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Talking To Himself is a trivia entry showcasing actors (usually voice actors) playing two or more characters and having them interact with each other. But on a good number of examples, it just shows up as actor voices multiple characters. Which is a clear sign of getting this trivia entry confused with Acting for Two. Perhaps people see this as the voice-acting version for Acting for Two? And also there's a similar-named trope Talking to Themself, where a character has a personality disorder and the personalities talk. Seen the former potholed with the latter on occasion. But aside from that and zero/insufficient context issues, it's clear that it's pretty much become Acting for Two: The Voice-Acting Edition. I did a wick check for this and here's what we're looking at:

  • Correct usage: 13
  • Actor just voices multiple characters: 19
  • Other incorrect usage: 2
  • ZCE/Insufficient Context: 15
  • Unsorted/Murky: 8

I have wondered if it can be renamed to something that resembles more closely to what the definition is. To something that shows the actor just doesn't voice multiple characters, but the characters interact with each other. Or would there be better ways to handle this?

Archived wick check

Wicks checked: 57 out of 57 from 3153 wicks


    open/close all folders 

    Correctly used (13/57) 
  1. Awesome.Eight Crazy Nights: Adam Sandler himself gets some awesomeness points for the song "Technical Foul." Whether or not you like Whitey's voice or even the song itself, there's something to be said about the fact that he's singing a trio by himself as three distinct characters! Especially the bridge, where Davey, Eleanore and Whitey do a point-counterpoint.
  2. Characters.Coming To America: (under Semmi via Spit Take): Semmi does one after being hit on in a bar by a Creepy Crossdresser... that wasn't supposed to be a crossdresser. "She" was played by Arsenio Hall, hitting on himself.
  3. Creator.Harry Shearer: Happens regularly on Simpsons, most notably in the case of Mr. Burns and Smithers, who almost always speak to each other when they both appear, but Smithers's "secret" crush on Mr. Burns and his backhanded flirty comments make Shearer notable as one of the few voice actors to hit on themselves.
  4. LetsPlay.Kikoskia: In-Universe as a Running Gag. If he's doing the voice of another, made-up character (Such as Rocket Jockey McGee from Action 52 or the Pirate during Guild of Dungeoneering), he will engage in conversation with that character. One of the more notable cases is his Legend of Grimrock LP, where he roleplays conversations between his four randomly-generated characters as he runs through the dungeon.
  5. Trivia.Beavis And Butt Head: Judge voices both title characters and several recurring ones as well, including Tom Anderson (using the voice that would later be more closely associated with Hank Hill), Van Driessen, McVicker and Buzzcut, as well as a handful of one-shot characters. Some scenes with upwards of four characters feature Judge as the only actor.
  6. Trivia.Goomzilla E 8 Luigis Quest: Goomzilla voices for all the characters that have a voice in this movie, so when they interact, they will fall into this, especially if their voices sound similar (i.e. Kamek and Solus).
  7. Trivia.Horizon Forbidden West: Talking To Herself: Ashly Burch voices both Aloy and Beta, two clones of the same woman (whom she also voices in audio and hologram datapoints). A few major plot-relevant dialogues feature her voicing both sides of the conversation.
  8. Trivia.Kamen Rider Ex Aid The Abridged Series: * Talking To Himself: This occasionally occurs.
    • The two Dans, father and son both voiced by SpecialForm12, spoke to each other in Cards Against Humanity.
