Professional Voice Dissonance

Gumball: Dude, what's with the voice?
Darwin: It's my movie voice!
Gumball: You sound like you're gargling gravel.
Darwin: Look. You want this trailer to be average, or you want it to be good?!
Gumball: Alright, whatever.

— The Amazing World of Gumball trailer

Some people often put on a certain tone, pitch, dialect, and inflection for particular professions. Especially in jobs that require them to interact with higher-ups, like salespersons; ones where they persuade/inform an audience, like orators and news reporters; or most commonly, acting.

Outside of their jobs, however, these people can sound remarkably different. For example, a character who uses a deep and commanding voice during speeches can suddenly sound rather high and soft-spoken when off-stage.

This is Truth in Television for a lot of people who use a different voice in a professional setting than their regular one. Two common examples being a friendlier tone of voice while working customer service, or using a lower register in order to be taken more seriously when speaking, especially if they have a naturally higher voice.

Some also change their voice to project themselves at louder volumes. This is particularly useful in theatre plays, where actors are required to speak up in order for the audience to hear their lines.

The professional voice can be achieved in several ways. Some, especially those who have great control over their vocal cords, can physically change how they sound without using any external devices; others prefer to use a voice modulator/filter if they aren't too adept at modifying their voice practically.

Compare Singing Voice Dissonance, where a character's singing voice sounds very different from their speaking voice, and Secret Identity Vocal Shift, if the character's profession is being a superhero or supervillain and they want to disguise their identity by altering their voice. If the character chooses to lip-sync to a pre-recording of another character with a more desirable voice, that's an example of That Syncing Feeling. See also Misplaced Kindergarten Teacher, Authority Sounds Deep, and Vocal Dissonance.

---

In-Universe Examples:

Anime & Manga

• Blend-S: When she's in "work mode", Mafuyu uses a cute, baby-like voice to sell her role as the "little sister" waitress at the Cosplay Café Stile. Her normal self has a deep, dry voice that shows her sardonic personality.
• Umaru from Himouto! Umaru-chan is only a student, but she still deliberately changes her voice between her "outside" and "inside" personas since she has a reputation to uphold at school. She sounds like a mature and proper teenage girl while "outside" in public, while in private her voice is more high-pitched and childish to reflect how she's really a bratty, immature Closet Geek.
• Akira Kogami from Lucky Star affects a cute, high-pitched voice when hosting the Lucky Channel segments in the anime, which is meant to sell her image as a cutesy Idol Singer. Whenever she gets annoyed or angry, however, she breaks character and starts speaking in a husky contralto, showing how she's really a Bitch in Sheep's Clothing who's very cynical about the entertainment industry despite loving the attention she gets.
• The Yuri Genre one-shot manga Unknown Face, Unshown Face by Kanarashi Works opens with the POV character Kasumi having a spat with her girlfriend Makina, declaring to the readers that Makina is a good-for-nothing Idiot From Osaka. They are interrupted, however, by a call from Makina's office, which she takes, completely changing in stature, tone of voice, and even accent. Apparently observing this change for the first time, Kasumi gets up and leaves the room to get a hold of her feelings, realizing that she has fallen in love with Makina (specifically, with her professional persona) for the second time.

Film — Animated

• In one of the Animated Outtakes at the end of A Bug's Life, Thumper the grasshopper, who can only shriek in the movie, suddenly breaks character and speaks in a soft, nasal voice (courtesy of David Lander).
• Chicken Little: By means of a voice modulator, Kirby's father, Melvin, puts on a deep and threatening Voice of the Legion which he uses to intimidate his captives. When not using the modulator, Melvin sounds like a jovial father.
• The Super Mario Bros. Movie: Mario and Luigi normally speak with subtle Brooklyn accents, but in their Super Mario Bros. Plumbing commercial, they put on exaggerated Italian accents reminiscent of Charles Martinet's voices for the brothers in the games. Mario himself is concerned that the accents may have been too much, but a civilian voiced by Martinet himself thinks the accent to be perfect.

