Senior Josh Wilch brings characters to life through voice acting

photo courtesy of Josh Wilch EScrivner_Senior Josh Wilch records for a voice acting audition every two or three nights using the SteelSeries Gaming Microphone.

Over the past few months, senior Josh Wilch has pursued voice acting through the website Casting Call Club. He has auditioned for around 45 roles and has landed seven of them. Wilch was introduced to voice acting by some friends that he regularly plays Minecraft with.

“We were all on a call together,” 2025 TKA alumna Jordan Adams said. “I can’t remember if we were playing a game or just chatting. I had been thinking about a character in a show that he sounds a lot like, and I suggested he should make a Casting Call Club account and put in auditions for that character in people’s fan projects.”

Casting Call Club is a platform that allows creators to post projects seeking auditions for a plethora of creative talent, including voice actors, actors, audio engineers, singers, artists, video editors, musicians, animators, directors, writers, agents and producers. After a voice actor makes an account, he or she is able to view thousands of projects, and submit an audition by simply reading a few sample lines in the desired voice.

Wilch has landed various roles for YouTube videos and video games, the most notable of which are a painting of a knight, a pizza delivery guy and an alligator with a Texan accent.

“[When I got my first role I felt] ecstatic because I was like ‘It’s happening; it worked,’” Wilch said. “That’s when I was kind of like ‘Oh, this is actually a real thing. Oh, I’m doing this. Okay, this is cool.’”

Wilch records his lines from the computer in his room. He uses a simple gaming microphone and records using the program Audacity, from which he can export his sound file for the project. To prepare for recording, he recommends not eating beforehand, drinking some water and completing vocal exercises to warm up.

Michael Kovach, a voice actor who plays many characters in indie animated shows, including Jax in “The Amazing Digital Circus” and Serial Designation N (or N for short) in “Murder Drones,” is one of Wilch’s greatest inspirations for voice acting.

Wilch’s friends have said that his expressive voice would serve him well as a voice actor. While at the moment, Wilch’s voice acting hobby is unpaid, he hopes to land bigger roles in the future. He currently plans to pursue a career in engineering, but he may continue to do voice acting on the side.

“Just hanging out with friends [has helped my voice acting skills] because I obviously enjoy joking around with them, and I generally pull out voices,” Wilch said. “They’re a little weird, but it just kind of helps me to train in a way.”

Wilch’s positive attitude toward the hobby serves as an inspiration to his peers. Instead of getting discouraged when he doesn’t land a role, he keeps submitting auditions and enjoying the process.

“He’s definitely inspired me to go further with my own voice acting,” Adams said. “I am a person who tends to stall on doing things even if I like doing them, but seeing how many things he auditions for really inspires me to get myself up and work on honing my own voice acting skills and trying out for more roles.”