst, most embarrassing experience you can share with us and how did you recover?
Brian: I remember one time during a live performance of a play, I’d been battling a cold and my voice quit on me and I couldn’t speak my lines. I had just come on stage, said a few lines just fine and from the wings in came another actor in a wheel chair, very quickly, hitting me and knocking me across the stage, all planned of course. The unplanned part was, shortly after, my voice going bad on me, so I struggled for a moment and then as best I could squeaked out that he, the other actor, knocked the wind out of me and it gave me a few minutes of struggling to get my lines out. Having done live theater for many years I’ve got lots of stories of actors missing their cues or failing to come on stage when they should or props breaking or even not breaking when they should. That’s the fun of live theater, terror at the moment and lot’s of laughs later.
Brian: I guess I’m a storyteller at heart and I consider myself a character actor, so even though I make money doing a 30 second TV commercial, for example, I find being a part of a whole project such as an audio book or a comedy audio series is very rewarding and lots of fun. The same can be said about theater, being part of a group of people, actors, directors, designers all bringing a play to the point where an audience is transported to somewhere else where they’re amused, entertained, shocked, amazed with laughter or tears, that’s a wonderful experience. The icing on the cake is when all the pieces of the pie come together and it creates something very special, not only for the audience but for the actors as well. In some 60 plays that I’ve done, and I’ve enjoyed most, only two or three rise to that level.
OCS: Do you have a specific role you would like to play? What is your ideal view of your future?
Brian: As a character actor there is all kinds of great roles I could play and I’m always on the lookout for one of those roles. Some of the great characters I’ve already played such as Sir Toby Belch in Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, Sidney Bruhl in Deathtrap or Gandalf in The Hobbit are just some of those great roles. I’m also looking for roles that might stretch my abilities, pushing my comfort zone out even further. I’m a performer and that’s what I want to be able to do forever. The power of performance is an amazing thing, it can take the written word and transform it into a wonderful experience, each in a unique way. It’s terrific just being a part of something like that.
Editor’s Note: Brian Page is the owner of Vocal Images and is a voice actor and theatrical actor located in Southern California. He serves on the Board of Directors of the Media Communications Association, International (MCA-I) as well as the board of the Orange County/Los Angeles Chapter of MCA-I. He can be reached at 714-404-7591 or email at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or follow him on LinkedIn by clicking the logo.
