When Vikram Rajan (Fitchett 2016-2020) first began experimenting with voice acting, his studio was a humble arrangement—a laptop and microphone under a blanket and then a closet full of clothes and foam.

Fast forward to today, and Vikram is a rising star in the world of voice acting, working with global clients from a professional studio in Hamilton and lending his talents to major projects, including Amazon Prime's The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power and Netflix's Power Rangers: Dino Fury.

Vikram has always had a knack for imitating accents and sounds and, even as a child, delighted in creating ‘silly’ noises. In 2018, he started turning his ‘party trick’ into a career, practising voices and refining his acting and sound. After finishing at St Paul’s Collegiate School, Vikram studied a Bachelor of Performing and Screen Arts at Unitec in Auckland, focusing on screen and stage acting techniques and styles while simultaneously growing his voice acting skills at home in his spare time.

Vikram has been honing his craft for seven years and is working full-time as a professional voice actor, equipped with a professional home studio featuring double-lined walls with foam and an 80-kilogram soundproof door. He also gets called to record in the recording studios as well. Represented by agencies in New Zealand and the USA (specifically San Francisco, New York and LA), he collaborates with international clients, often working across time zones. His repertoire is diverse—he voices everything from young adults to fantastical creatures, zombies, young children, stoic warriors and even comedic characters. “I’ve been typecast for a lot of characters that die or explode. I find it the easiest to slip into,” he says. “There’s always a serious side too, something they try to hide or put on as a facade. No character is the same.”

Vikram takes pride in creating characters from scratch, describing his preparation process: “To get into character, I warm up both physically and vocally for about 30 minutes. I receive an audition brief—what accent, a little bit of the story, and the character’s traits, the lines itself—and audition with my best interpretation. The way I approach it is by showing the character’s struggles within each line. Each line is a different scene, and that emotional range helps show I can act through my voice. I try not to spend too long on auditions because if I do, it will sound unnatural; if it takes more than five takes, I step back, do something else, and come back with fresh ears and pick up from there.”

His expertise extends beyond voice acting to looping, the post-production process of adding voices and sounds to film and television. Vikram’s work on the upcoming New Zealand feature film TINA, releasing in February 2025, is just one example of his contribution to the craft.

In addition to acting, Vikram has ventured into voice directing and casting, running a global roster of remote talent. “Casting is fascinating—it humanises everyone in the process and you take the time to hear it all. Listening to auditions sharpens my ear and helps me grow,” he explains. “With a team, we’ve cast for animation, video games, dubbing, and even award-winning podcast series.”

Despite his growing success, Vikram stays grounded. “I think going outside and touching grass every so often is very important,” he jokes. Reflecting on his career, he adds, “This is my future for the next 40 to 50 years. It’s crazy, but I love what I do.”

Watch a demo of Vikram in his voice-acting mode here.