Film — Live-Action

• Attempted in Almost Famous where William tries to use a deeper voice while on the phone with the editor at Rolling Stone in order to hide the fact that he's only 16. This backfires eventually, as the editor starts to think that his unnaturally deep voice is from pot use and tells him to clean up his act, as they don't need another Hunter S. Thompson.
• Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers (2022): The film takes place in a world where every toon is an Animated Actor, so some of said actors can sound very different from how they sound in their movies/shows.
  • Chip and Dale themselves use high-pitched voices in their shows but have more mid-range voices in their daily lives. It's shown In-Universe that they can do this practically, without the use of any digital pitch shifting.
  • When Zipper portrays his character on the original show, he speaks in a fast, high-pitched, and unintelligible manner; but outside of work, he has a very deep voice.
  • Bjornson the Cheesemonger uses a muppet-like diction, over-the-top Scandinavian accent, and friendly attitude when selling his products at the market stall. But he quickly drops it in favor of an American accent with a more serious delivery when displaying his true personality of a drug dealer, though the drugs he manufactures is just cheese.
• Sorry to Bother You features the "white voice" that various black characters use at different points, where their dialogue is overdubbed by white actors in a deliberately bad way.
  Langston: It's not really a white voice, it's what they wished they sounded like. What they think they're supposed to sound like.
• Star Wars: Played with. In The Phantom Menace, fourteen year old Queen Amidala intentionally speaks with a low voice and upper-class accent to make herself seem more mature and commanding than her appearance would suggest (her decoy Sabé copies this voice, which helps to disguise their differences). However, outside of her role as queen, Padmé uses her normal, more high-pitched voice (which helps her blend in with her handmaidens). After she steps down from the throne and becomes a senator, she uses her normal voice all the time (save for one moment in Queen's Shadow, where she uses "the queen's voice" to tell Clovis off when he gets too handsy with her).
• Who Framed Roger Rabbit: During the "Roger Rabbit shorts", Baby Herman uses a cute and innocent baby voice. But off-camera, Herman sounds like a raspy, cigarette-laden 53-year-old man, which actually reflects his true age.
• The Wizard of Oz: When speaking to his subjects, the "wizard" uses a modulator that deepens his voice and makes him sound strong and commanding. After being exposed, his voice has a higher pitch and he sounds like the meek, mild-mannered fellow he actually is.

Live-Action TV

• In the Doctor Who Christmas Episode "The Snowmen", Victorian Clara is a Cockney who works as a governess, where she speaks with crisp Mary Poppins style diction... except when she amuses the children with her "secret voice".
• The Dropout: Elizabeth Holmes puts on a fake contralto voice to sound more professional and authoritative in public, in contrast to her higher-sounding natural voice.
• In The '90s version of the Chilean Sketch Comedy show El Jappening con Ja, there is a section called "Le Bisoñé", a hair salon owned by two funny queer guys. One of their iconic routines is when they get telephoned and they answer with a Manly Man voice, usually when someone calls for some of the girls at the hair salon, just to get exhausted making that voice, so those two talk on the phone by turns since it's too much manly for them.
• Father Ted: Fred Rickwood, one of the producers for the Eurosong contest, has a perfectly clear and understandable voice... when he's on stage presenting the Irish candidates. Off-stage, he speaks so fast, and with such a thick accent, that he's The Unintelligible. (though apparently, his boyfriend and partner Charles Hedges can understand him perfectly.
• Sophie Lennon, a successful female comedian in The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, has an on-stage persona that includes a high, shrill whine and cackling delivery. When Susie meets her at home, her voice is quiet, reserved and somewhat haughty.
• Parks and Recreation: Deadpan Snarker April normally speaks in a completely flat monotone. In "Bowling for Votes", she volunteers to call people to try and raise funds for Leslie's campaign, and, upon learning that the person who raises the most money wins two movie tickets, becomes determined to win. This leads to a montage of her expertly changing her voice and delivery to appeal to different voters; we see her being extremely perky and polite in a much higher voice than normal, then having a very rapid-fire and casual conversation in Spanglish, and acting like a cheery Southern Belle using folksy-sounding idioms she's clearly making up on the spot.
  April: Hello, is this Mrs. Gallivan? Well, my name is April, and wouldn't you know it, I'm raising money for a city council candidate I believe in. [cut to next call] No, mira, mira, mira, mira, mira. It's, like, whatever you want. Like, ten dollars. It don't matter. [cut] Well, I reckon it's just like Grammy Martha told me and my cousins, "You can't eat the biscuits if you don't pay for the flour!"
• Get Smart In "The Return of the Ancient Mariner" (episode 94), "Mr. Bob," (Jack Cassidy) an interior decorator hired by 99, speaks in a cultured (albeit camp-gay) professional voice. But when Max accuses him of being KAOS assassin "The Chameleon," punches him, and gets summarily beaten up, and Mr. Bob shifts to his natural voice, combining the seediest aspects of Brooklyn, The Bronx, and maybe even some Chicago.