    • The TokuSins video for the Brave special had ProtoDubs get kicked out of his chair by Hiiro, who he voices. For that matter, this is in full effect in the ProtoDubs voices everyone video.
    • During a stream, Emu and Makoto had to share a room together. Both are voiced by Madds McCool. They spoke to each other again in Chou Super Hero Taisen Abridged, with Emu and Yakumo also falling under this in the same movie.
    • In some of the videos on his personal channel, HyperJacob96 occasionally has the characters he voices in Ex-Aid Abridged interact with each other and/or with him.
      • In his Q&A video, Kiriya appears and ends up arguing with Jacob. Saki also appears, but both Kiriya and HyperJacob96 tell her to shut up, causing her to cry.
      • Another video by HyperJacob96 had Stinger (who he voiced in Chou Super Hero Taisen Abridged) and Kiriya trading jackets.
      • In his review of a bad "My Little Pony vs. Pokémon" rap battle by Animeme Rap Battles, Kiriya shows up near the end to call BS on Jacob's claim that he could probably make a rap battle as good as ERB's if he had the $10,000+ budget that "MLP vs. Pokemon" was made on, stating that Jacob would most likely spend the money on Orbs in Fire Emblem Heroes. Jacob retorts that it'd still be a better use of money than what Animeme Rap Battles made with it.
      • Kiriya, Heart, and Saki conversing with each other in a Steamed Hams video.
    • ProtoDubs has Loads and Loads of Roles, so it's only natural that his characters end up talking to each other at some point.
      • Ever since Graphite started being voiced by ProtoDubs, his ghost talking to Hiiro falls into this. This also comes into play with Hiiro and Another Hiiro in Chou Super Hero Taisen Abridged, with Another Hiiro even speaking to Graphite's ghost.
      • Proto voices everyone sans Emu and Beast in "Hiiro's Goofy Movie", including Hiiro's nurses Satsuki and Mizuki, so of course this happens.
    • A case of this in the original Ex-Aid that was averted in the abridged series. When Emu splits into the two Mighty Brothers, they speak to each other. Rather than both Ex-Aids being voiced by Madds McCool just like Hiroki Ījima voiced the both of them, Maddie only voices the teal one. According to his voice reel, ProtoDubs is actually the voice of the orange Mighty Brother (i.e. the one that Parad eventually becomes).
    • Kaito and Lucky, both voiced by Karn talk to each other in The Stinger of Gorider Abridged.
  9. Trivia.Ojarumaru: It eventually happens if you consider it's a long-running series and there's loads of characters, forcing the voice actors to play multiple roles. For example, Komachi sometimes interacts with Ojarumaru, and ever since the 4th series, both are voiced by Chinami Nishimura.
  10. Trivia.She Ra And The Princesses Of Power: Keston John provides the voice of both Hordak and Horde Prime, who speak to each other in "Destiny, Part 2". He also provides the voices of all of Horde Prime's clones in Season 5.
  11. Trivia.Song Of The South: When Johnny Lee was busy lending his voice to the ad campaign, Baskett filled in for him as Br'er Rabbit in one sequence, opposite himself as Br'er Fox, and did a damn fine job.
  12. Trivia.The Altered Adventure:
    • Gizzy Gazza voices his character and Barath, and the two characters interact in "Grave Robbers" and "The Spirit World"
    • Gizzy Gazza technically voices all characters in the non-machinima parts of the series. There are errors where Jen's voice and Sensei's voice briefly become his voice. This is the only one that's off; the ones that sandwich this are right
    • Sacheverell voices both Inferno and the Demon. The two characters talk to each other several times in the series.
  13. WMG.Transformers Rescue Bots: Because it'd be awesome to hear Steve Blum Talking To Himself as a hero and a villain.

