Tara Strong

Tara Lyn Strong (Template:Née; born February 12, 1973) is a Canadian and American actress.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> She is known for her voice work in animation, websites, and video games. Strong's voice roles include animated series such as The Powerpuff Girls, The Fairly OddParents, My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic, Teen Titans, Xiaolin Showdown, Ben 10, Drawn Together, The New Batman Adventures, Rugrats, The Proud Family, Chowder, Wow! Wow! Wubbzy!, Unikitty!, and DC Super Hero Girls. She has also voiced characters in the video games Mortal Kombat X, Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3, Jak and Daxter, Final Fantasy X, Final Fantasy X-2, Blue Dragon, and Batman: Arkham. Strong has earned Annie Award and Daytime Emmy nominations and won an award from the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences.

Early life

Strong was born as Tara Lyn Charendoff in Toronto, Ontario, on February 12, 1973,<ref name="Mulman-2">Template:Cite web</ref> the younger daughter of Syd and Lucy Charendoff.<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref> Her parents are of Russian-Jewish ancestry, and her grandparents emigrated to Canada after fleeing pogroms in Russia.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Strong has called her Jewish background "a big part of her identity".<ref name="Stern-2013">Template:Cite news</ref> Her grandfather was a cantor, while her grandmother ran a catering business in Toronto's Beth Radom Congregation.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> She has a sister.<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref>

At age four, Strong became interested in acting and volunteered to be a soloist at a school production.<ref name="Mulman" /> Strong worked in Yiddish Theatre in Toronto, where she memorized her lines phonetically because she did not know the Yiddish language. Strong also performed with the Toronto Jewish Theater, where she acted in A Night of Stars and was featured in an audiotape for "Lay Down Your Arms" with the Habonim Youth Choir, singing the lyrics in both English and Hebrew.<ref name="Mulman" />

Career

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Strong at the 2009 San Diego Comic-Con

Strong's first professional role was Gracie in Limelight Theater's production of The Music Man at the age of 13.<ref name="Mulman" /> She had a guest role in the action series T. and T. Her first major voice role, also at the age of 13, was the title role in Hello Kitty's Furry Tale Theater.<ref name="Mulman-3" /> Strong starred in the short-lived CBC Television sitcom Mosquito Lake.<ref name="Mulman" /> She took improv classes at The Second City in Toronto<ref name="Mulman-3">Template:Cite web</ref> and continued acting in both animated and live-action shows and films, before moving to Los Angeles in January 1994.<ref name="Stern-2013"/><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Strong is the voice of numerous animated characters, including main roles in The New Batman Adventures as Barbara Gordon/Batgirl, Teen Titans and Teen Titans Go! as Raven; Fillmore! as Ingrid Third; The Fairly OddParents as Timmy Turner (Strong took over the role after the suicide of the original voice actress Mary Kay Bergman—the two were close friends<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>) and Poof; Rugrats and All Grown Up! as Dil Pickles; The Powerpuff Girls as Bubbles; Ben 10 as Ben Tennyson, Upgrade, Blitzwolfer, and Buzzshock; Chowder as Truffles; Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends as Terrence; the singing voice of Meg Griffin and additional voices on Family Guy; My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic as Twilight Sparkle, Unikitty! as the titular princess, Wow! Wow! Wubbzy! as Daizy, and Dorothy and the Wizard of Oz as Joanni.

While recording lines for her role as Dil in Rugrats, one scene's script for Strong's character prompted her to make crying noises. During the taping, the producers suddenly paused and revealed to Strong that her voice acting of a child had been so realistic that she had inadvertently made a woman in the studio lactate. As the role was otherwise going to be offered to Madonna, Strong subsequently quipped that she was proud that the incident led to her keeping the role.<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

She has also lent her voice to English-dubbed localizations of Japanese anime such as Spirited Away and Princess Mononoke, as well as several video games, including her work as Elisa and Ursula in Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops; Paz Ortega Andrade in Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker, Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes, and Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain; Rikku in Final Fantasy X, its sequel Final Fantasy X-2, and Kingdom Hearts II; Krista Sparks in Twisted Metal: Head-On; Talwyn Apogee in Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction and its sequel, Ratchet & Clank Future: Quest for Booty; Keira in Jak and Daxter series; and Juliet Starling, the main character of Lollipop Chainsaw. She also has a minor voiceover for the teddy bear Ted in the motion picture Ted. In Blue Dragon, she is the voice actress for Kluke for the Xbox 360 game, but not in the anime series.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Beginning with the video game Batman: Arkham City, Strong would also succeed Arleen Sorkin as the voice of Harley Quinn.

