Today, we’d like to introduce you to Dakota Farnsworth.
Hi Dakota, we’re thrilled to have a chance to learn your story today. So, before we get into specifics, maybe you can briefly walk us through how you got to where you are today.
I started voice-over in the time of the pandemic and found myself searching for something more fulfilling in my life than retail and customer service positions for jobs.
I had a prior history in theatre for about six years at that point, but I honestly thought acting was fairly unreliable for a business venture, not realizing that voice acting was as available as it was to jump into.
A friend of mine named Audrey O’Bryon, who had been to all of my theatre shows, reached out to me and recommended that I get into voice-over. Audrey knew I would have a wonderful time in this atmosphere and had faith that I would do well in this industry.
Shortly after, I got onto my first project and spent a year learning as much about voice-over as possible. It was a slow process, but I wanted to ensure I avoided any roadblocks and scams I could accidentally fall into. I took multiple classes, read as many resources as I could, and fully put myself into the mindset to make this work.
After a year of learning, I was contacted by a group called MLA Entertainment, who had seen many of the auditions I had done throughout the year and wanted to get me onto a practice ADR project to learn even more.
This experience led MLA to be my coach, producing my demo, and eventually led to me getting cast in Project: Eden’s Garden, currently my largest project, and got me on the road to where I am today.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not, what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
I think the largest challenge was knowing that everything had to come from myself.
I’m sure artists of all mediums will know what I’m talking about when I say this, but starting any form of artistic pursuit is also quite lonely.
It’s hard pursuing a passion. It’s hard changing your life, especially when you are one of the few who believe you can accomplish it. I’ve had friends tell me to my face that they think I won’t make it, that this is all a flop waiting to happen, and I’m sure many are reading this going, “Well, those are bad friends,” but the reality is that most people will think this way about you in the beginning.
Passionate pursuits are always harder to convince others that they are genuine and not something that you’ll just drop out of shortly after starting, so it usually doesn’t help to ever talk about it to the people around you, at least at the start, and I knew this would be the case. A lot of the challenge was knowing that if I wanted support in this pursuit, it needed to come from within, and the results of my work needed to be able to speak for themselves.
Telling people I am a voice actor usually gets me weird looks from around the room. However, SHOWING that I am a voice actor and letting OTHERS bring it up has always been a better way of getting support from those around me, and it also proves to me that all of the strength to do this starts with my own belief in myself above anyone else.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
I would definitely say, on top of voice-over, I’m also a massive social butterfly, and I’m pretty darn good at getting to know people.
Ever since I got onto Xbox Live at the age of 13, I’ve been networking. I laugh about it today, but I thought I was REALLY cool for trying to meet and get to know at least one person from every single country around the world. I loved being surrounded by other cultures and learning more about different perspectives. This interest I had in meeting people ended up correlating to my love of psychology and photography, two fields where getting to know people was pretty much an everyday job.
Despite my love for psychology and photography, neither of them, as jobs themselves, gave me the satisfaction I was looking for as a social butterfly and is a big reason I got into acting. Not only am I in a setting where I get to form bonds with other people, but I also have the opportunity to play characters, learn about their perspectives, and acquire life lessons I wouldn’t be able to get anywhere else. Also, it was just a ton of fun!
Getting into voice-over, I think what really set me apart from a lot of my peers is that I was already good at networking/making friends, and on top of that, having experience in psychology made it a whole lot easier to analyze a character and understand where they are coming from. It feels like every pursuit in my life came together nicely and fell under a single career that is perfect for me.
We’d love to hear what you think about risk-taking.
I definitely would say I’m a risk-taker, but I would also consider myself a pragmatist. Every move I make in life is technically a risk.
How I spend my time, who I speak to, what I work on… It’s all risky because it’s time for you to never get back. For that reason, I’m actually incredibly picky about what projects I pursue because not only do I want to work for incredibly passionate and hardworking creatives, but I also want to make sure that the work I am producing is always up to the standards of “Dakota Farnsworth.”
That isn’t to say that nothing has ever worked out, but the reality is that there are only 24 hours in a day. It’s the same amount of time that everyone else in the world has, and I will never get a single second of it back. This even applies to days I feel down.
A friend of mine from high school once told me something about having days where you’re sad, and it is something that stuck with me this entire time. He told me, “If you are having a rough time, let yourself feel it for a whole day. Let yourself go through all of the emotions. If after a day, you are STILL allowing yourself to feel it, you’re just wasting time.”
This obviously doesn’t apply to everything, but I’ve found that the times when I am at the largest standstills is when I am emotional about something, so I find it best to feel it for a bit and then get back to doing what I love.
Pricing:
- Autograph Print Shop ($30 per print + fee & shipping): streamily.com/dakotafarnsworth
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.dakotafarnsworthvo.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tarquin_irusa/
- Twitter: https://x.com/Tarquin_IrusaVA
- Other: streamily.com/dakotafarnsworth
Image Credits
Audrey O’Bryon https://www.instagram.com/aobryon/, Project: Eden’s Garden > https://x.com/ProjEdensGarden, and Nicole and Scotty (Music Group) > https://www.instagram.com/nicoleandscotty/
