“I’d never been to Los Angeles before, let alone attended an award ceremony in the same venue they host the Golden Globes," explained Nick Maddern when recalling his brush with Hollywood royalty as a finalist at the Society of Video Arts and Sciences (Sovas) awards.
"So it was a pretty memorable experience to see your name flash up on the big screen while the likes of Bono, Meryl Streep, and Paul Rudd were sitting on nearby tables.
"Although I didn't win, it's definitely one for the family scrap album,” he added.
After a lifetime spent using his voice to great effect Nick has twice been nominated for the 'Body of Work award' by Sovas.
You may not know his face. Voice actors are like spies. They do a lot of work behind the scenes but don’t get much recognition outside of their closed circle. However, Nick’s voice can be heard on everything from video games like War Hammer to documentaries like One Million Cayenne, campaigns for the likes of FIFA and UEFA, and commercials that advertise everything from Adidas and UnderArmour to Twix and Nivea.
Yet global fame and household recognition were never a motivating factor for the man who has lived in the Netherlands for the last 15 years.
In fact, his whole career as a voice artist for the best part of 30 years began by accident.
Nick told the Chronicle, “I was working in sales and marketing in a local radio station and one day a New Zealand guy called Shane who worked there hauled me into a recording studio and said ‘I think you’ve got a perfect voice for this commercial we’re doing. Fancy it?’”
Nick explained that he went ahead and did it for a laugh and didn’t think any more of it, and then….
“Out of the blue, this big agency called up and asked me if I was available for work. One thing led to another and I ended up doing the voiceover for the UK radio commercial for the FIFA World Cup 98 and I’ve never looked back since,” said Nick.
Keen to capitalise on his lucky break and keep the momentum going, Nick’s strong work ethic has seen him travel the world to work on a diverse array of projects.
Since 2013 he’s been a TV show narrator for ESPN International and Sky Sports, and most recently he was the live ceremony announcer at the UEFA Golden Shoe Awards. He is also the voice of a new Nivea/Liverpool FC commercial that airs later this month.
It’s not bad work if you can get it!
“I feel very privileged to do what I do,” explained Nick. “As a voice actor it’s quite easy to say grounded because you’re very anonymous. But I love the diversity of it and never get bored. I never harboured any ambitions to see my name in lights and for me, the important thing is that people in the industry recognise what I can do, and the work doesn’t dry up. Ever since I had an inkling that I could make a career out of this, I was thinking, ‘I know I can do it, so let’s see how far I can take it.’”
And when that road led to an awards ceremony in Hollywood, Nick admits it was a ‘pinch yourself moment’ for the boy who attended Brynmawr comp and has never forgotten his roots.
Nick explained, “No matter where I live I’ll always view myself as a proud son of Gwent. My parents, Chris and Rae still live in Gilwern and were both teachers at Cross Ash School for years. But the biggest lesson they taught me from an early age was to stay positive and be content with the life you have because the grass isn’t always greener.”
As a keen rugby fan, Nick often turns out for one of the local teams in the city of Den Bosch where he lives with his partner and children.
“It’s quite funny.” He explained. “I wasn’t aware of the strong Welsh connections with Den Bosch until I first moved here and saw the local team singing ‘Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau’ one day before a match.
“I thought, ‘Hang on, why are they singing the Welsh national anthem?’ Turns out that the city was liberated from Nazi rule by soldiers from the 53rd Welsh Infantry Division, 146 of whom gave their lives fighting for the town. And every year on the anniversary of the liberation there’s a match between the local club and a Welsh team.”
Although they have grown up in the Netherlands, Nick is keen for his two sons to embrace their roots and often takes them back to Wales and visits to his mother’s hometown of Ebbw Vale. They have also grown up sharing Nick's passion for rugby.
“They’re both players and part of the WRU Exiles programme,” revealed Nick. “My eldest, who is 16, has dreams of pulling on the red jersey, but who doesn’t?
“There’s quite a funny story actually. My son was playing at an Exile event at Brecon a short while ago, when he came over to me and said, ‘Dad, there’s a guy with a clipboard who keeps looking at me.’ It turns out it was former Wales coach Gareth Jenkins who was there on behalf of the Scarlets Academy."
As a veteran voice-over artist, Nick has seen a lot of changes in the media industry in the last few decades, but like many, he sees AI as potentially the biggest game changer, and not necessarily for the better.
“I don’t hate AI. I think for curing diseases and improving green energy it can be very effective. I just think in the creative and media sector it needs proper regulation, otherwise, we’re in danger of extinguishing that special spark that makes us human.”
In a recent letter he sent to Monmouthshire’s MP Catherine Fookes, Nick wrote, “To allow algorithms trained on original human work, to then replace those very same people. In my opinion is nothing short of a crime.”
He added, “My recording career has taken me from Barcelona to London, to Amsterdam to LA, and my voice is heard every single week on every continent of the world in some shape or form. You see, voice actors don't get the same recognition as on-screen actors, as we're just a voice you hear.. and you don't know it's us.
“But behind every snippet, every call to action, every character in a video game, every TV commercial, every documentary narration, there's a real person, with a story, with a family, with a livelihood... and linked to all of this, are the people who sit behind their mixing desks, the sound engineers, the creatives.. and we’re all together, bouncing ideas off each other, spontaneous and organic.”
Of course, the best way to defeat AI is to keep innovating, creating, and putting your own unique spin on things. As such, earlier this year Nick launched a brand new YouTube channel about unsolved historical mysteries called ‘Did That Really Happen!?’
In a series of videos he scripted, filmed, edited, and of course narrates, Nick covers everything from Napoleon’s Rabbit Revolution to the infamous Dancing Plague.
Nick explained, “It’s a labour i'veof love really. I’ve combined my life-long love of off-the-wall history and the years spent in TV and film studios watching how things are put together and decided to create something that I’m both the face and, surprisingly enough, the voice of as well.”