    Actor just voices multiple characters (19/57) 
  1. Internet Jerk: (under Eminem's entry): In "Calm Down" he raps a brief passage as an internet music reviewer, in a stupid whiny voice.
  2. Characters.Dynasty Warriors Wei Kingdom (under Dian Wei via Boisterous Bruiser): Japanese-wise, Dian Wei sounds more boisterous, Hot-Blooded and joyful while being a badass bodyguard (in contrast to the more stoic, same-voiced Xiahou Dun). Toned down in the localization, where Billingslea tends to use a more deeper, scarier vocal emphasis on his "Coming Evil" persona, but retains the same personality.
  3. RoleAssociation.Film German (Under Muppets Most Wanted): Marvi Hämmer is replaced by the criminal Constantinenote  and is thrown in a gulag (one of the other prisoners is Frollo). Back with the Muppets, Constantine has the hots for Sebastian culminating in a marriage proposal, and makes Kabuto, Moe, Baloo, Danny and everyone else do whatever they want.
  4. Trivia.Dinosaucers: Several of the characters share the same voice actors:
  5. Trivia.Fudencio E Seus Amigos: Most of the characters are voiced either by Thiago Martins or Marco Pavão, making this happen a lot. The other voice actors also have multiple characters voiced.
  6. Trivia.Hearthstone Heroes Of Warcraft (under The Other Darrin): Many examples, especially most of the Chris Metzen-voiced characters. A non-Chris Metzen example, has Rexxar here voiced by Matthew Mercer rather than his VA ever since WarCraft III, Steve Blum.
  7. Trivia.Huntik Secrets And Seekers: In English, Dante Vale and Cherit share the same voice actor, Marc Thompson.
  8. Trivia.Himechan No Ribon: Himeko and Erika are voiced by Ikue Otani. Justified given that Erika is Himeko's Magical "other self".
  9. Trivia.I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream: There are a number of actors who did greater numbers of characters. These include:
    • Tom Myers as Benny and the Guard.
    • Julio Jeinson as the Cave Sentry and Surgat.
    • Anton Latreque as Murphy, the French Prisoner, and the Village Elder.
    • Philip James as Thomas and the Anesthetist.
    • Samuel Fenn as Brickman, Dr. Mengele, and the Angel.
    • Natasha Konduros as the Workstation and the Imp.
    • Edward Sayers as the Jackal, Translator, and the Chinese Entity.
    • Steve Savage as Harry (father of Glynis), the Loudspeaker and Id.
    • Melina Van Houk as Edna (mother of Glynis) and the Scullery Maid.
    • Valinda Barrett as Glynis, the Witch, and Manya.
    • Jonathon Ficcadenti as the Mutant Child and the Child Patient.
    • Norman Hicks as the Eyeless Patient, the Devil, and the Gargoyle.
    • Jeffrey Buckner "Buck" Ford as the Victim and the Superego.
    • And Skip Towne as the Workman, the Video Screen, and the Russian Entity.
    • It is rumored that Vernon Edwards, the voice-over for Anubis, also does the voice of the Ego, unless we are mistaken. Also, it is noted that whoever voiced Ted also did the voice for Tuttle.
  10. Trivia.Metalocalypse: Brendon Small, Tommy Blacha, Mark Hamill, up to eleven. Go ahead, check out Wikipedia. See how many characters these people voice, not including background characters. Regular voices are more than double the regular voice actors. The entire band and CFO are voiced by two people.
  11. Trivia.Mighty Magiswords:
    • As stated above, many characters are voiced by Kyle Carrozza.
    • In addition to Vambre, Grey Delisle also voices the Mysterious Hooded Woman, Princess Zange, and various female background characters.
  12. Trivia.Pink Panther Passport To Peril: Both Pink and Louie are played by Michael Sinterniklaas.
  13. Trivia.Santa Bears High Flying Adventure: Bobby voices both Santa Bear and Bullybear.
  14. Trivia.Spy Fox: Monkey Penny is voiced by Gina Nagy in every game except in Operation Ozone, where she is voiced by Anita Montgomery, who also voices Poodles Galore in said game.
  15. Trivia.The Cat Lady: The second and third Parasites are both voiced by David Firth, of Salad Fingers fame.
  16. Trivia.The Houndcats: Butler, Johnson and Michael Bell (the voice of Stutz) all doubled as villains and/or other guest characters.
  17. Trivia.The Jackalope Boyz:
    • Candi Milo voiced Arriba and the grannies.
    • Joe Alaskey voiced Manuel, Mr. Bulbous, Clauss Vegas and the White Elephant.
  18. UsefulNotes.Disney Actors J To L: Jim Cummings: Prolific voice actor who is the current voice of villain Pete, both Winnie the Pooh and Tigger, and also the voice of Darkwing Duck and a few other characters.
  19. Trivia.Zekes Pad: Due to only having five voice actors, several characters are voiced by the same person.

