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Linda Ballantyne

First of all, thank you Linda Ballantyne for taking the time to do this interview! Seriously it's really exciting to actually be talking to Sailor Moon!

It's really my pleasure! It's been a while since I've done an interview and I'm really excited.

Me too! haha! You know I've seriously just been re-watching my Sailor Moon S and SuperS DVDs and to be speaking to you literally a week or so after watching them all is really surreal. Do you ever go back and watch the show yourself?

Ha! Well, Not regularly. A couple of weeks ago I was reminiscing and found the finale of Sailor Moon in English on the web, I was filled with lots of great memories, If I had much more time, I would sit down and watch the full series again. *smiles*

Yeah, I'll probably invite a couple of friends over and have a girly night in one night haha!

What was it like making Sailor Moon S and SuperS?

It was a fantastic experience. There were a lot of great and funny times, the director, he used to always tease me and make me go way overboard in some of my lines. I used to shout at him *Laughing* I really got into the character of Serena and I portrayed her as, sort of the girl everyone wants to be friends with, even with all of her imperfections. There.. there are lots of words I could use to describe my time on S and SuperS, I couldn't possibly get them all out, it was just...so, great!

Did you ever get to meet the other voice actors?

I think so, I don't really remember, It was such a long, long time ago, but I do remember that everybody I met through Sailor Moon were really great, funny people and I had a blast working with them.

How was it for you filling a role that had not only been done in another language but also by two previous English voice actresses as well?

Tough... I, Ha! I had a lot of shoes to fill, if thats even an expression haha, It was very tough. I never heard the very first actress but I did hear Terri Hawkes, we actually met before I started recording, she had an amazing voice and I just wanted to make sure, for her, that I didn't screw the character up. That's also something the company wanted to keep, They wanted Serena to still have the goofyness to her, but also, when it matters she can still be tough and very, very serious when she needs to be. *smiles*

Wow, that's really incredible that you had the chance to meet Terri Hawkes in person before filming. Was that through working on Sailor Moon or through some other connection?

Yeah it was, she's a great woman. I met her through the show, I don't know for sure, but I think she wanted some say in the next voice of Serena, if it wasn't for her pregnancy she would've reprised her role so, if she did have some say, I'm truly honoured ha-ha!

I remember being really amazed at the amount of people who were brought back to work on S and SuperS despite it being several years since the previous seasons were dubbed and a different company being involved. It seemed to be a combination of the old and the new.

Well, the whole dub was controlled by Optimum productions, I think it's been renamed now, but all the work was done by Dic and Cloverway. The casting was done by half of Optimum and half by the company Dic or Cloverway, at least I think that's what happend. But it was nice to work with the actors who were involved in the preceeding seasons.

What was it like working for Cloverway? From what I remember it was kind of a race to get these two whole seasons dubbed before the airdate, DVD release and the expiration of the rights.

Yes it was, Especially for S. I remember recording almost 14-18 episodes in the space of about 3 weeks. And I think that caused quite a strain on all of our voices. I remember, during one episode, I physically, could not yell "Moon Cosmic Power!" I was in so much pain. They had to use a previous episode archive sound of me saying that line. It was very hard sometimes.

That sounds really intense! At least that would have made for an interesting blooper, haha. Did you guys ever joke around with the lines in the studio? Any joke reels?

Not for that particular moment. But whenever I did a sort of Wail or scream, The editors would put it on loop. ha-ha. I remember one time, recieving an e-mail with just an image of an obese Sailor Moon and my voice screamimg. It was quite funny, One of the producers had it as their ringtone, aah, memories.

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