Literature

• Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban: Knight Bus conductor Stan Shunpike speaks in a professional manner when welcoming Harry onboard, but quickly drops it in favor of a more casual, Cockney accent.
• The Labours of Hercules: Miss Pope runs a very exclusive girls' school. While explaining how the school works so Poirot can figure out how a student was kidnapped with no one noticing, she realizes she's drifting into her talking-to-parents voice and reverts to a tone that's less of a sales pitch.

Video Games

• Genshin Impact: Subverted with Katherine. She is almost never seen outside of the Adventurer's Guild reception desk where she speaks in a rather robotic tone. Come Sumeru, the Traveler and Paimon find her away from the reception desk for the first time and find her acting all cheerful with her voice having more personality to it. Then it turns out that she was just possessed by Nahida the whole time and that all of the Katherines are Fatui-made androids.
• In The Legend of Heroes: Trails to Azure, one of the sidequests involves your main character filling in for the cat mascot character Mishy of Mishelam Wonderland when the normal actor is off sick for the morning, with Tio, a Mishy super-fan, self-inserting herself into the role of Mishy's sister Mishette. After the shift is over, the regular guy arrives for the afternoon and shocks them both, but especially Tio, by being a gruff, middle-aged, deep-voiced man. The second he gets into costume, he addresses the two in typical Mishy style and Lloyd comments that his voice sounded like it shifted three whole octaves, that there can be no doubt that he's the real Mishy.

Web Animation

• On his main channel, GradeAUnderA speaks with a No Indoor Voice at a moderate-pace and a very pronounced British accent. His natural voice, which can be heard in his livestreams, is actually a lot quieter but is also a lot more fast-paced; his British accent is also far more subdued.

Web Video

• In the Strong Bad Email radio Strong Bad claims the most important thing about being a radio host is to sound nothing like how you look. To demonstrate he has Strong Sad, a "whiny know-it-all who looks exactly how he sounds" to put on a Large Ham Radio voice to his own amusement and Strong Sad's horror.