    Other incorrect usage (2/57) 
  1. TearJerker.Batman The Telltale Series (quote that's more in line with Talking to Themself):
    Harvey: It's okay, Bruce... I'll go... I don't deserve your help.
    Two-Face: Go off with your tail between your legs.
  2. WMG.Kamen Rider Zi O: Looks like it's most likely Jossed. In Episode 16, Oma tells Souga to his face that they are the same person, and they only way to stop becoming him is to give up being a Kamen Rider. When Souga destroys his belt, Oma ceases to exist. But when he takes Geiz's to fight an Another Rider, Oma comes back while Talking To Himself about how he knew his younger self couldn't help but Jump At The Call. Sinkhole

    ZCEs/Insufficient Context (15/57) 
  1. Music.Jon Lajoie: Every member of the WTF Collective is played by Jon.
  2. Trivia.A Certain Scientific Railgun: Brittney Karbowski as Misaka and the other clones. Justified since the latter were cloned based on her DNA.
  3. Trivia.Brave: Kevin McKidd voices both Lord MacGuffin and Young MacGuffin. The brogue he uses for them is a riff on his native Doric accent. Do they interact with each other?
  4. Trivia.Dark Fall: Two ghosts of children in 2090 have no relation to Myles or Morgan Hart, despite having the same actors.
  5. Trivia.Despicable Me 2:
    • Pierre Coffin as Kevin, Stuart, Bob, other minions and Evil minions.
    • Chris Renaud as other minions and Evil minions.
  6. Trivia.Duncanville (Under Acting for Two): Amy Poehler provides the voices for Duncan and Annie. Also overlaps with Talking To Himself and Crossdressing Voices.
  7. Trivia.Eight Crazy Nights: Aside from Davey, Sandler also voices Whitey, Eleanore, and the deer.
  8. Trivia.Fancy Nancy: Ruby Jay voices Rhonda and Wanda, who are twin sisters.
  9. Trivia.Hellwinkle: Due to having five main characters and only two (later three) voice actors.
  10. Trivia.Legend Of The Three Caballeros: Jessica DiCicco voices April, May, and June.
  11. Trivia.Marvel Mash Up: Applies to several voice actors.
  12. Trivia.Star Trek The Next Generation: Riker in "Second Chances". Any time Lwaxana Troi interacts with the computer.
  13. Trivia.The Ren And Stimpy Show: Both main characters were voiced by Billy West after John Kricfalusi, Ren's original voice actor, was fired. Needs to mention if they interact with each other
  14. Trivia.Uncle Grandpa: Pete Browngardt as himself and Uncle Grandpa in one scene in "Cartoon Factory".
  15. WebVideo.The Fantastic Favio Bros: Tony and Dr. Lucifer.