She has appeared in live roles in National Lampoon's Senior Trip, Sabrina Goes to Rome, Sabrina Down Under, and The Last White Dishwasher. She also made guest appearances on such shows as Forever Knight, Street Legal, Touched by an Angel, Take Home Chef, Party of Five, Comic Book: The Movie, Kung Fu: The Legend Continues, 3rd Rock from the Sun and The Drew Carey Show.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> In January 2013, she voiced the character Plum in Cartoon Hangover's Bravest Warriors, created by Pendleton Ward. She recurred as Miss Collins in Nickelodeon's live-action series Big Time Rush from 2010 to 2013.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

In 2004, she won an Interactive Achievement Award for her role as Rikku in Final Fantasy X-2.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> She also served as the announcer for the 1999 Kids' Choice Awards, appeared as a guest panelist at several fan conventions (including BotCon, Jacon, Comic-Con International, and Anime Overdose), and was featured on the front cover of the July/August 2004 issue of Working Mother magazine, in which she said, "My son is now old enough to respond to my work. To me, that's what it is all about."<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> Strong has been nominated five times for Annie Awards.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

In 2013, Strong won the Shorty Award for "Best Actress" for her use of social media.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> The Behind the Voice Actors website selected her for a BTVA Voice Acting Award for Voice Actress of the Year for 2013,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> having nominated her for 2011 and 2012.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Strong starred in the Canadian series Pretty Hard Cases as Tiggy Sullivan, the head of a drug trafficking gang. She also voices Miss Minutes in the live-action Marvel Cinematic Universe series Loki.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Personal life

In 1999, Strong met American real estate agent and former actor Craig Strong.<ref name="Mulman-2" /><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> The couple married on May 14, 2000, and have two sons named Sammy (b. February 2002) and Aden (b. August 2004).<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> They lived in Los Angeles and were formerly the owners of VoiceStarz, an online company that taught people how to get into the voice-over business.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> On July 24, 2019, she filed for divorce,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> which was finalized on January 5, 2022.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> That same year, she started dating social media entrepreneur Willie Morris, who runs Happy Goat Farm, a farmland based in Yosemite.<ref>Template:Cite web
Note how the intro of that article incorrectly says she had "spent two decades as a single woman".</ref>

Activism

In 2012, during the BronyCon event in New Jersey, she attended a lunch with fans from the military.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> In 2013, she was involved with a charity group called Bronies for Good, helping them raise funds for a family whose daughter had a brain tumour.<ref name="Stern-2013" /><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

In July 2019, Strong participated in a Lights for Liberty demonstration in Los Angeles, which protested Donald Trump's immigration policy.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Strong has been a vocal supporter of Israel since the 2023 October 7 attacks.<ref>Template:Cite tweet</ref><ref>Template:Cite tweet</ref><ref>Template:Cite tweet</ref> She was fired from the independent animated series Boxtown after she liked several anti-Palestinian tweets and a tweet that equated all Muslims to Hamas and ISIS, and shared a screenshot from the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), which claimed Hamas would take over the world.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref name="IGN">Template:Cite web</ref> Bandit Mill Animation, the studio behind Boxtown, issued a statement explaining that "This decision was due to a trend among Tara's recent online activity, including posts that promote controversial messages regarding the peoples of Palestine currently being affected by the ongoing Israel-Palestine crisis... This was not a difficult decision."<ref name="IGN" />

In March 2024, Strong signed an open letter denouncing filmmaker Jonathan Glazer's Oscar speech for The Zone of Interest, in which he criticized Israel's actions in the Gaza war.<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref>

References

Sources

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External links

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