Drop the mic!

20 years of voice-over work in Portugal.

Over 1,000 recordings.

More than 5,000 days speaking into microphones, radio days included.

I’ve been translating my career into numbers, which is useful when taking stock of the journey or, at the very least, when you want to justify a “wow, what have I been doing”…

It’s a genuine, wide-eyed “Wow”, for sure.

I remember it as if it was 20 years ago…

On a cold November evening in 2006, I walked into a studio in Lisbon for a casting. A week earlier, I had knocked on that same door to drop off a CD with samples of my radio work, where I had been working since 2002, and they had invited me in for a test.

The studio was dimly lit. Most of the sound engineers and producers had already gone home to rest. They sat me in the booth, handed me a script, and asked me to dub a character from a documentary. I did the read, thanked them, and left.

Then came six months of silence. I was convinced I had failed the audition.

Just as I was giving up on knocking on other studio doors, hoping to find part-time voice-over work to complement my radio career, the phone rang. It was from that same dimly lit studio, asking if I’d be interested in recording weekly for cable television documentaries. The test, it turned out, had gone well, so well that it had already aired on TV. They apologized for the feedback’s delay but the studio had moved locations in the meantime.

Since then, I’ve recorded more than a thousand Portuguese voiceovers, there, in other studios, and eventually in the one I built at home. From dubbing to narration, documentaries to advertising, e-learning, tutorials, IVR, public address systems, medical videos, promotional content, and live events, I’ve spent countless hours speaking into microphones to communicate across radio, television, online platforms, and onsite conferences.

What started as part-time work became full-time. It grew beyond a playful side project to earn some extra cash and evolved into a deeply fulfilling career and organized employment, even surpassing the passion I had, and still have, for radio.

Will I still be doing voice-overs in the next 20 years, as retirement age approaches?

Let’s wait, see… And hear.