Meet the woman with a golden larynx
Kristen Schaal has a golden larynx. Hearing her speak is like tuning in to the pure dulcet tones of the funny. But ask Hollywood directors to describe the magic behind those pipes, and any pithy description only scratches the surface.
Raphael Bob-waksberg, the creator of Bojack Horseman, delights at “the deranged sweetness of her delivery.”
Josh Cooley, who directed her in Toy Story 4, says she possesses a “unique quality to her voice to begin with that — when mixed with her impeccable comic timing and ability to make any line hilarious — makes her a powerhouse performer.”
And Loren Bouchard, creator of Bob's Burgers says of Schaal: “She's figured out how her natural persona can also be a voice that she lends to her characters. Once you have that, there's no stopping you.”
The Emmy-nominated actress aims to elude being pigeonholed, yet she's well-aware that some casting directors now refer to a “Kristen Schaal type.”
Whatever the alchemy within her artistry, there's no doubting that Schaal has carved out an animation niche within her larger resumé: She is the queen of voicing the askew.
You have probably heard Kristen Schaal even if you did not realize you were hearing Kristen Schaal.
She was a rising New York comic about 15 years ago when she was cast as Mel, the sweet-talking stalker who befriends the title band on HBO'S Flight of the Conchords. That exposure — playing that type — opened the casting doors wide. Her winning live-action gigs to follow included 30 Rock and The Last Man on Earth and she served as “senior women's correspondent” on The Daily Show With Jon Stewart. She also has re-teamed with the circle of Kiwi comedic performers who brought you Conchords, for such series as What We Do in the Shadows and the popular HBO Max pirate comedy Our Flag Means Death.
Yet it is acting for animation that isolates the wonders of Schaal's voice — an instrument that lilts and rises and motors with a warm kinetic tickle.
Speaking from the Los Angeles area Schaal, 44, says, “I'm the happiest I've ever been in my life — career-wise, this is more than a dream come true for me, 100 times over. I get to be working on shows that I find are really special.”
Often what she finds special is the opportunity to play offbeat humour, expertly uncorking a quirky delivery that sometimes is as sunny and slightly daffy as that of Gracie Allen, whose work Schaal has studied. “If I get cast on a show,” she says, “I just know that it's going to be a little bit of a weird show and I just get excited.”
Schaal has a gift for playing humour as serious.
“My main thing is that I'm not in a comedy — there's nothing funny about any of the character situations,” Schaal says. “If you're playing comedy correctly, you're not playing for the laugh — you're playing the truth of it.”
The East Village was a long way from Longmont.
Schaal was raised on a ranch in that Colorado community outside Boulder, born to a solid Lutheran family whose father built town structures. The first time she remembers being publicly funny was as a high school freshman, when she quite seriously read a poem in front of her forensic debate classmates. The whole room began laughing.
“In that moment,” she recalls, “I realized that I had a tool to make people laugh: being serious.”
She attended the University of Colorado and then Northwestern, where she studied acting. A speech teacher once told her she had an “atrocious lisp.” She leaned into that. Schaal next headed to New York and gradually worked her way into the comedy scene.
“Standup is a beast,” she says. She likes to do voices for her four-year-old daughter, Ruby, while playing in their Los Angeles-area abode. But it is her husband, producer and former Daily Show staff writer Rich Blomquist, who is drafted by their child for many of the lead roles.
“He's got a great range,” Schaal says.”
As a voice artist, Schaal is valued for both her gifts and her creative camaraderie.
“If you're so lucky to take an actress like her and strap that voice to a character, you have an absolutely enormous engine that's pulling everything,” Bouchard says. “It's going to drive jokes. You're going to write to that voice. It's going to drive the picture. You're going to animate to what you're hearing in her performance.”