50 Famous Voice Actors You May Not Recognize

We all have our favorite cartoon characters and sometimes we can relate to them more than real-life characters. The issue is, we tend to fall in love with the characters themselves and begin to think about them as actual people. However, behind our favorite characters are the people who voice these characters and make them come to life. Most of these voice actors tend to live a low-profile life and prefer it that way. However, if you've ever wondered who voices the character you see on TV all the time, scroll through this list and find out just who these people are. 

Tara Strong isn’t a super famous name or face in the entertainment industry but the odds are you’ve heard her voice a couple of times if you’re a big fan of cartoons. Thanks to voice-over roles like Bubbles in The Powerpuff Girls, and Timmy Turner in Fairly Odd Parents, she’s become a notable force in the voice-over realm. 

In the voice acting world, Jim Cummings is a certified legend whose voice has been featured in about 400 films. His most famous voice acting role is Winnie-the-Pooh and Tigger, roles he began voicing in 1988, and he continues to lend his voice to these roles to date. 

Known to many as the man of a thousand voices, Mel Blanc is another voice acting legend, and a big shot in the community that is regarded as one of the most exemplary voice actors ever. Mel began his career as a radio actor but then he landed the role of Bugs Bunny in Looney Tunes and his career picked up from there. 

Bart Simpson is the most famous ten-year-old on TV so being the voice-over actor behind the character, Nancy Cartwright is quite a big deal herself. Cartwright has been the voice of the character since the show kicked off in 1989, and she’s also voiced a couple of the other characters like Ralph and Nelson. 

Thanks to his role as everyone’s favorite dog character, Scooby-Doo, Frank Welker has become something of voice-over royalty. Once the cartoons sprang up in 2002, Welker was handed the voice-over role of the dog’s friend, Fred but then he took up the role of Scooby himself soon enough. 

Billy West is known for his role as the voice of Fry, the space-hopping postal delivery guy in Futurama. In addition to that role, West has also voiced famous cartoon characters like Bugs Bunny, which he also voiced in Space Jam. 

E.G. Daily is a force to be reckoned with in the voice-over community as she’s the force that made the most iconic baby on the 90s cartoon Rugrats. She voiced the character of Tommy Pickles on Rugrats from 1991-2004, and she also did the character’s voice-over in the three movies made about the show. 

Cree Summer became quite famous thanks to her voice-over work as Penny on the fan-favorite cartoon Inspector Gadget. She was the character’s voice in the 80s and 90s, and she also voiced Susie Carmichael in Rugrats from 1993-2004. 

Kevin Michael Richardson voices villainous characters so well that he’s become something like the go-to actor for such roles. Known for his patented deep and dark voice, Richardson is known for voicing the Joker in the animated series The Batman. 

Pinky and the Brain is great but it wouldn’t be anywhere as good if not for the role of Rob Paulsen as the voice behind the smartest mouse in the world. For his role as the character, Rob Paulsen won a Daytime Emmy Award, and he also made a contribution to the iconic fan-favorite theme tune from the cartoon. 

Phil LaMarr is a renowned voice actor and superhero portrayer that is best known for his voice-over role as The Green Lantern in the animated series Justice League. 

Tress MacNeille is a successful voice-over actor that has been the voice behind many successful cartoon characters like Daisy Duck, her most famous character, which she’s managed to reprise to date. 

Tom Kenny is the man and the voice that made Spongebob so great. In addition to voicing the Krusty Krab’s most valuable employee and making it a great cartoon character, Tom Kenny has also worked on other animated projects like Adventure Time which he starred in, and lent his voice to the Ice King character. 

Darth Vader is one of the most famous characters in recent memory, and it’s hard to find a movie fan that doesn’t know the character. The character was portrayed by British bodybuilder David Prowse but voiced by Jones, and we have both of them to thank for bringing to life one of the scariest characters in the world. 

