Tara Strong

Early life

Strong was born as Tara Lyn Charendoff in Toronto, Ontario, on February 12, 1973, the younger daughter of Syd and Lucy Charendoff. Her parents are of Russian-Jewish ancestry, and her grandparents emigrated to Canada after fleeing pogroms in Russia. Strong has called her Jewish background "a big part of her identity". Her grandfather was a cantor, while her grandmother ran a catering business in Toronto's Beth Radom Congregation. She has a sister.

At age four, Strong became interested in acting and volunteered to be a soloist at a school production. 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.

Career

Strong's first professional role was Gracie in Limelight Theater's production of The Music Man at the age of 13. 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. Strong starred in the short-lived CBC Television sitcom Mosquito Lake. She took improv classes at The Second City in Toronto and continued acting in both animated and live-action shows and films, before moving to Los Angeles in January 1994.

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) 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.

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.

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. 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.

In 2004, she won an Interactive Achievement Award for her role as Rikku in Final Fantasy X-2. 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." Strong has been nominated five times for Annie Awards.

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

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.

Personal life

In 1999, Strong met American real estate agent and former actor Craig Strong. The couple married on May 14, 2000, and have two sons named Sammy (b. February 2002) and Aden (b. August 2004). 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. On July 24, 2019, she filed for divorce, which was finalized on January 5, 2022. That same year, she started dating social media entrepreneur Willie Morris, who runs Happy Goat Farm, a farmland based in Yosemite.

Activism

In 2012, during the BronyCon event in New Jersey, she attended a lunch with fans from the military. 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.

In July 2019, Strong participated in a Lights for Liberty demonstration in Los Angeles, which protested Donald Trump's immigration policy.

Strong has been a vocal supporter of Israel since the 2023 October 7 attacks. 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. 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."

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.

References

Citations

Sources

References

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22. (February 1, 2014). "27th Annie Awards". [[Annie Awards]].
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33. (July 13, 2023). "Tara Strong's 'First Boyfriend in over 20 Years' Owns a Goat Farm". Amomama.
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37. Strong, Tara. (October 8, 2023). "#Hamas has successfully brainwashed the western world to actually believe that #terrorism can be justified.".
38. Strong, Tara. (October 8, 2023). "You can want to help Palestine without supporting terrorism".
39. Strong, Tara. (October 8, 2023). "Absolutely devastating. I pray for peace. #IStandWithIsrael I fear for my family there. I fear for all suffering in this terrorist attack. Sickening how anyone condones or celebrates any violence.".
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42. Siegel, Tatiana. (March 18, 2024). "Over 1,000 Jewish Creatives and Professionals Have Now Denounced Jonathan Glazer's 'Zone of Interest' Oscars Speech in Open Letter (EXCLUSIVE)".
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