Alumna Kristen Sullivan Gains Voice-Over Success

She can voice a small child one minute and a millennial the next

Even if you don’t know School of Communication, Media & the Arts alumna Kristen Sullivan’s name, you very likely know her voice. Sullivan, who graduated in 2015, is a voice actor who has lent her talent to dozens of products and animated characters.

Sullivan has been an actress her whole life. Initially, she didn’t plan to go to college, but she promised her mother she would get an associate degree to have two years of college “under her belt,” in case she needed another career path.

She applied to an internship with Elvis Duran and the Morning Show on iHeartRadio in New York City during her freshman year at Sacred Heart. In her two years there, she said, she discovered, “Wow, voice-over acting is a thing. It combined my passion for acting with my new love of radio that I found through Sacred Heart. And I’ve been doing that ever since.”

iHeartRadio staff began assigning Sullivan occasional one-liners, which grew into an on-air position as Nickelodeon Radio’s “Little Miss Know It All.” When she left her internship, she had an impressive demo reel to send out for prospective auditions and began to book commercial and animation work.

Sullivan has voiced commercials and instruction videos for Elf Pets, Scribble Stuff, Tula Skincare, Vagisil, Creative Café, Off the Hook dolls and more. She also voices the character of Rayne in the animated YouTube series, Hairdorables.

Her favorite project so far has been dubbing the lines of Japanese anime character Yuzuru Nishimiya—from the film, A Silent Voice—in English. “I flew out to Los Angeles to record and learn about how dubbing works. Here in New York, I do mostly commercial work, so that was a really different experience,” she said.

Sullivan had set up a professional recording studio in her apartment a year before COVID-19 sent many of her colleagues scrambling. “I was lucky; I built it just in time,” she said. “When COVID happened, a lot of voice talent were scrambling to build their studios and continue to work.”

Sullivan and her fiancé, John Leahy ’16, met at Sacred Heart and will be married in October. Leahy graduated as a finance major before finding his true passion as a firefighter in New York City. “In fact,” Sullivan said, “my whole friend group at SHU seemed to move toward the city. We are still very connected, going to each other’s weddings—we’re one big, happy SHU crew!”

When touring Sacred Heart while deciding on a college, Sullivan loved the campus’s small-community feel. “It’s not giant lecture halls where you don’t know anyone. You get to know your fellow students and your professors,” she said. She also suggests that new students get involved in campus life and “Don’t be afraid to change your major.”

“Sacred Heart made me more independent; made me come out of my shell,” she said. “My whole life is thanks to Sacred Heart; I feel. I grew up at Sacred Heart.”