Lani Jean Minella (born July 28, 1950) is an American voice actress, voice director, and producer mostly working in the games industry. She is also the founder and owner of the voice-acting agency, AudioGodz.

Career

After college, Minella started on Morning Drive radio for an alternative station in the late 1980s. After hearing her celebrity impersonations, GTE Interactive Media contacted her and asked her to imitate voices from the movie '' FernGully: The Last Rainforest'', which was being pitched for a

LaserDisc The LaserDisc (LD) is a home video format and the first commercial optical disc storage medium, initially licensed, sold and marketed as MCA DiscoVision (also known simply as "DiscoVision") in the United States in 1978. Its diameter typical ...

presentation to

Magnavox Magnavox (Latin for "great voice", stylized as MAGNAVOX) is an American electronics company that since 1974 has been a subsidiary of the Dutch electronics corporation Philips. The predecessor to Magnavox was founded in 1911 by Edwin Pridham and ...

and

Philips Koninklijke Philips N.V. (), commonly shortened to Philips, is a Dutch multinational conglomerate corporation that was founded in Eindhoven in 1891. Since 1997, it has been mostly headquartered in Amsterdam, though the Benelux headquarters is ...

. She was then referred by the company to their CD-Roms division, where she worked on more voices and assisted script writing on games for children. Minella asked the company if there were others doing similar work, and they suggested that she should go to trade shows, which led her to attend showcases like

Consumer Electronics Show CES (; formerly an initialism for Consumer Electronics Show) is an annual trade show organized by the Consumer Technology Association (CTA). Held in January at the Las Vegas Convention Center in Winchester, Nevada, United States, the event t ...

in Las Vegas,

Game Developers Conference The Game Developers Conference (GDC) is an annual conference for video game developers. The event includes an expo, networking events, and awards shows like the Game Developers Choice Awards and Independent Games Festival, and a variety of tuto ...

in San Jose, and

Electronic Entertainment Expo E3 (short for Electronic Entertainment Expo or Electronic Entertainment Experience in 2021) is a trade event for the video game industry. The Entertainment Software Association (ESA) organizes and presents E3, which many developers, publishe ...

in Los Angeles, where she gave out business cards but failed to get any offers. This led her to start her AudioGodz, a production company specializing in all aspects of voiceovers from talent to casting, directing, writing and production, in 1992. In 1996, Minella worked on a major

first-person shooter First-person shooter (FPS) is a sub-genre of shooter video games centered on gun and other weapon-based combat in a first-person perspective, with the player experiencing the action through the eyes of the protagonist and controlling the p ...

video game, ''

Duke Nukem 3D ''Duke Nukem 3D'' is a first-person shooter video game developed by 3D Realms. It is a sequel to the platform games ''Duke Nukem (video game), Duke Nukem'' and ''Duke Nukem II'', published by 3D Realms. ''Duke Nukem 3D'' features the adventures ...

'', as voice director and actress, voicing most of the female characters in the series. She helped cast the voice actor of

Duke Nukem ''Duke Nukem'' is a video game series named for its main character, Duke Nukem. Created by the company Apogee Software Ltd. (now 3D Realms) as a series of video games for personal computers, the series expanded to games released for various co ...

Jon St. John Jon St. John (born December 19, 1960) is an American voice actor, former radio personality and ordained minister. He is best known for his voice roles such as Duke Nukem in the ''Duke Nukem'' video game series and Big the Cat and E-123 Omega i ...

. She met Jon when she was cast as the voice for a commercial he was producing in San Diego. After being impressed by her voices, Jon imitated the voices back at Minella and she asked if he had ever done voice acting for video games. She shortly got him a telephone interview with the game's creator,

George Broussard George Broussard is an American video game producer and designer, one of the creators of the ''Duke Nukem'' series (Todd Replogle, Allen Blum, and Scott Miller being the others). Broussard released his early games under the name Micro F/X. In 1 ...

, and eventually got him the part of Duke. Minella's first major voice role in a video game was for Her Interactive's adventure-mystery series ''Nancy Drew'', starring as the titular character

Nancy Drew Nancy Drew is a fictional character appearing in several mystery book series, movies, and a TV show as a teenage amateur sleuth. The books are ghostwritten by a number of authors and published under the collective pseudonym Carolyn Keene. Cre ...

, debuting with 1998's ''

Secrets Can Kill ''Secrets Can Kill'' is the first of many installments in the ''Nancy Drew'' point-and-click adventure game series by Her Interactive. Players took on the first-person view of fictional amateur sleuth Nancy Drew and solved the mystery through in ...

''. Minella reprised her role as Nancy Drew in 31 other video games, with her last being '' Sea of Darkness'' in 2015. Her Interactive's CEO then decided to find a voice actress local to the Seattle area (Minella resides in San Diego). Since starting her career and becoming well known for her unique four-octave vocal range, Minella has provided voices for many voices for other characters in a variety of video games, including Rouge the Bat in the ''

Sonic the Hedgehog is a Japanese video game series and media franchise created by Sega. The franchise follows Sonic, an anthropomorphic blue hedgehog who battles the evil Doctor Eggman, a mad scientist. The main ''Sonic the Hedgehog'' games are platformers m ...

'' series,

Ivy Valentine , commonly called , is a fictional character in the ''Soulcalibur'' series of video games. Created by Namco's Project Soul division, she first appeared in the original ''Soulcalibur'' and its subsequent sequels, later appearing in various merchan ...

in the ''

Soulcalibur is a weapon-based fighting video game franchise by Bandai Namco Entertainment. There are seven main installments of video games and various media spin-offs, including music albums and a series of manga books. The first game in the series, '' ...

'' series, and Lucas in the '' Super Smash Bros.'' series.

Personal life

Minella is half Italian from her father's side. In her spare time, she does vocal coaching, gardening, and taking care of her rescue pets.

Filmography

Animation

Feature films

Video games

Podcast

References

External links

* * – Minella's company website * *
Lani Minella
at Voice Chasers
Lani Minella at MobyGames
{{DEFAULTSORT:Minella, Lani 1950 births 20th-century American actresses 21st-century American actresses 21st-century American businesspeople American people of Italian descent American video game actresses American voice actresses American casting directors Women casting directors Living people Place of birth missing (living people) American sound designers Video game directors Video game producers American voice directors 21st-century American businesswomen