From a Student Comforted by Animation to a Life Behind the Microphone
I have loved cartoons and animation since I was little. In middle school, animation—and the voice actors in it—comforted me when I was lonely. After spending so many years with them, I began to dream of doing the same work. In high school, I watched a great many shows and took part in club activities. I attended the university my favorite voice actors had gone to, practiced acting, and trained at a voice-acting academy for about three years. At twenty-five, I joined a company specializing in audiobooks and audio dramas. A year later, I was selected through EBS's open voice-actor recruitment.
I was also drawn to the theater I had done in high school and to the moment when a voice seemed perfectly matched to an animated character’s appearance. I wanted to become a voice actor who could do both. Before then, I would try something briefly, grow bored, or become anxious that I could not do it well. Once I began studying acting, however, I wanted to improve even when I was not yet good at it. I wanted to stay with it for a long time. That was when I realized this could be my life’s work.
More than anything, it was fun. Voice acting is not simply a vocal technique; it means entering a story and bringing a character to life. I had thought of myself as someone who struggled to express herself, but through acting I discovered that I actually loved expression and the catharsis it gave me.
Looking back, I had very little self-esteem as a child. I was not naturally timid, but I constantly wondered whether I was doing the right thing and spent a great deal of time alone, feeling small and withdrawn.
Standing before a microphone was not easy. The first time I heard a recording of my own voice, I was shocked: “Is that really me? I don’t know that person.” After years of recording and listening, I learned to accept my voice and, in turn, myself. My own voice is now entirely familiar to me.
At first, I calculated how to fit each line to an animated expression and the length of a character’s mouth movement. If that calculation shifted even slightly in the studio, it led to take after take. These days, I try to understand the character and the world of the work before concentrating on mechanics. That understanding allows me to perform more comfortably and with greater depth.
The English Listening Test and Athena: Becoming a Familiar Voice
I began recording a nationwide English-listening assessment jointly administered by Korea's regional education offices for middle and high school students because I had been recruited as an EBS voice actor. Senior EBS voice actors had long done the work, and I inherited it from them. The schedule suited me, so I continued for nearly fifteen years. People did not know it was my voice at first. Only around the tenth year did word begin to spread that the woman in the listening test was Jun Harry.
International actors and officials from Korean regional education offices also attend the sessions. Whenever we met, twice a year, they told me that my voice sounded trustworthy, comfortable, and easy to understand. I never drew a strict line between informative narration and a character in an animation or game. Looking back, though, I think that in narration I avoided stylish flourishes. I simply became the speaker and tried to deliver the information clearly and kindly.
Athena in Overwatch was a role carried largely by the qualities of my natural voice. She speaks beside the player throughout the game, so a vocal color that is too forceful or distinctive can become distracting. The director told me that my voice blended comfortably into the experience while making the necessary information clear. That role led to several other narration-based characters in games.
I was also cast as the narrator in Cells at Work!, although some viewers said it brought back the trauma of an English listening test. I felt a little sorry about that. Even when the task is to convey information, the approach changes subtly with the work. In a game, the voice assists the player without drawing too much attention, while words such as “victory” and “defeat” still have to land clearly. In Cells at Work!, I tried to make difficult medical terms gentle and easy to follow.
If you ask whether I am firmly established as a narrator, I would say that I would like to become more established. Some well-known projects have brought recognition, but I do not work in narration as often as people seem to think. Please feel free to cast me more often. I truly love narration.
Growing Alongside Judy Hopps
Judy Hopps occupies an enormous part of my life as a voice actor. Of all the people who recognize me, most probably know me as the Korean voice of Judy in Zootopia. Before her, I had played minor roles in Disney productions. Judy was my first lead in a role that could truly make my name known.
When I first met her, I had no idea she would become so important to me. I did not even know the rabbit was the protagonist when I auditioned. After I was cast, I received a script in which most of the lines were mine and only then discovered that I was playing the lead. Nor did I expect the film to become such a success. It took time for me to understand Judy’s place in my life.
Jeong Jae-heon, who played Nick in the Korean-language version, deserves a great deal of the credit. Audiences loved the chemistry between Nick and Judy, and the response unexpectedly led us to a post-screening Q&A at a theater. I was new to freelancing and did not yet understand how rare an opportunity that was. Disney records performers separately, so Jeong and I could not actually exchange lines in the studio. I imagined how Nick might respond and worked with the director; when each of us did our part, the finished scene came together naturally.
