Name: Brett A. Weaver
Astrological Sign: Scorpio
Blood Type: red
Likes: good home cooking, humor, dogs
Dislikes: beets, rudeness, parrots

• Click here to view my voice acting resume •

Bio:
Born in 1966 in Lafayette, LA and raised in the swamps of Houston, I was the youngest of five - two boys and three girls. Went to college and majored in music but ended up doing a lot of community theatre. I was a radio DJ for 8 years. Moved to Austin in summer 2000, catching the remnants of the dot-com bubble.

Very few voice actors are lucky enough to have acting as their primary profession. Jobs I have held in my life, in alphabetical order, include: apartment concierge, Astrodome beer salesman, bar back, bartender, cashier, catering captain, cell phone tower maintenance guy, chef's assistant, Chick Tract distributor (sorry, I'm over that now), children's theatre actor, convenience store attendant, furniture deliveryman, hardware librarian, ice cream shop scooper guy, IT specialist, mailroom monkey, minister of music at a nondenominational church, musical instrument salesman, preschool teacher, "radio personality", restaurant manager, shoe salesman, shopping cart getter dude, short-order cook, small business owner, traffic director, valet, and waiter.

Three important lessons I have learned:
1. No one decides to go have ice cream when they're angry.
2. Never look at what comes out of a surgeon's color printer.
3. If you're going to get in trouble, get in trouble for being yourself.

Frequently Asked Questions:

How long have you been voice-acting? How many roles have you had?
13 years of anime roles, but I've been stage acting since I was 12.
I forget the exact number, but it's getting close to 100.

How did you get started in voice acting?
In 1995, I was doing a children's theatre production with Amanda Winn-Lee (then Amanda Winn), and she showed me a show she had done called Burn Up. When I opined that the show was crap, she dared me to go audition for an anime role myself, and so I did. I ended up receiving the role of Washington in Gunsmith Cats, and have been voice acting ever since.

Have you taken any classes, or are you self-taught?
i really haven't taken any classes, other than high school drama, which didn't do much. Most of my education has been on the job, through each production or TV or film project I've worked on.

What sort of recording/mixing equipment do you use?
I use a Marshall 990XL microphone and a Tascam USB-1641, which is connected directly to my laptop (running Windows XP). The microphone stand is in my office, which is a converted bedroom with many bookshelves that help deaden the room from background noise.
As for software, I use Adobe Audition and Sonar.

Do you have any advice for aspiring voice actors?
Voice-acting isn't as easy as it seems, so make sure you study other actors, and try to figure out what makes their performances unique and outstanding. Come up with your own method of creating characters. Master cold reading. Hot jasmine tea with honey is your friend.

What is your favorite type of character to play?
I like to play the cynical hero or anti-hero - the Han Solo type.

If you could be the voice of any animated character, who would you be?
Spike Spiegel from Cowboy Bebop... or Racer X from Speed Racer .
Oh wait, animated, not just anime? Then Gambit from X-Men.