Western Animation

• Dog City: One episode was set at a radio station, with the main spokesman making a significantly deeper voice for the radio than his normal one.
• In Garfield Gets a Life, Jon decides to go to the Lorenzo School for the Personality Impaired to try to get a life. He is surprised to hear how calm Lorenzo is compared to the hyperactive portrayal in the commercial. Turns out it was a lip sync.
• Kappa Mikey: On LilyMu, Gonard portrays a villainous alien warlord with a deep, booming voice, but is actually a lovable doofus whose voice is much higher. Also on the show, Guano is only capable of saying his own name, but speaks plain English otherwise.
• Moral Orel: Joe's older sister works as a secretary. When she's speaking on the phone, she holds her nose and speaks in a nasally, feminine voice. When she's speaking regularly, she has a deep manly voice.
• Oh Yeah! Cartoons: The Dan Danger shorts have the title character appear on his TV show as a macho adventurer with a boisterous voice to match. When the cameras stop rolling, however, he's a regular Cowardly Lion with a high-pitched, quivering voice.
• South Park: In "Quest for Ratings", as part of an effort to improve their school news show ratings, Cartman tells Tolkien that he needs to change his voice when he reports the weather. Specifically, Cartman says he needs to sound white. In the next news broadcast, Tolkien changes his accent when reporting the weather but goes back to speaking normally when the broadcast is over.
• SpongeBob SquarePants: In the episode "Shell Shocked", Angry Jack uses a furious No Indoor Voice for his commercials. When SpongeBob meets him in person, Jack reveals this is simply a persona and that he normally speaks in a calm and cordial manner. That is, until SpongeBob accidentally destroys his store, at which point he gets mad for real.
• What About Mimi?: In the episode "A Star Isn't Born", a famous actor that Mimi Morton and Sincerity Travers are both infatuated name Jake Amore is introduced. In his movies, Jake has a very deep, baritone voice. In real life, however, his voice is high and squeaky, and digitally altered for his movies.

Out-of-Universe Examples:

Anime & Manga

• Retired voice actor Eric Stuart made it a point of professionalism to never use his actual speaking voice for the various character roles he has performed such as Gourry, Seto Kaiba, or Brock.
• Many of Aya Hirano's voices, like Haruhi Suzumiya and Menchi, tend to have mid ranged voices. Her natural speaking voice is high pitched and nasal, much closer to Konata Izumi.

Comedy

• Gilbert Gottfried is notable for performing with a grating No Indoor Voice. His actual speaking voice, meanwhile, was pretty soft and reserved.
• Larry the Cable Guy is well known for his cartoonish, Southern hillbilly drawl. Outside the Larry persona, Daniel Lawrence Whitney still has a Southern accent but it is noticeably less exaggerated and much deeper.

Film — Live-Action

• Rick Moranis is primarily known for playing characters with a high-pitched and nasally-sounding "bumbling" voice that matches his rather geeky-looking outward appearance. Outside his acting work, however, his natural voice is very deep and sonorous.

Live-Action TV

• When playing Bernadette on The Big Bang Theory, Melissa Rauch speaks in a high-pitched voice. Her real voice, which can be heard in other roles (like Abby Stone on Night Court), is a little deeper.
• Stephanie Beatriz uses a low, stern voice for her character in Brooklyn Nine-Nine, Rosa Diaz, while her actual voice is higher and more feminine in comparison.
• David Tennant, is his roles as the Tenth and Fourteenth Doctors, used an Estuary English accent. Tennant is actually from Scotland, and "Tooth and Claw" gave him a chance to use his natural accent.
• Robert Barone, in Everybody Loves Raymond speaks with a deep gravelly voice appropriate to an NYPD sergeant who stands six foot eight tall. It also adds to the comic effect as he is a huge hulking Manchild who is intimidated by his mother and his far smaller wife. In real life, actor/comedian Brad Garrett speaks with a far higher-pitched more "ordinary" voice. People seeing him in other roles are surprised by this.
• In Superstore, both Nichole Sakura (Cheyenne) and Mark McKinney (Glenn) put on much more high-pitched, nasal voices than they speak with in reality, reflecting their characters' personalities (Cheyenne being an airheaded teen, Glenn a neurotic Manchild).

