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a man speaking into a microphone, probably using his voice

The Power of Voice for Actors

Written by Alexander Lee-Rekers on May, 6th 2025 | Acting Tips

In Peter Yates’ excellent 1983 film The Dresser—perhaps one of the best films about the theatre ever made—Albert Finney delivers an iconic, three word line that sums up everything you need to know about the power of voice for actors. If you’ve yet to see this film, look it up on a streaming service and do yourself the biggest of favours.

An actor’s voice is one of the most important tools they can develop as part of their craft. It aids in the pursuit of a character’s objective, as well as the crafting of said character’s personality. Strengthening one’s voice improves a sense of confidence and gravitas, and is one of the most under-utilised tools on modern film sets—in an age where most sins of the weak-voiced actors are seemingly covered by a lapel mic. Every actor can stand to improve their voice, and should take every opportunity to do so.

Here at StageMilk, we harp on about actors’ voices a lot in our articles and our tailored Scene Club feedback. We’ll link you to a number of these resources at the bottom of this page. For now, let us focus on why the development of an actor’s voice is so important. Because learning this might give you the push you need to lift your craft and career from a place of ‘good’ to a plateau of great.

Making Your Case

If we could only make one argument in favour of vocal strength, it would be this: actors with better voices are more persuasive. They make better, more impassioned cases as to their characters’ wants, increasing the effectiveness in how they pursue their objective.

Funnily enough, the reason behind this isn’t actorly as much as it is extremely human. When we care about something, we signal this by communicating louder and clearer. We raise the volume of our voice. We clarify our speech by elongating vowels and over-enunciating consonants—so much so at times that we come across as condescending.

Passion uplifts our words in conversation, sometimes over the words and thoughts of others. And so it’s absurd to think that characters in a scene wouldn’t do the same. If the stakes are high, our voices reflect this: we don’t drop to a dramatic whisper because it might sound cool.

So let your voice carry your characters thoughts, feelings and desires. To deny them this for any reason is to do them a disservice in their path through a narrative. And if you won’t give them a sense of strength, who the hell else will?

Finding The Character

Speaking of character: voice can give you plenty to play with in your interpretation. You could consider an accent, some kind of tonal shift that raises or lowers your pitch, or the rhythm and pacing of your character’s words.

Even if you decide to utilise your natural speaking voice, there are still considerations to be made in how your character speaks. Do they speak with confidence? Can they adequately command a room, or an army of soldiers on the battlefield? Does speaking, public or otherwise, come easy to them? And do they speak in different ways to friends, enemies, lovers?

Consider, as well, how a character uses their voice in different contexts, particularly in times of distress. Does a slow, measured pace give way to something higher-pitched and quick in moments of danger? Does their anger show by the way their voice flares up when challenged?

Sometimes, the most interesting choices come out of unexpected character/voice/situational pairings: a frightening character might go very quiet in the exact moment an audience expect a yelling match.

We’re not suggesting that you go full cartoon voice actor in your next role. But like body language, posture or costume, voice is something to consider when crafting your character. There’s nothing wrong with neutrality, provided that you have an answer as to why.

Developing Confidence

Now that we’ve covered performance and character, let’s step away from acting for a moment. Let’s focus on the performer behind the character—meaning you.

Work on your voice to gain confidence in your career. Confidence can make all the difference when you’re navigating the industry—in rehearsal rooms, on film sets and in auditions. It can help you sound excited and engaged about a project, and navigate the sometimes tricky, always important relationship between director and actor.

If this point sounds so relevant to you that it’s almost a little pointed, don’t stress. A large number of actors struggle with confidence and selling themselves in the industry. And those who don’t seem to struggle likely do: they just hide it behind the public persona they’ve been careful to craft.

It can help to think of your efforts to connect and be confident in industry settings like building a character. You, the person, might not feel like speaking your mind in the opening night foyer. But you, the actor, has opinions and wants to network. So create that actor from scratch and play them with conviction!

One more piece of advice on this note: if you lead with a clear and confident voice, you’ll not only see people respond to this fairly quickly, you’ll start to respond to it yourself. Yes—you can trick yourself into being confident by acting so. It’s like some strange, beautiful variation of the ‘outside-in’ acting technique. Find the physiological response, and your mind will follow.

Don’t Forget Screen

At this point, you might be wondering why voice is such a dying art. If it’s so important, why isn’t it taught and drilled by drama schools any more?

A lot of this has to do with the rise of screen-based media, and the evolution of what we loosely call ‘screen acting’ and screen acting schools. Don’t get us wrong: screen acting is most definitely a thing, and it trains some highly important skills such as knowing your framing and how to trust and understand the team-work aspect of the craft.

But the problem is, too many screen acting schools and classes focus solely on the technical side of things, such as looking good in a close-up. Acting fundamentals, voice chief among them, are lost. “

Why should I project when the microphone is strapped to my chest?” You often hear young actors ask. “I don’t talk loudly in a real conversation, won’t it feel over-the-top, or fake?”

To these questions, we’d direct the asker back to our point about making your case. Sure, you might not speak up and out and dominate a room in everyday conversation. But very few scenes in drama, filmed or otherwise, are “real conversations”. They’re high sakes, they’re life-or-death, ride-or-die moments for the characters.

This doesn’t mean the characters are yelling, but they’re not whispering either. That’s just as fake as projecting like Brian Cox stepping on Lego.

How do I Improve my Voice?

With practice. Like exercise, or warming up your body prior to a day’s rehearsal, you need to put some time aside each day to work on your voice. As promised at the top of this article, we’ve collected some helpful resources from our own archives for you to look over:

If you manage to get through all of that … don’t stop. Keep reading, researching, learning. And remember that the best vocal technique is going to come from developing your own process—your own set of tools and exercises. Try it all, keep what works and leave the rest.

Conclusion

So there you have it: our breakdown of the power of voice for actors! We hope this has given you enough motivation to get you working on your voice, and understanding why it’s such an underrated area of the actor’s toolkit.

As you work on your voice, you’re likely to find yourself discouraged at time. It takes a lot of work, and constant work at that! But every time you focus on your craft like this, remember that you are in the vast minority of actors who will actually bother to do so. Most will wait for the next job, do a little scene work here or there and the complain about the lack of opportunities.

So set yourself apart, with voice and work ethic alike. Pretty soon, you’ll start to see people take notice. And before long, with your voice booming into their ears/heads/hearts, they won’t even have a choice.

Good luck!

About the Author

Alexander Lee-Rekers

Alexander Lee-Rekers is a Sydney-based writer, director and educator. He graduated from NIDA in 2017 with a Masters in Writing for Performance, and his career across theatre and television has seen him tackling projects as diverse as musical theatre, Shakespeare and Disney. He is the co-founder of theatre company Ratcatch (The Van De Maar Papers, The Linden Solution) and co-director of Bondi Kids Drama, a boutique drama school offering classes to young people in the Eastern Suburbs. Alexander is drawn to themes of family, ambition, failure and legacy: how human nature can flit with ease between compassion and cruelty. He also likes Celtic fiddle, mac & cheese and cats.