You might have seen Valorant’s new duelist agent, Neon, a Radiant empowered by her bioelectricity which has enlarged itself with Earth’s radianite mesh. But have you heard about the Filipina voice-over artist behind the Filipino playing character?
Get to know who this Filipina voice actress is and be inspired by how she pursued and found a career in voice acting.
Vanille Velasquez was born and raised in Baliuag Bulacan. She defines herself as a “small girl”, with “big dreams” and “big voices”, finding the love she had for voice acting through watching anime, animated English shows, and Filipino-dubbed shows on TV, and playing video games.
Having found the love she had for voice-acting at 11 years old. The 23-year-old voice actress is no stranger to the gaming world. Her career in the Philippine voice-over industry started in dubbing anime characters on the local anime channel Hero TV in 2016 as part of the televised voice acting and dubbing workshop called “Dubbing Academy”. After joining the workshop, she landed her first anime dubbing character Pandora in the Crimson Shell. Later then, she continued her craft to commercials, animated programs (Tagalog and English), and later created a website that features her story and sample works.
Vanille, who chose her screen name “Vanille” from a final fantasy character, has been lending her voice to various commercials, English and Tagalog animated programs, toys, live-action dubs, and video games all over the world.
After going full-time in voice acting since 2019, Vanille has been able to do TV gigs that led her to play the titular character in Jelly, Ben & Pogo on PB Kids about siblings in a Filipino-American household.
Continuing the passion for her craft, Vanille hit another milestone in her career for her involvement in Riot Games’ hit video games, League of Legends and Valorant where she plays Zeri, a marksman in LOL and Neon as a Filipina agent in Valorant, both Filipino representation in the gaming world.
Landing one of the biggest breaks in her career in voice acting was not built in a day. Vanille, to get the role for Neon, had to audition twice online — recording her lines at home in her mom’s walk-in-closet-where she usually does her work. And on her dad’s birthday, she finally received the call from Riot.
Velasquez plays Neon, a relatable character to many Filipinos. An agent who’s passionate and willing to take a stance for her beliefs, Neon relatedly embodies the characteristic of Filipino Youth with a modern vision, brought up in a big family in Manila.
Being a versatile actress in the voice acting industry, Vanille Velasquez has surely been raising our country’s flag with her skills however, she not only is an astonishing voice actress but also a singer with several song covers and composes original songs.
From stumbling upon videos on Youtube to doing indie games and animation to working on her first mainstream AAA video game, Velasquez has seen and opened doors to pursue her career in voice acting.
And upon knowing the voice behind Valorant’s new duelist agent, take a look at some of her notable projects at https://www.vanillevelasquez.com/.
Source: https://playvalorant.com/en-sg/news/