What did it feel like to receive a Canadian Screen Award nomination at such a young age for your role as Daniel Tiger, and how has that recognition impacted your confidence as a performer?
It felt very good. Originally my parents were on a trip and I was staying with my grandparents, and when I found out about the nomination, I mean, I was just 12-years-old last month, I’m still learning new things every day, but once I looked into it and found out what the Canadian Screen Awards are, I was pretty extatic! I was very excited and very happy, and very proud of myself because I know how bit of an accomplishment it is. Especially at such young age, you know? I’m going up against adults that have been in the industry for the majority of their lives, and I’m just genuinely honoured. And no matter what happens, I’m extremely proud of myself for getting to this point. And so the recognition has made me a lot more confident in myself and in my craft. I feel more confident every day getting closer to the awarads because it’s a really big deal. I hope I can win it – hopefully I do, fingers crossed. But it’s made me so much more confident, and I trust myself and my decision making skills when I’m acting a lot more than before.
When you step into the voice of Daniel Tiger, what is your creative process to bring such a warm and emotionally resonant character to life?
My creative process – when I go into the booth, I just try to sound like myself but very warm and happy, and I imagine myself talking to these little kids as if they were face to face with me. I sort of feel that I’m like a sibling, or like an older brother, to these kids, in a way. Because in real life I’m an older sibling.
You have voiced several characters like Gekko, Togo, Zeke, and Jamie Crocker. How do you differentiate each character and make them feel unique to the audience?
Mostly, I try to match the character descriptions about how they act and what they say, and I would make myself sound how I feel like they would sound in real life. For example, Zeke, he’s more curious about everything and is still figuring out how to do things. So, for him, I remember I would try to make him seem very eager to learn things. For Daniel Tiger – he’s such a warm and bright character – so, I try to bring that whenever I play him. And Togo is just so energetic, so I always make sure that I’m as energetic as possible in the booth when I play him. For some characters like Zeke and Jamie Crocker, that experience was a little difference because I recorded those as ensembles. So on the show, Jamie Crocker has a great sibling dynamic with his twin brother, and me and Lucien – who plays Josh Crocker – we’d always record in the same booth together and we’re actually now pretty good friends with a natural friendship outside of acting.
So just having that almost sibling bond in and out of the booth just makes things a lot easier, and I remember we had so much fun recording that together. When I was recording with other people in the booth, that made it feel like we were not acting – everyone was just having a great time together. It was just purely from the heart, and I think that conveys well to the audience.
With your upcoming role as Chase in PAW Patrol The Dino Movie, what excites you the most about joining such a globally recognized franchise?
Well, I mean, PAW Patrol is a show that’s been around for so long and I remember I used to watch it, and my little brother used to watch it all the time, so the fact that I’m actually in the movie is still pretty surreal. But just how popular it is, it’s such a big deal, and it does’t necessarily put pressure on me, but it more, like, fuels me and drives me to do it, like, 1,000% the best I can. Just being part of a franchise that’s so well known and that me and my little brother grew up watching, it feels like a great accomplishment. I’m very honoured to be part of it.
You are working alongside well known personalities like Snoop Dogg, Paris Hilton, Bill Nye, Terry Crews, and McKenna Grace. What has that experience been like for you so far?
I haven’t worked with them in person and I haven’t met them yet, but it’s really cool to be in a film with them, especially because I look up to some of those people: like, Bill Nye, sometimes my teacher will still put on some of his videos in science class, and it’s always fun to say “hey, I’m in a movie with that guy!”. So like I said, I haven’t met them, but it’s still made me very proud and confident, and it makes me feel good that I’m part of the cast with them. And I’m looking forward to meeting them at the premiere.
At just 12 years old, you are already building an impressive career. How do you balance your professional work with your personal life and growing up?
That’s a hard question. With my work, with acting, I have to miss a lot of days of school, so I get the work I miss from my teachers beforehand and I do the day’s work before I go into studio, or after sometimes, depending on the scenario, but I aways make sure I complete my school work. So that’s how I manage to have decently high grades at school. I make sure to keep an 85% average. And sometimes, if I need to, I have a tutor that I work with to help me if there’s too much of a workload. With my personal life, I try to hang out with my friends as much as possible. Even if we can’t meet up physically, we call each other pretty regularly throughout the week. So I’d say that’s probably how I balance it. And how I balance it with growing up? I think I’ve just incorporated acting as a part of growing up, you know? It’s a part of how I AM growing up. So, I just make sure I work hard when I’m in the studio, but I also make sure that I relax and have lots of fun outside of it.
Beyond acting, you are also a musician and beatboxer. How does music influence your creativity when you are performing voice roles?
Well, with music, I listen to a LOT of music. I listen to music all the time. And for a few of the characters, like Daniel Tiger and Zeke, I have to do a lot of singing and when I first began acting I feel like I wasn’t the best at singing and I was very scared and nervous to sing in front of others. But with the help of my amazing vocal coach, Jennifer Walls, whom I’ve worked with for about four or five years, she’s helped make me a lot more confident in myself and just made me a better singer overall. And beatboxing, you know, you have to use a lot of different parts of your mouth that normally aren’t used in one’s day-to-day life, so I feel like beatboxing has made the muscles in my mouth a lot stronger, so I’m able to articulate and shape sounds in a lot of different ways from most other people.
Can you tell me more about your hip hop track The Rainaissance and what inspired you to create it?
I had a beatboxing coach, Realije (aka. Elijah Bartoszewski), and we would go out busking in Toronto, and he’s also part of a crew of rappers, so he’d freestyle over my beats, but then he’d always try to get me to do a bit of rapping – and I’m not the best at freestyle rapping – so I started to take rapping lessons from him as well, and we just started writing some random songs. I started writing a rough version of The Rainaissance, and then my mom picked it up and wrote a good, clean final version of it.
As someone emerging in the voice acting industry, what challenges have you faced and how have you worked through them?
I think the only challenge I’ve really faced was my self-confidence when it comes to singing. But as I said, working with Jenni has made me a lot better, and now I’m able to sing in front of the engineers, directors, and producers – but it’s still not something I want to do in front of people on a regular basis! I still don’t really like it too much, even though I am a lot better and have a lot more self-confidence with it, but I’m able to do it when I need to. That’s, I think, the only challenge I’ve really faced, I’d say.
Looking ahead, what kind of roles or projects would you love to explore next, both in acting and in music?
I’ll start with music: while rapping and singing aren’t my main focus, my background in beatboxing has made me really interested in making beats and producing tracks. I think that’s super cool and something I definitely want to get better at. I’d also love to join programs like the Remix Project when I’m old enough.
In terms of acting, I really want to do more on camera work, so I’d want to be on live action TV shows and in movies, specifically detective shows and movies, because I really like watching them and reading books about them – it’s my favourite genre. So those are the sort of projects I’d like to do in the near future.