Music

• Rapper and YouTuber Darryl Dwayne Granberry, aka PontiacMadeDDG, puts on a mid-range voice in his videos/livestreams/interviews. But his natural daily voice is an absurdly deep Basso profundo.
• Moriah Rose Pereira speaks with a quiet, high-pitched, and somewhat unsettling voice for her Poppy persona. Pereira's actual voice is a lot more casual and less eerie.
• TWICE's Sana's voice is deeper and less bubbly in real life than in most of their official content. Her natural voice was used in the Opening Narration of the "BDZ" video.
• Many an interviewer has been surprised by Marshall Mathers's soft and polite voice and accent when talking as himself out of character, in comparison to the high-pitched nasal voice and accent affectations he uses when speaking (or indeed rapping) as Slim Shady, Eminem and the various incarnations of such.

Video Games

• David Hayter puts on the distinctive, deep voice as Solid Snake. His normal voice is noticeably softer and higher pitched.

Web Animation

• Virtual YouTubers working for Japanese companies like hololive and Nijisanji, whose characters are essentially J-idols, often use a different voice for their characters, usually with a higher register to emphasize cuteness.
• In this video, Inugami Korone demonstrates the difference between the high-pitched voice she uses for her streams/job and her deeper natural voice.

Web Videos

• The Critical Drinker has a loud, distinctively intoxicated voice paired with an exaggerated Scottish accent. Outside his main channel and during livestreams, Will Jordan has a more sober diction, talks at a quieter volume, and his Scottish accent is a lot more subdued than his Drinker persona.
• FPSRussia uses a recognizable Russian accent in his videos when portraying the persona of Dimitri Potapov. Outside of this, Kyle Myers has a southern accent.
• Fred is defined by his Helium Speech Keet voice. Lucas Cruikshank achieved this by taking his somewhat high but still mid-range natural voice and digitally pitching it up to chipmunk levels.
• Game Grumps: Parodied. In one video, Danny suddenly adopts a much more nasally, geeky-sounding voice and attitude while claiming that it's just how he talks when he's not working.
• Lily Orchard uses a deep, loud, and assertive voice in most of her videos to present a more authoritative tone. But the voice she uses in her daily life is a lot softer, more feminine, and high-pitched. It can be heard at the end of her "Changing at the Edge of the World in Four Minutes" video.
• The Mysterious Mr. Enter is actually more soft-spoken than when he “yells at SpongeBob” in his videos. Compare his review of the Family Guy episode "Screams Of Silence" to his playthrough of Dig-Dug.
• Rooster Teeth employee Barbara Dunkelman used different voices for her various RT roles, with only Yang Xiao Long getting her natural voice.

Western Animation

• Frank Welker's normal speaking voice is akin to his roles as Fred Jones and Ray Stanz. But he also voices Dynomutt, Megatron, Soundwave, Galvatron, Slimer, Jeremiah Surd, Tiamat, Dr. Claw, Garfield, and The Cave of Wonders; all of whom sound vastly different to his talking voice.
• Peter Cullen is well-known for his deep, resonant baritone as befitting the voice of Optimus Prime among other roles. His normal talking voice is somewhat higher and a lot less resonant.
• In Family Guy, Seth MacFarlane voices Peter Griffin, Glenn Quagmire, Carter Pewterschmidt, and Stewie; none of them sound like MacFarlane's regular voice. This is Averted by Brian, who's the only character in the show that MacFarlane uses his natural speaking voice for.
• Bill Fagerbakke's roles, like Patrick, Broadway, and Bulkhead, tend to have deep, "dopey" sounding voices, fitting his typecasting as lovable oafs. His natural speaking voice is softer and a bit higher (think Roger the chick from the episode "New Student Starfish").

Real Life

• In real life, this is formally known as Code Switching; the use of different dialects and manners of speech in different social situations.
• During normal conversations, Adolf Hitler spoke in a raspy, deep voice. But during his speeches, he used a Creepy High-Pitched No Indoor Voice.
• In this video, the news reporter speaks naturally with a thick Deep South accent combined with Valley Girl diction, before flipping into a completely different tone and accent when she realises she's on-air.
• This video begins with a news reporter speaking with a professional tone and dialect until a bee flies into his mouth, at which point he starts sounding like someone from the ghetto.

---