While many of these actors and actresses may be more famous in other pursuits (such as live-action films), a few key roles in animated films helped them gain recognition among a different target audience.
A No Recent Examples rule applies to this trope. To avoid any knee-jerk reactions, examples shouldn't be added until six months after the work's released or the character first appears (whichever is later).
English voice actors
- Tony Jay in The Hunchback of Notre Dame.
- Kevin Michael Richardson, Daveigh Chase, and Kevin McDonald in Lilo & Stitch.
- Jodi Benson in The Little Mermaid.
- Max Charles in Mr. Peabody & Sherman
- John C. Reilly, Jack McBrayer and Alan Tudyk (as voice actors) in Wreck-It Ralph.
- Debi Derryberry and Jeff Garcia in Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius.
- Bill Hader (as a voice actor) in Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs.
- Chris Pratt and Elizabeth Banks (as voice actors) in The LEGO Movie
- Michael-Leon Wooley in The Princess and the Frog.
- Gilbert Gottfried and Robin Williams (as voice actors) in Aladdin.
- Mandy Moore (as a voice actress) in Tangled.
- Fred Tatasciore in Ultimate Avengers.
- Jay Baruchel and T.J. Miller in How to Train Your Dragon.
- Paige O'Hara and David Ogden Stiers (coupled with Pocahontas and Lilo & Stitch) in Beauty and the Beast.
- Ming-Na Wen and Miguel Ferrer (as a voice actor) in Mulan.
- Jonathan Adams in Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths.
- Bruce Greenwood and Jensen Ackles (as voice actors) in Batman: Under the Red Hood.
- Kelly Macdonald (as a voice actress) in Brave.
- Chris Sarandon and Danny Elfman in The Nightmare Before Christmas.
- Ariel Winter (voice-acting wise) in Batman: The Dark Knight Returns. Though she's more-so associated with Sofia the First.
- Zach Callison (coupled with Steven Universe) in Superman/Shazam!: The Return of Black Adam.
- Idina Menzel, Kristen Bell, Johnathan Groff, Santino Fontana and Josh Gad (in voice acting) in Frozen. For Bell, it brought her back into the spotlight for the first time since Forgetting Sarah Marshall, and for Menzel and Gad, it made them better known outside of the theatre fan demographic.
- Tom Hanks, Tim Allen, Joan Cusack, and John Ratzenberger (as voice actors) in the Toy Story series.
- Ryan Potter and Scott Adsit in Big Hero 6. Also considered an overall breakthrough for Ryan Potter; Adsit was already well-known from 30 Rock, Moral Orel, and Mr. Show whereas Potter's series Supah Ninjas gained far less recognition.
- Dakota Fanning (as a voice actress) in My Neighbor Totoro. She would again prove her VA credentials in Coraline.
- Mike Myers, Eddie Murphy and Antonio Banderas (as voice actors) in the Shrek series.
- Kodi Smit-McPhee in ParaNorman.
- Shameik Moore and Hailee Steinfeld (as a voice actress) in Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse.
Mexican Voice Actors (both dubbing and original acting)
- María Fernanda Morales in The Lion King as adult Nala, along with Saori Kido/Athena and Minako "Sailor Venus" Aino.
- Raul Aldana and Genaro Vasquez in the same film as Timon and Rafiki respectively. Aldana is also well known in Mexico for voicing Stitch and Vasquez for voicing Spike Spiegel and Mamoru "Tuxedo Mask" Chiba (at first).
- Singer Kalimba Marichal as the singing voice of young Simba also counts. Kalimba even lampshades that fact continuously in many interviews that he is better known for that character than any other thing he did in his singing career.
- Diana Santos in The Jungle Book as Mowgli, along with Maid Marian, Miss Piggy and Peter.
- Guillermo Aponte Jr. in Finding Nemo as the titular Nemo and also recently in Big Hero 6 as Hiro Hamada; along with Phineas.
- Romina Marroquín Payró in Frozen as Anna and also in Zootopia as Judy Hopps.
- Ruben Trujillo in Aladdin as the Genie, along with Hades, Sam Beckett and the titular Mrs. Doubtfire.
- Jorge Santos in the first case as Jafar, along with Folken Fanel.
- Alicia Velez in Monsters, Inc. as Boo, plus Akira Ono.
- Estefania Piedra in Turning Red as Meilin Lee.
- Hector Estrada in The Super Mario Bros. Movie as Bowser, together with Sweet Tooth.
European French Voice Actors (both dubbing and original acting)
- Roger Carel as the title character in the animated movie adaptations of the Asterix comic, starting with Asterix the Gaul in 1967.
- Claire Guyot as Ariel in The Little Mermaid.
Canadian French Voice Actors (dubbing only)
- Violette Chauveau as Ariel in The Little Mermaid.
- Joël Legendre as the title character in Aladdin, along with Leonardo DiCaprio's Jack Dawson in Titanic.
Japanese Voice Actors (dubbing only)
- Haruhiko Jo, Tomie Kataoka and Ben Hiura in The Lion King as Scar (plus Barbossa), Shenzi (plus Kanga) and Banzai respectively.
- Yumi Fukamizu in Space Jam as Lola Bunny.
