Miami Springs voice actor Mauriett Chayeb Mendez brings characters to life worldwide
Without an agent, union colleagues or trips to Hollywood, Miami Springs resident Mauriett Chayeb Mendez has found success as an international voice actor.
Chayeb Mendez, 35, worked for years behind the scenes as a production assistant on film and television projects for companies like VH1 and A24. A Craigslist ad looking for a voice actor changed her life.
Growing up in Hialeah as the daughter of a Syrian father, who spent much of his life in Venezuela, and Cuban mother, Chayeb Mendez was accustomed to hearing unique accents on a daily basis. After acing the ad’s audition, she was hired to act and do English dubbing for 52 episodes of Japanese animated series “Captain Tsubasa” and she hasn’t looked back since. Her projects range from movies like “Space Dogs: Tropical Adventure” to this year’s “Goodbye Monster” and are available on streaming platforms Peacock and Tubi.
Chayeb Mendez took time from recording at The Macias Group studio in Doral to discuss her journey in entertainment and her goal of inspiring other women from similar backgrounds. Her responses have been edited for clarity.
▪ How does your identity as a Cuban and Syrian woman reflect in your voice work?
The interesting thing is that in my culture, women don’t really have a voice. I get to be a voice actress and I get to project emotions that people in my culture aren’t even allowed to feel. Women aren’t supposed to be loud. We’re not supposed to be strong.
As a voice actor I’ve found a lot of power in that. You could be more and you could be bigger. You don’t have to be scared to make a ripple in the water. Because as a girl you want to be part of the crowd. No, I’m a voice actor. You have to be whatever the character wants and you have to embody whatever the director wants.
▪ You’ve been in the entertainment industry 15 years without an agent and are not a union-affiliated professional. What does it mean for you to break through as a voice actor this late into your career?
It’s a really big deal because I worked on all union productions. I was a non-union production assistant making $600 a week. People would make that in half a day working on these productions. It wasn’t even just being non-union but being a female, being of a different race and being bilingual.
You make less money than everyone else and you have less rights than everyone because with union people, they would care if you guys have been working for six hours and everybody needs a snack. They would work me 18 hours. I had to sleep under a table one time.
▪ How important is it to you for young women and girls to be able to see your professional journey?
It’s really important for little girls to know that they can make it to their dreams and not have to compromise on their morals if they try. You have to really put a lot of yourself into it. Nobody’s just going to hand you opportunities. That’s something that was big with me. Even in my college’s journalism school at the University of South Florida, when I said I was a journalist that was bilingual, they didn’t let me be on the news team because they thought it was weird that I spoke English and Spanish.
In 2009, being bilingual was still kind of strange on TV. So for me, I was proud that my first job was at MTV because I had to speak English, Spanish and had to write scripts. You get to share a lot of your culture that way.
▪ How important has it been to operate as a professional in the global marketplace? Streaming platforms have opened up new revenue streams for talent that we didn’t previously have.
I feel like a cowgirl. I’m in the Wild West of creation because Spain is making content. Italy is making content. I’ve made work with Belgians. During a session, Belgium is live in my left ear, and my right ear is my original voice. As I work, they’re making cartoons to my voice.
I’m from Miami, and grew up in Hialeah. I sometimes wonder what’s so important about my voice and remember that they want something different. They want something that sounds authentic. I love that we have made this work into a global marketplace where Miami gives more opportunities to local voice actors than Hollywood.
With the 305, we are like a secret dubbing world. We have four companies. It’s not just me that’s an actor. There’s hundreds of actors that are working 365 days a year just pumping out content like dubbing telenovelas from Turkey to put them in English. It’s just been really cool to put a lot of that content into English.