In recent times, video games have provided a nice background with intriguing stories, and are therefore a nice medium for storytelling. It is in light of this that Nolan North emerged as the voice of video games in the 2000s and 2010s. 

Mark Hamill has done so much in the voice-over community, and as a result, he’s enjoyed a tremendous career that proves how everything falls into place once you do everything right. 

Seth McFarlane began his career as a voice-over actor before making his way to movies. McFarlane’s unique humor is well-known, as are his incredible gifts as a voice-over actor; the actor has won a couple of Emmy Awards for voice acting, winning all but one award he was nominated for. 

Laura Bailey is a superstar extraordinaire voice-over actor that is a household name in the voice-over community. Bailey is essentially the female voice of the English-language versions of famous video games and anime. 

Hank Azaria is a terrific actor and an even better voice-over actor best known for portraying familiar characters on The Simpsons such as Cletus, Snake Jailbird, Professor Frink, and Chief Wiggum, and at one point he portrayed others like Carl, Apu, and Bumblebee Man. 

Justin Roiland is the co-creator of Rick and Morty, which is one of the most famous shows in the world of animation. Besides being such a huge creative force on that show, Roiland is also a terrific voice actor that has lent his voice to several intriguing characters both on the show and off it. 

Tom Petty was a terrific singer and actor known for being affiliated with the Traveling Wilburys, the Heartbreakers, and the Mudcrutch. When he passed away, fans shared their favorite moments but only a few know that he was also a decent voice-over actor. 

Carlos Alazraqui got his start by lending his voice to some of the most remarkable cartoons produced in the 90s, including Rocko’s Modern Life. Carlos voiced the titular character and his dog Spunky in the show and was therefore a fan favorite thanks to the adult humor incorporated into his characters’ utterances. 

Michael Cera’s uncanny ability to portray awkward, anti-social teenage characters in movies has made him revered but not everyone knows he’s also a terrific voice-over actor. He was featured as the voice of Brother Bear in The Berenstain Bears, which was a PBS animated show inspired by the children’s books. 

James Avery was best known for his role as Uncle Phil on Fresh Prince of Bel-Air but it would be an injustice to not talk about how much work he put into the recording studio over the years. He lent his voice to a host of cartoon characters over the years, including James Rhodes in Iron Man or Mr. Clapper in Pepper Ann.  

John Ritter is best known for his roles in It and Three’s Company but those aren’t the only projects that have been graced by his talents. For a lot of 90s kids, Ritter’s role as the voice of the titular character on Clifford the Big Red Dog has made him an icon, as he voiced the gigantic and likable red dog in 64 episodes of the show. 

LeVar Burton portrayed Lt. Commander Geordi La Forge so well in Star Trek: The Next Generation that some fans struggle to remember his other performances, but the truth is his body of work is far more expansive than one good project. 

George Clooney’s legacy is incomplete without his roles in Ocean’s Eleven and ER but some of his best work has come in voice-acting. The Academy Award-winning actor lent his voice to the titular character in Fantastic Mr. Fox, and he has also been featured in South Park a couple of times. 

Roughly thirty years ago, Katey Sagal became incredibly famous thanks to her role as Peggy Bundy, on Married…with Children. She’s also played the role of Gemma Teller Morrow on Sons of Anarchy but a lot of her fans don’t know that she also does some voice acting work as well. 

Even though he’s not as well-known for his voice-acting talents, Tim Curry is a terrific voice actor that has lent his voice to a number of video games and movies. He typically performs in a nasal and distinctive English accent that can be difficult to comprehend sometimes. 

Thomas Brodie-Sangster is best known for playing the role of Jojen Reed in Game of Thrones, and for playing Newt in Maze Runner. The rising star is also a prolific voice performer that has been featured in a number of famous cartoons recently. 

The two characters that were in the 90s MTV show, Beavis and Butt-Head, were voiced by Mike Judge, the creator of the show. Even though the two are distinct characters, they were presented as a package on the show, and they quickly attained iconic status thanks to their cranky teenage humor, burnouts, and unusual humor. 