    Unsorted/Murky (8/57) 
  1. The Danza: One Danza that is not the main character (and isn't their biggest part in the show) is Cree Lincoln from Codename: Kids Next Door who is voiced by Cree Summer, who also voices her little sister, Abby/Numbuh 5). Another minor character, Numbuh 362, is voiced by Rachael MacFarlane and given the name Rachel. Can be assumed that since Numbuh 5 and Cree are sisters, they share a scene together, but perhaps it needs more context?
  2. Funny.Brony D And D: Hana is mentioned, specifically how she dealt with Ravvas, leading to Aramau talking as both herself and Hana in the chat.
    Aramau: Knowing Hana, she'd just spit in his face, call him an idiot, and swing for his head.
    Hana: sneeze
  3. SugarWiki.He Really Can Act (under Lesli Margherita's entry): A subtler example is in one of the vlogs, where she has a conversation with Wormwood. She (herself) calls Wormwood a bad parent, to which Wormwood replies, "I'm not a bad parent, I have a bad daughter." A line that shows she clearly knows Wormwood inside and out. Does it count where the person not-acting talks to an acted character?
  4. Trivia.Legend Of The Galactic Heroes: Mostly averted. Even guest characters or one-shot characters are often voiced by a voice actor unique to that character. In one example, the notoriously laconic Ernst Eisenbach spoke only one word on screen. He was voiced by actor Masane Tsukayama who had no other role in the series. By the end of the original series' run, almost every living Japanese voice actor had voiced at least one character on the series.
  5. Trivia.Persona 5:
    • The characters' main Personas are voiced by their respective wielders. This makes Joker's Large Ham tendencies as a thief even more pronounced when Jun Fukuyama and Xander Mobus start Chewing the Scenery when he awakens to Arsène.
    • Aki Toyosaki and Carrie Keranen are respectively the Japanese and English voices for twin Velvet Room attendants Caroline and Justine, who rather than twins are the two halves of Lavenza, also voiced by the same actresses.
    • Sora Amamiya and Laura Post likewise voice twin sisters Kasumi and Sumire Yoshizawa.
  6. Trivia.Video Game Dunkey: First example is correct, but the second is just actor voices multiple characters
    • The main theme in his Draven video, where he voiced the 2 commentators named "Bobby Tortilla" and "Dyrone Tonk". The video ends with them screaming at each other.
    • In "Did He Ryzed?" he voices both himself and a few annoying kids in the background.
  7. Trivia.Wabbit A Looney Tunes Production: First example is correct, but again rest of them goes into actor voices multiple characters
    • Bob Bergen voices both Porky Pig and the newly returning Gabby Goat, who both interact with each other in "Gettin' Your Goat".
    • Same thing with Jeff Bergman from above trope, who voices Bugs, Elmer and Foghorn.
    • Other voice actors do multiple roles, too (e.g. Carlos Alazraqui as Leslie P. Lilylegs and Elliott Sampson).
    • Baker voices both Squeaks and his pool shark cousin Shifty Squirrel.
    • Jeff Bennett voices Hubie and Bertie. Eric Bauza voices them later on.
  8. VideoGame.Chain Chronicle: Akira Ishida has taken up to eleven where he plays at least fourty-six characters in the game. Depending on who you have for your Volunteer Army, Talking To Himself happens frequently. It does seem correct, but I'm not sure if more context is needed

Edited by MacronNotes on Jun 8th 2023 at 2:31:26 PM

Amonimus the Retromancer from <<|Wiki Talk|>> (Sergeant) Relationship Status: In another castle
GastonRabbit Sounds good on paper (he/him) from Robinson, Illinois, USA (General of TV Troops) Relationship Status: I'm just a poor boy, nobody loves me
Sounds good on paper (he/him)
#52: May 27th 2023 at 5:19:21 AM

I'll go ahead with that.

Edit: I disambiguated Talking To Himself between Acting for Two and Talking to Themself and reverted Talking To Himself's original redirects, Talking To Herself and Talking To Yourself, to go back to pointing to Talking To Himself instead of them pointing to Talking to Themself.

Edited by GastonRabbit on May 27th 2023 at 7:27:58 AM

Patiently awaiting the release of Paper Luigi and the Marvelous Compass.
Yindee Just stoic wisdom. from New England Since: Jul, 2016
MacronNotes (she/her) (Captain) Relationship Status: Less than three
(she/her)
#54: Jun 8th 2023 at 11:29:32 AM

It's just that no one cut and archived it yet. I just did.

Macron's notes
GastonRabbit Sounds good on paper (he/him) from Robinson, Illinois, USA (General of TV Troops) Relationship Status: I'm just a poor boy, nobody loves me
Sounds good on paper (he/him)
#55: Jun 15th 2023 at 5:09:17 PM

I noticed that ~Ian07 added a Wick Cleaning Projects entry claiming we merged Talking to Themself with Acting for Two. That's not what we did; we merged Talking To Himself (and its feminine redirect, Talking To Herself) with Acting for Two. Talking to Themself is a separate trope, not a gender-neutral redirect to Talking To Himself, and the confusing similarity between the names is why we initially redirected Talking To Himself and Talking To Herself there before making Talking To Himself and Talking To Herself Green Links instead.

Edited by GastonRabbit on Jun 15th 2023 at 7:10:26 AM

Patiently awaiting the release of Paper Luigi and the Marvelous Compass.
Ian07 he/him from New Jersey, US Since: Jul, 2022
he/him
#56: Jun 15th 2023 at 5:21:01 PM

Hi, sorry about that; the redirect threw me off like you said, and I unfortunately missed the part in the Trope Report about Talking to Themself being an unrelated trope. Thanks for letting me know and for correcting the WCP entry.

