Artist Profile: Sarah Natochenny on Her Life Changing Career Voicing the Pokemon’s Ash Ketchum

Sarah Natochenny has recently finished her time voicing main character 10-year-old boy, Ash Ketchum, in the English Dub of “Pokémon” — a role she held for 17 years. The Harvard Crimson sat down with the New York City native to discuss her feelings about her personal career growth in the acting industry, and her departure from this well loved anime character.

“Voice acting is acting. To be a voice actor, you need to have a solid foundation as an actor first,” Natochenny said.

Natochenny elaborated that she specifically likes voice acting because it allows her to play any character regardless of what they look like.

“I’m never limited to my body, or how I look,” she explained.

In addition to “Pokémon,” Natochenny has voice acted in many different pieces of media, including the video game “Bullet Witch,” animated series “World of Winx,” and another animated television show, “Super 4.” She has had the opportunity to act in cartoons that are English dubs, as well as written in English.

“In the dubbing world we call original animation ‘pre-lay.’ That's because we lay down the audio before anybody animates anything. Sometimes they'll give us an animatic — which is kind of a rough animation. But everything we do dictates the animation. And dubbing is the opposite, it's already been fully produced in another language, and we get the fully finished animation with the voice actors of the other language — Japanese in anime. It's our job to not necessarily honor their performance, but to honor what's on screen. So it is a different approach,” Natochenny said, discussing the differences between the two styles of voice acting.

Natochenny also discussed the “freedom to improvise” and “change the scripts” when receiving an original animation’s pre-lay in comparison to dubbing.

“But to say that you can improvise very much in dubbing would not be factual. There’s definitely a lot of freedom to improvise and play and change the scripts in pre-lay,” said Natochenny.

It’s safe to say she has a wealth of experience when it comes to voice acting and the anime industry from all the projects she has worked on.

As a testament to all her hard work, Natochenny has had the opportunity to be a guest at Anime Boston — an annual three-day convention in Boston that celebrates Japanese art, culture, and media — and has recently been nominated for a Webby Award. According to the organization's website it is “the leading international award honoring excellence on the Internet.”

“It's changed my entire life actually,” Natochenny answered when asked about how fans’ support has impacted her. She also explained that voice acting can be “lonely” at times, so experiencing fans wanting to come talk to her and tell her about how her work has impacted them has been “most rewarding part” of her job.

Before Natochenny started doing conventions, she had limited exposure to this “wonderful fanbase,” and she was quite shocked how supportive they are of her work.

Natochenny went on to share her experience at Anime Boston in conjunction to being nominated for a Webby. The actress said she had explained to everyone at the convention that she was nominated, and stated if she moved up to fourth place she would give away a signed Funko Pop. “And it happened. I actually moved up to third place. People are so amazing. They all voted for me for the Audience Award,” Natochenny beamed as she described the support she got from convention fans.

“At the closing ceremonies, I ran around the audience — I reported back that I've moved up to fourth place, and ran around, and then found an amazing cosplayer actually, and gave him the Funko Pop,” Natochenny recalled.

“What I learned about myself is very interesting, actually, because I used to be very reclusive,” Natochenny said, elaborating on her personal growth during her acting journey.

“Ash Ketchum was my first protagonist, and I kept booking roles, these protagonist roles. And I started asking myself why is that? Why are they casting me in roles that are characters that are so adventurous and outgoing and extroverted? There must be something in me that's like that. So I did a lot of work on myself, and I started to recognize that part of myself, and now I can't stay home at all.”

After describing how her voice acting work has influenced her as a person, she reflected on the end of her time voicing Ash.

“I'm very sad to say goodbye to Ash. I don't think I'll ever really say goodbye to him. He's such a part of me and I, such a part of him,” Natochenny admitted.

Despite this, Natochenny discussed how much Ash has been a part of her life, the events of his life in the show reflecting events in her own.

“We have all these parallels,” she said. “We were canonically born the same year. In 1999, he won the Orange League. I won a bronze medal in the junior olympics for rhythmic gymnastics that year. 2019, he won the Alola League. I won a Voice Arts award. And now it's 2023 — he won the World Championship. And hopefully, I'm gonna win that Webby. I have to win something. Otherwise, I'm gonna go to a claw machine in Japan and try to win a plushie, but I really don't want that to be the story.”

Natochenny went on to describe how she adopted a cat named Pikachu. They didn’t quite get along in the beginning but now they’re best friends. Natochenny emphasized how she will “never forget” the character, and described her story with Ash Ketchum as “bizarre” and “meant to be.”

“I'm also glad that children around the world who watched the show now, and adults alike, have this change to go through all together, in such a safe way. Because life is so full of changes. And to take a character that's so beloved by so many people away from the public like this is, I think a very healthy thing to do."

In addition to this, Natochenny described how important she felt Ash and his journey has been to viewers.

“And it's great that we have 25 years of a character who wasn't that great. He wasn't a great Pokémon Trainer, he made so many mistakes. He finally won the world championship to teach people that you can work hard and persevere and be kind and make friends, and still come out ahead,” Natochenny said as she analyzed the impact that Ash Ketchum had on fans.

Natochenny has not only voiced characters in various mediums, but she has also worked behind the screen, editing documentaries for MSNBC as well as some other projects.

“Power. You have a lot of power as an editor. It's actually really interesting. As an actor, you're serving the production,” she said. “As an editor, you have a much more powerful position. You get to say where things go. You get to say that part is not funny, or you get to take an actor's performance and make it funnier. You get to tell a different story than the story that was presented to you in the footage.”

Natochenny described how sometimes it feels like actors have less control over their careers.

“It's not a great way to feel, because an actor should have a lot of power over their career. It's an important lesson to learn that we actually do have that power,” she expanded on her comparison between acting and editing.

Since departing from Pokémon, Natochenny has been voicing Yuzuha in “Tokyo Revengers.”

“Getting to use my own voice. I'm using my natural voice to play a really cool character. Someone who's just kind of slick and fun, she takes, she doesn't suffer any fools so I enjoy doing that. And it’s fun to do something that's geared towards a more adult audience,” Natochenny shared.

When asked if she had any closing remarks, Natochenny gave our readers some very straightforward advice: “Be the best, the very best. Like no one ever was.”

—Staff writer Hailey E. Krasnikov can be reached at hailey.krasnikov@thecrimson.com