When the pandemic hit in 2020, just months before she was set to graduate from Suffolk University, Cat Protano found herself in limbo. She took her last final online, closed her laptop and was left wondering what came next. Little did she know, it would help her discover her talent for voice acting.
“I had to move back home with my family since I got laid off from my job as a waitress,” Protano said. “I was supposed to go work at Disney World for the Disney College Program, those were my post-college plans until I could secure a job somewhere writing, and that got canceled.”
While she sat at home, unsure of the future and with a recently received undergraduate degree in journalism, Protano decided to buy a microphone and audition for some voice acting jobs she had seen posted online.
“I had never really done any kind of acting,” Protano said. “But I found I was really good at it and started taking classes and booking things.”
She quickly started becoming successful with her auditions and earned more money than she ever had before. The work was all remote and she was able to make her own hours. Protano invested in more equipment and built herself a recording studio in her closet.
“I do some auditions in the morning, have a session or two with directors or clients in the afternoon, and do long recordings super late at night if I want,” Protano said.
Because of the pandemic, most of Protano’s work up to this point has been remote. But as more people get vaccinated and places start to reopen, Protano could start doing her work in real studios. Protano is moving to Los Angeles soon with the hopes of gaining more opportunities there and making voice acting her lifelong career.
Protano said the coolest part of being a voice actor is that you get to “play pretend” as your job. She uses her imagination in every audition, finding connections to characters she’s voicing that are nothing like her.
“It’s also always so cool to listen to my performance when the project I worked on is released,” Protano said. “Sometimes I’ll just be on YouTube and hear my voice come up on an ad or someone will send me a message about how much they loved my performance in a video game they just played.”
Some of Protano’s latest projects include recording for a Corona hard seltzer commercial, being the intro announcer for the Barbie “You Can Be Anything” series on their official YouTube channel and voicing a Christmas Tree Shops ad that has received over 4 million views.
She has done a wide variety of work, with video games being her favorite because she plays them often in her free time. Protano also enjoys doing commercials because they are little work for a big payout.
Although her final months in college and the beginning of her post-graduate life were filled with uncertainty, Protano has found her happy place with voice acting.
“I really can’t imagine myself doing anything else but this,” Protano said. “I just love it so much.”
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