Relationship status: you make my xp5_giligz36asgv04a4 xp2_8e1t2kgz0c452
AudioSpeaks2 He/Him (Greenhorn) Relationship Status: Oh my word! I'm gay!
AudioSpeaks2 He/Him (Greenhorn) Relationship Status: Oh my word! I'm gay!
He/Him
#58: Jul 24th 2023 at 3:07:50 AM

Btw there's a typo in the crowner description. It erroneously says "Taling To Himself"

Art Museum Curator and frequent helper of the Web Original deprecation project
GastonRabbit Sounds good on paper (he/him) from Robinson, Illinois, USA (General of TV Troops) Relationship Status: I'm just a poor boy, nobody loves me
Sounds good on paper (he/him)
#59: Jul 24th 2023 at 7:54:35 AM

[up]Temporarily unlocked the crowner and fixed it. (Crowners can't be edited if they're locked, so I had to do this before I could edit it.)

Patiently awaiting the release of Paper Luigi and the Marvelous Compass.
GastonRabbit Sounds good on paper (he/him) from Robinson, Illinois, USA (General of TV Troops) Relationship Status: I'm just a poor boy, nobody loves me
Sounds good on paper (he/him)
#60: Aug 8th 2023 at 4:55:26 AM

We're at exactly 300 wicks. I might work on this later, but right now my arms are achy.

Edited by GastonRabbit on Aug 8th 2023 at 6:55:34 AM

Patiently awaiting the release of Paper Luigi and the Marvelous Compass.
AudioSpeaks2 He/Him (Greenhorn) Relationship Status: Oh my word! I'm gay!
He/Him
#61: Aug 8th 2023 at 5:30:31 AM

[up] I'll take care of it. At least for the Trivia/ namespace anyway

Art Museum Curator and frequent helper of the Web Original deprecation project
Berrenta How sweet it is from Texas Since: Apr, 2015 Relationship Status: Can't buy me love
How sweet it is
#62: Aug 8th 2023 at 9:05:50 AM

Down to 138. We're getting close!

Edit: Double digits. Here we go!

Edited by Berrenta on Aug 8th 2023 at 12:27:55 PM

she/her | TRS needs your help! | Contributor of Trope Report
prettycoolguy Since: Nov, 2010
#63: Aug 9th 2023 at 6:58:11 AM

When wick cleanup is done, will all the names in the disambig revert back to redirects for Talking to Themself? The disambig page was done more for convenience during cleanup than anything.

taotruths Since: Oct, 2014 Relationship Status: Shipping fictional characters
#64: Aug 9th 2023 at 8:15:06 AM

I think the disambig for Talking To Himself might still benefit some people, cause there might be some who are tempted to use the term when talking about voice actors (me included), or referring to the Talking to Themself trope also refer to it as such.

Glad to see this being knocked down to double digits after helping clean this up two months or so ago.

Edited by taotruths on Aug 9th 2023 at 8:20:10 AM

GastonRabbit Sounds good on paper (he/him) from Robinson, Illinois, USA (General of TV Troops) Relationship Status: I'm just a poor boy, nobody loves me
Sounds good on paper (he/him)
#65: Aug 9th 2023 at 11:17:19 AM

Yeah, I don't think leaving the disambiguation page up will hurt anything, especially since it'll direct people to both Acting for Two (which Talking To Himself was merged with) and Talking to Themself (which sounds confusingly similar, but is a separate trope).

Patiently awaiting the release of Paper Luigi and the Marvelous Compass.
GastonRabbit Sounds good on paper (he/him) from Robinson, Illinois, USA (General of TV Troops) Relationship Status: I'm just a poor boy, nobody loves me
Sounds good on paper (he/him)
#66: Aug 9th 2023 at 11:09:28 PM

This one's done, so locking up.

Patiently awaiting the release of Paper Luigi and the Marvelous Compass.
Add Post

Trope Repair Shop: Talking to Himself
14th Oct '22 5:17:06 AM

Crown Description:

Talking To Himself is misused. In addition, there has been confusion with Talking With Themself, which is a separate trope and not a gender-neutral redirect. What should be done with Talking To Himself?

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