WondLa Star Jeanine Mason Talks Voice Acting, Roswell New Mexico Parallels, and Future Crossovers
Skydance Animation brings us the first of a three part adventure saga in the new animated series WondLa. Based on the books by Tony DiTerlizzi, it follows Eva, a young girl forced to flee her underground sanctuary for Earth’s surface. But she discovers the world isn’t what she expected as she travels across perilous terrain and meets alien creatures, questioning whether she is the last human left. Pop Culture Planet’s Kristen Maldonado spoke with Jeanine Mason who voices Eva about voice acting, alien life, and the types of characters she gravitates towards.
Known as a dancer and an actor, Mason had to tap into another side of herself while stepping into the sound booth to record the voice of her character Eva. “It was really intimidating to me off the top. I realized like, ‘Man, in my acting work, because I grew up in dance, I use my full instrument so much,’” she told me. “But then I found that it was really such a pure honest thing. Like the voice reveals so much. What really became helpful was to be physical in the booth. I mean, girl, I was sweating. I was like running and jogging and jumping up and down and doing push-ups. I started my sessions in jeans and flip flops and very quickly was, like, no, we need to be in yoga pants. We need to be in orthotics. It's a physical job surprisingly.”
What Mason found the most challenging and the most fun was finding the balance in Eva’s enthusiasm. “Her enthusiasm, which I would get in trouble with on Roswell. I would sometimes speak so fast that then I would go to do ADR and I couldn't match my own pace,” she shared. “This show I tried to even outdo it because she's 16 and she's enthusiastic and she's a cartoon character. So, for me, it was like the funny will come with her just being like, ‘Talkie talkie talkie talkie,’ and her growing up in an underground sanctuary finally getting to chat with people. It was so fun to find the comedy of the quickness of her like pitter patter of her speaking so quickly. It was like a Gilmore Girls episode.”
This isn’t her first time coming face to face with alien life, as her character Liz Ortecho experienced that in Roswell, New Mexico. So how would Liz fare in Eva’s world? “Oh my God, girl, my heart! I would love for Liz and Eva to hang out. That's unbelievable. I hadn't thought about that,” exclaimed Mason. “What's fascinating is Liz, when we meet her, she's so closed off and she's older. The world has been rough on her. Eva is just pure light and joy and I love that about this show. It's so optimistic and she's strong and powerful and brave in the way that I think a lot of the characters I gravitate towards to are. She is just so hopeful. The world is changing and she approaches everybody she encounters, no matter how different they are from her, with compassion and love. She's just waiting for the goodness to come out. She's certain it'll come.”
The new series even features an Easter egg to Skydance Animation’s very first animated movie Luck in the form of a pinball machine. Could that lead to future crossovers of Skydance Animation projects in the future? “This is the energy we need. I would say yes a thousand times over,” she enthused. “This team has been unbelievable. The quality of the storytelling, the nuance of the performances they were able to do, and they were never dumbing it down just because it's geared for children. It was like, we're going to give it what it really means. Like the honesty of the messiness of life. The visuals! It really is everything they said they set out to do, which was make a feature quality animated series. I mean, it's unbelievable so I'm obsessed with collaborating with them. Their excellence is so inspiring so let's do all the crossovers. Let's go!”
Explore the fantastical world of WondLa, now streaming on Apple TV+.