When I was younger, I identified with Judy as a cheerful, determined character who believed anything was possible and fought prejudice and the glass ceiling. Meeting her again in the sequel, I saw something different. Judy, who had experienced discrimination herself, also viewed Nick through the prejudice that he was a dangerous fox. She recognizes that fault, apologizes, and grows. I found that the larger structure of the story mirrored Judy’s inner journey.
Nothing in my career changed overnight. The work accumulated, and people gradually began to recognize my voice. After Judy, I felt more comfortable saying that I wanted to play boys, formidable women, and villains. Auditions for those parts followed, and little by little, a new path opened.
V and Mute: Expanding the Range of My Voice
Before Cyberpunk 2077, I do not think I had played a protagonist quite like V—strong, forceful, and burdened by deep conflict. It was exactly the kind of role I had wanted for years. A director I had worked with on a Disney production invited me to audition, and something in my voice matched the company’s vision of V.
The script contained spectacular profanity, which startled me at first. But V does not swear because she is cruel. In the brutal world of 2077, it felt like a natural product of an exhausting life. People who heard the early sessions told me that my swearing sounded elegant but awkward. Later, they praised how authentically filthy it had become. Strangely, that made me happy. Hearing myself improve was genuinely exhilarating.
Because players spend so long with V, I did not want her to feel relentlessly abrasive or forceful. We recorded for three hours a day over nearly two months, moving within the same chapter among the Corpo, Streetkid, and Nomad lifepaths. At first, their personalities sometimes blended together. As the sessions continued, I began to make Corpo V colder and more cerebral and Streetkid V somewhat rougher, without pushing either too far. I still feel tremendous affection for her.
Mute in Trickcal: Chibi Go was described in the script as cold and aloof. I thought she was exactly the kind of character I loved and knew how to play, so I arrived with a cold, sexy adult voice. Then I saw her round, adorable face and was told that the performance had to suit it. I remember wondering how I could possibly make that face sound cold and aloof.
I searched for a kind of coldness that could exist within her cuteness. The staff compared each take with her design and asked for something younger and slightly tighter, while I tried to preserve a languid elegance. The Rose in The Little Prince, V in Cyberpunk 2077, and Chloé in Miraculous all came together in Mute. She, in turn, opened a path toward the colder characters who followed. Luck and hard work both made that path possible.
Cinderella and Promeia: Encountering a New Kind of Fandom
When I auditioned for GODDESS OF VICTORY: NIKKE, the team proposed Cinderella, a major character into whom they were putting a great deal of care. I told them that instead of a beautiful girl, I would love to audition for a formidable woman or a villain. Throughout the recording, however, they kept stressing how important Cinderella was to the second anniversary, and I felt the pressure to do well. Fortunately, I was cast. Her elegant yet cold voice was exactly the kind I loved. The team welcomed a wide range of choices from the actor, so although I was nervous, the sessions were great fun.
I had no idea Cinderella would be loved so widely. At a high school talk, half the students said they loved Judy and the other half Cinderella. I had used my age and years in the profession as an excuse not to keep up with the influence of anime and gaming culture. I heard about younger voice actors traveling abroad for game events, but I still had not felt Cinderella’s popularity firsthand.
That changed at an orchestral concert. A live reading featuring Cinderella was performed before an audience that filled a grand theater. When Grave’s voice actor and I appeared, the crowd welcomed us warmly, and some people were moved to tears. I finally understood how deeply the character was loved. If I had received that much love through a culture new to me, I wanted to return it by caring for the role and doing even better.
When I recorded Promeia, I did not initially know that Zenless Zone Zero was a HoYoverse game. I realized it while receiving feedback during the session and was thrilled that I had finally been cast in a HoYoverse title. After the character was released, I also enjoyed the memes that combined Promeia with Korea’s English listening test.
The first time I saw Promeia, I wondered why her hands were restrained beneath her cloak. As her story unfolded, I learned that pain had led her to close off her emotions, and I grew more attached to her. I had spent years thinking through subtle differences among cold characters—finding humor within their coldness, for example—and perhaps that experience helped me discover qualities in Promeia that were my own.
I have been drawn to emotionally restrained characters since childhood. I am not cold myself, but perhaps I empathized with their pain and found comfort in it. Promeia’s expression hardly changes, yet when she looks at Cissia, her speech slows almost imperceptibly or a silence lasts a beat longer. In those moments, I could feel that she was human after all.
