“Early on, I narrowed in on an interest in the human voice—and why we sound the way we do. I noticed the joy of other voices. It’s my passion. I’m always whisked off into unexpected places by all kinds of voices.”
-Lake Bell, episode 309 of Talk Easy with Sam Fragoso
Today, we sit with actor, writer, and director Lake Bell! With the release of the her new audiobook (“Inside Voice: My Obsession with How We Sound”) we pinpoint the origin of this passion: growing up in Manhattan in the 1980s (8:10), being drawn to actor Lauren Bacall’s register at age six (11:18), and capturing an array of voices via tape recorder at age fifteen (15:25) before writing/directing her debut film on the subject, “In a World,” in 2013 (22:05).
On the back-half, we chart the changes in Lake’s voice over a decade (23:22), the traumatic effects of psychogenic dysphonia (25:22), the ephemerality of a child’s speech (31:15), the unnerving phenomenon of the “sexy baby” affectation (37:27), and the privilege (and reward) of aging into your voice (43:50).
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Show-notes:
- Listen to Lake’s new audiobook, Inside Voice.
- Watch her films In a World… (2013) and I Do… Until I Don’t (2017).
- Follow her on Instagram and Twitter.
- For more conversations, hear our talks with Ethan Hawke, Cate Blanchett, Jenny Slate, Jonathan Majors, Pedro Pascal, Laura Dern, and Matthew McConaughey.
- Order your Talk Easy mug in cream and navy or our vinyl record with Fran Lebowitz.
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Original illustration by Krishna Shenoi. Reference image by Rich Fury.
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