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Lani Minella
American voice actress (born 1950) From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Lani Jean Minella (born July 28, 1950)[1] is an American voice actress, voice director, and producer mostly working in the games industry. She is also the founder and owner of the voice-acting agency AudioGodz.[2] As of August 2024, Minella was recognized by Guinness World Records as the most prolific video game voice actress, a title previously held by Jennifer Hale.[3][4]
Since starting her career and becoming well known for her unique four-octave vocal range,[5] Minella has been in multiple video game franchises such as Diablo, StarCraft, Duke Nukem, Backyard Sports, Warcraft, Baldur's Gate, Unreal, Borderlands, and Darksiders. As well, she has provided many voices for characters in a variety of other video games, most notable roles like Nancy Drew in the video game series, Gabriella in Blood II: The Chosen, Rouge the Bat and Omochao from Sonic the Hedgehog in their debut, Ivy Valentine from SoulCalibur, Eve in Mass Effect 3, and Lucas in Super Smash Bros. Minella has also done multiple roles in a game such as Sindel and Sheeva in the 2011 Mortal Kombat reboot, Gloria and the Red Run in Remothered: Tormented Fathers, and the creature voices for Clickers, Bloaters, and Runners in The Last of Us and its sequel.
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Career
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After college, Minella started on Morning Drive radio for an alternative station in the late 1980s. After hearing her celebrity impersonations, GTE Interactive Media contacted her and asked her to imitate voices from the film FernGully: The Last Rainforest, which was being pitched for a LaserDisc presentation to Magnavox and Philips.[6] She was then referred by the company to their CD-ROM division, where she worked on more voices and assisted script writing on games for children.[7] Minella asked the company if there were others doing similar work, and they suggested that she should go to trade shows, which led her to attend showcases like Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Game Developers Conference in San Jose, and Electronic Entertainment Expo in Los Angeles, where she gave out business cards but failed to get any offers. This led her to start her AudioGodz, a production company specializing in all aspects of voiceovers from talent to casting, directing, writing and production, in 1992.[8]
In 1996, Minella worked on a major first-person shooter video game, Duke Nukem 3D, as voice director and actress, voicing most of the female characters in the series. She helped cast the voice actor of Duke Nukem, Jon St. John. She met Jon when she was cast as the voice for a commercial he was producing in San Diego. After being impressed by her voices, Jon imitated the voices back at Minella and she asked if he had ever done voice acting for video games. She shortly got him a telephone interview with the game's creator, George Broussard, and eventually got him the part of Duke.[9]
Minella's first major voice role in a video game was for HeR Interactive's adventure-mystery series Nancy Drew, starring as the titular character Nancy Drew, debuting with 1998's Secrets Can Kill. Minella reprised her role as Nancy Drew in 31 other video games, with her last being Sea of Darkness in 2015. HeR Interactive's CEO then decided to find a voice actress local to the Seattle area (Minella resides in San Diego).[10]
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Personal life
Minella is half-Italian from her father's side.[11] In her spare time, she does vocal coaching, gardening, and caring for her rescue pets.[12] She lives in San Diego, California.[13][14]
Filmography
Animation
Feature films
Video games
Podcast
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References
External links
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