Winnie the Pooh is a likable and wholesome cartoon character that comes off as too good to be true sometimes. Sterling Holloway, who’s a legend in the voice-acting community, voiced the character. 

Daria was an MTV show, a Beavis and Butt-Head spinoff that ran for five seasons in the late 90s to early 2000s. The show tells the story of Daria Morgendorffer, a high-school girl that was as misanthropic as every other chuckling classmate of hers. 

Bet you didn’t know that the original Transformers animated series aired in the 1980s. For many fans that saw the original series, the voice of Optimus Prime in the original is the only one worth tuning in to. 

Marty Moose and the universe of the National Lampoon’s Vacation have lit up many holidays for their biggest fans, yet Moose isn’t exactly everyone’s favorite cartoon moose. That title belongs to Bullwinkle J. Moose from The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show. 

Anyone who’s seen the Fox TV series Futurama will know that Bender is arguably the most vividly cranky cartoon robot ever. With the exception of the two people on his Do Not Kill list, there’s basically no one that Bender truly likes, and even though he was created to bend metal, the character derives lots of joy from human voices. 

Lots of legendary animation characters were brought to the fore by Joseph Barbera and William Hanna, whose remarkable collaboration produced the likes of Scooby-Doo, Tom and Jerry, and Fred Flintstone. 

South Park wouldn’t be as puzzling without the incredible cruelty perpetrated by Eric Cartman over the course of several seasons. The character was voiced by Trey Parker, the show's co-creator, whose voice evokes feelings of a despicable person. 

Back in 1930, the Betty Boop character was born, and it quickly became an icon to the 1920s women that wore bobbed hair and short skirts. 

The Simpsons started out as a couple of comedic shorts for The Tracey Ullman Show but then it emerged as a show itself and is now one of the most famous and longest-running animated shows ever. 

Popeye the Sailor was first featured in Thimble Theater, a 1929 comic strip, and after that run, he was unveiled as a major cartoon character in a couple of Max Fleischer productions. While the character has been voiced by a number of actors over the years, William Costello deserves some credit for getting it all started in 1933. 

In many Scooby-Doo movies and TV series, Scooby-Doo himself is the star of the show, and Shaggy, his human companion, is known for his iconic voice. Shaggy is typically either hungry or scared and thanks to DJ Casey Kasem, those contrasting emotions can always be detected in Shaggy’s voice. 

Mickey Mouse is one of the most iconic animated characters ever. Created back in 1928 by Walt Disney himself, the character was voiced by Disney for the first couple of talkie appearances. 

The Dennis the Menace cartoon series was one of the most remarkable in the 80s, and as a result, many kids from that era were drawn to it. Inspired by a live-action series of the same name, this was based on Hank Ketcham’s comic strip with Phil Hartman voicing the character of Mr. Wilson in the pioneer season. 

Ever since she emerged as a child star to look out for, Stacy Ann Ferguson has put in the work for her performances. As a child, she was featured on the TV show Kids Incorporated from 1983 to 1989, and she also lent her voice to the character of Sally Brown, creating an iconic voice in the process.

Simba is a standout character in the fan-favorite animated movie, The Lion King. The character was voiced by Jonathan Taylor Thomas, who got his big break on The Bradys. 

Disney's live-action animations are a terrific spin on several classic cartoons, with some standout ones like Tangled earning high ratings. Tangled tells the story of Rapunzel, who was voiced by Mandy Moore, a terrific singer, and even better voice-over actress. 

The 2009 animated movie Caroline features Dakota Fanning as the voice of the titular Coraline Jones character. Fanning was one of the biggest child stars of her generation so the character got some nice twists from their similar train of thought.

Ghostbusters became incredibly popular after it was released in the 1980s. The animated series was really just a sequel to the well-received Ghostbusters movie.