I hope to work on many more story-driven, anime-style games. A carefully built story allows the performer to become deeply immersed, and it attracts devoted fans. The sense of kinship I feel with them resembles the pure affection I had as a child, collecting soundtrack CDs and art books for the animation I loved. I want to share many more works with people who carry that same sincerity and passion.
From Voice to Body: Expanding the Actor’s Craft
I did not turn to voice acting simply because someone told me I had a good voice. I wanted to act through voice from the beginning. The greatest turning point in expanding into stage and screen work was Cyberpunk 2077. After spending two months inside one world and one character, I wondered whether acting with my body might allow me to immerse myself even more completely.
I had always meant to study more, so after turning forty I entered a graduate acting program to rebuild my foundations. I studied stage and screen performance and, beginning last year, pursued filming projects and theater auditions. I knew it would be difficult, and it was. Still, passing auditions and stepping onto a stage gave me the same vitality I had felt at the beginning of my voice career. What I learn there now gives fresh strength to my voice work.
Even today, watching footage of myself can make me want to delete it. I still move forward, accepting what I see one step at a time. When voice actors move into screen acting, some people assume our diction will be an advantage; others worry that a voice that sounds too much like dubbing will break the viewer’s immersion. I feel both possibilities myself.
Good diction is a strength, but it can become an obstacle when a role calls for something less polished. I cannot change my voice or deliberately speak poorly. My task is to bring my body, face, and emotions up to the same level so that the voice never feels detached from the rest of the performance. I want the strength of my voice to be matched by everything else and to be recognized as a good actor.
The new methods I study feed back into my voice work and help me articulate ideas about acting that once felt vague. I can then share those ideas more clearly with aspiring voice actors. The two kinds of work complement each other.
Recently, I have been impressed by Ryan Reynolds and Cate Blanchett. Among Korean actors, I especially admire Choi Dae-hoon as Hak-ssi in When Life Gives You Tangerines. He uses his entire body, but none of his movement feels distracting; everything belongs to the character.
I am drawn to actors whose full physical presence disappears into a role. I want to use my whole body that way rather than feel trapped inside the frame. If my performance moves even one person, I will consider that a dream fulfilled. I still have a great deal to learn, and I want to keep growing until the day I die.
Learning Again in Order to Teach
Teaching another person is extremely difficult, and at first I did not want to do it. I wondered who I was to teach when I still had so much to learn. Then I realized that teaching would make me study with greater responsibility, so I decided that my students and I could learn together.
I believe teaching requires talent, and I do not think I possess that talent naturally. Still, seeing students sincerely absorb what they learn and grow brings an enormous sense of fulfillment. That joy—and the responsibility that comes with it—keeps me going.
If I could tell aspiring voice actors one thing, it would be that attitude matters tremendously. Students who are active and open absorb more and grow quickly. Most people hear “voice actor” and think first of the technique of changing the voice, but technique alone cannot fully express a character. You must develop feeling and instinct and learn to use your whole body; only then will the voice follow. If you meet every moment with passion and an open mind, I believe you can grow into a very good voice actor.
What It Means to Become a Familiar Voice
My life changed enormously when I became a voice actor. For the first time, I learned that I could dream of becoming someone and make that dream come true. My self-esteem rose. With each project and every encouraging response, I changed a little more. Graduate school allowed me to imagine a broader life in acting, and now I also work onstage and on screen.
Becoming someone’s familiar voice means a great deal to me. As a child, I sought out every work that featured the voice actors I loved. If I heard one of them anywhere, I could recognize and name them immediately. The thought that someone might now hear me and ask, “Isn’t that Jun Harry?” is deeply moving. It might even be enough to answer the question of why I was born.
The standard I never want to lose is the ability to perform freely. But freedom requires intense preparation and analysis. However familiar the work becomes, I want to approach every project sincerely, study it carefully, and then deliver in the moment. I never want to lose that diligence.
If I could return to the month before I passed EBS's open voice-actor audition, I would tell myself not to abandon the dream. A supposedly famous fortune-teller told me I would never make it, and I was vulnerable enough to consider skipping the exam. One month later, I passed. I would tell that younger self not to be frightened by someone else’s words, but to follow what she believed and do it with joy.
Ten years from now, I hope I look back on this as a second youth—an exciting period when I was still young and doing work that brought me joy. I would like my future self to praise me for that.
I still feel awkward and a little bewildered when people approach me and say they are fans. That only makes me more grateful. Your interest and love allow me to grow a little every day. I will keep working to return the same energy to all of you.