Jennifer Hale facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Jennifer Hale
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Hale in March 2024
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| Born |
Happy Valley-Goose Bay, Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada
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| Other names | Carren Learning |
| Occupation | Voice actress |
| Years active | 1988–present |
| Children | 1 |
Jennifer Hale is a Canadian-American voice actress. She is well-known for her work in many popular video games. These include Baldur's Gate, Mass Effect, Metal Gear Solid, BioShock Infinite, Metroid Prime, Halo, Overwatch, and Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic. In 2013, she was named by Guinness World Records as the voice actor with the most video game roles. She held this record until 2024.
Hale has also lent her voice to many animated shows. Some of these are The Real Adventures of Jonny Quest, The Powerpuff Girls, Codename: Kids Next Door, The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy, Brandy & Mr. Whiskers, Totally Spies!, Avatar: The Last Airbender and The Legend of Korra. She also voiced Thorn of the Hex Girls in Scooby-Doo movies and TV shows. Plus, she voiced Cinderella and Princess Aurora for Disney in the 2000s and 2010s. She is also known for voicing Jean Grey in many Marvel projects, including X-Men '97.
For her role as Commander Shepard in Mass Effect, Hale was nominated for "Best Performance by a Human Female" twice. This was at the 2010 and 2012 Spike Video Game Awards. She was also nominated for "Outstanding Achievement in Character Performance" in 2013. In 2022, she received nominations for her role as Rivet in Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart. These included "Performer in a Leading Role" and "Outstanding Achievement in Character".
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Early Life and Education
Jennifer Hale was born in Happy Valley-Goose Bay, Canada. Her mother was a student, and her stepfather was a scientist. She later shared that her biological father, James Learning, was an outdoorsman and an elder in the NunatuKavut community. Hale is also a member of NunatuKavut and identifies as partly Inuit. In 2017, she asked for support to help her father, who was ill, after he was jailed. He had refused to sign an order to stay away from Muskrat Falls. Hale has a half-sister, Carren Dujela, who works at the University of Victoria. Jennifer moved to the U.S. as a child. She grew up in Alabama, mainly in Birmingham and Montgomery.
When Hale was a teenager, she got her first voice-over job at a local radio station. She was paid $35 just to talk! In 1982, she finished school at the Alabama School of Fine Arts. There, she studied theater and wanted to be in a rock band. She said, "I started doing voice-over to pay for life... and it just sort of took over." While in high school, she did more voice-over work for commercials. She also worked as a production assistant at age 17. She went to Birmingham–Southern College and earned a business degree. She started working as an actress and continued doing voice-overs. She often traveled between Birmingham and Atlanta, Georgia.
Voice Acting Career
Jennifer Hale's first big acting role was in 1988. It was for a TV movie called A Father's Homecoming. She was also chosen from thousands of girls to be in the soap opera Santa Barbara. After doing more local work, she moved to Los Angeles. There, she had small roles in shows like Melrose Place, ER, and Charmed.
Her first major voice role in cartoons was as Ivy in Where on Earth Is Carmen Sandiego?. This show was based on a computer game. Since it was her first cartoon, she took extra classes to learn more. The show ran for several seasons until 1999. Hale really enjoyed this project. She noted it was one of the first network TV cartoons that also taught kids. Hale's next cartoon was Skeleton Warriors. She said it was fun because they "blew stuff up" every week.
Video Game Roles
A video game based on Carmen Sandiego gave Hale her first chance to voice a video game character. She found it confusing at first because it had many more lines than the TV show. Her next big video game work was with BioWare on their Baldur's Gate series. This led to even bigger roles in games like Mass Effect.
She has voiced many characters in other cartoons too. In 1994, she became Felicia Hardy/Black Cat in Spider-Man: The Animated Series. This was the first of many Marvel Comics characters she has voiced. She also voices Cinderella and Princess Aurora in various Disney projects. She even voices Dory from Finding Nemo at Disney parks, filling in for Ellen DeGeneres. In 2003, Hale voiced Mrs. Little in the short-lived Stuart Little TV series.
Hale has voiced the main character Sam and rival character Mandy in the animated TV series Totally Spies!. In 2004, she said she was very happy to be part of the show. She described Sam as "smart and adventurous" and Mandy as a "total snot, which is fun too." She voiced these characters and others for six seasons and a movie.
Hale voiced Bastila Shan in Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic. She also made a short appearance in the sequel. Later, she voiced the female version of Jaden Korr in Star Wars: Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy. In the BioWare game Star Wars: The Old Republic, Hale voiced the Republic Trooper Female. She also voiced the Jedi Grand Master Satele Shan. Hale voiced Fall-From-Grace and Deionarra in the game Planescape: Torment. She is also known as the voice of Samus Aran in all three Metroid Prime games. She provides the grunts and screams for the character. Hale has also voiced several characters in the Metal Gear Solid series. These include Naomi Hunter and Emma Emmerich.
Hale was also the voice of Jean Grey in Wolverine and the X-Men and Marvel vs. Capcom 3: Fate of Two Worlds. She had a small role in Swat Kats. She also voiced Jennifer Mui in Mercenaries: Playground of Destruction and Mercenaries 2: World in Flames. In 2011, she was the voice of Ms. Marvel (Carol Danvers) on Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes. She voiced Leah in Diablo III and Rosalind Lutece in BioShock Infinite. Hale also played Krem in BioWare's Dragon Age: Inquisition. She also voiced Kronika, the final boss of Mortal Kombat 11.
Hale was chosen to voice Commander Shepard, the main character in the Mass Effect series. She has said she enjoys helping to "create" the stories of video games. However, she is not a gamer herself. She prefers not to change the lines for Shepard. Even though fewer players chose a female Shepard in Mass Effect 2, fans strongly supported her character. They even called her "FemShep" and campaigned to put her character on the cover of Mass Effect 3. She was nominated for "Best Performance by a Human Female" for Mass Effect in 2010 and again for Mass Effect 3 in 2012.
In February 2023, Hale was a guest voice as Riyo Chuchi in Star Wars: The Bad Batch.
Other Ventures
In 2021, Hale started two new businesses. These are Skills Hub and The Haven. Skills Hub is a program that helps people who want to become voice actors. It has many coaches, including experienced voice actors and casting directors. Skills Hub teaches future voice actors how to get into the industry.
The Haven was a self-help group led by Hale through Patreon. It included monthly online calls and advice from Hale. The group was paused in June 2024 because Hale had other commitments.
Personal Life
Jennifer Hale used to live in the Los Angeles area. Since 2020, she has moved back to Canada. She now lives on Vancouver Island. She continues to record voices from her home studio. She has one son. She also has several pets and loves being outdoors. She has said she might have become an architect because she enjoys redoing houses. She was not allowed to watch cartoons as a child. She had not played any video games until 2011, when she played Mass Effect for the first time. She likes horses and helps rescue them from wildfires.
Filmography
