Rick And Morty Star Kari Wahlgren's Recording Session Outfits Are Often Influenced By Her Characters
Voice actors are a mysterious bunch. Their work can be just as influential as any live-action actor, but when they're waiting in line in front of us at the bagel stand, we don't recognize them (unless they're Mark Hamill). Voice actors typically don't need to concern themselves with numerous factors necessitated by live-action shoots: sets, costumes, makeup, etc. In theory, voice actors need simply arrive at the recording studio on time with their best selves. In practice, maybe there's a little more to it than that.
While "Rick and Morty" happens to be the most popular project Kari Wahlgren has been involved with recently, she's also provided at least a vocal performance or two for basically every major cartoon produced during the last two decades. (So hypothetically, if the future of "Rick and Morty" was ever in doubt for any reason, she'd be fine.) According to a 2016 interview with Pop City Life, Wahlgren approaches her work with a little bit of a method acting-style sensibility.
"Sometimes the clothing I wear is influenced by the character I'm playing that day," she told the outlet. "If I'm playing a boy, I usually don't wear a sundress and heels! And I may dress in black if I'm playing more of a tough, badass character."
Wahlgren's wardrobe must be impressively eclectic
Considering the vast range of emotions Kari Wahlgren has recorded over the years, if she dresses to match her characters' moods, presumably she owns a wide variety and considerable number of garments. Wahlgren's breakthrough performance is probably the English dub of the gleefully inscrutable anime classic "FLCL," which premiered in the U.S. in 2000. In the first episode of "FLCL" alone, Haruko Haruhara goes from frantic to confident to innocent to berserker to mildly annoyed, and that only describes a part of one of Wahlgren's nearly 600 voice acting credits.
Wahlgren also told Pop City Life that her other pre-recording rituals include singing in the car and drinking lots of coffee. Meanwhile, her upcoming projects include a Netflix series called "My Dad the Bounty Hunter," and even though her old character Jessica achieved cosmic consciousness and broke up with Morty at the end of the Season 5 premiere, "Mort Dinner Rick Andre," it seems fair to assume Wahlgren could pop up somewhere in "Rick and Morty" Season 7.