An interview with ‘Wabitha’

Tabitha leaning against an invisible wall. Because she can.

At GalaCon 2015 earlier this month (write-up coming soon™) we had a chance to speak to the one and only Tabitha. After asking her for over an hour about her favorite pony, how she got into voice acting, and what her favorite episode is, we also asked some other less hot questions.

As for the other shows you do, you go into the studio and you do all the voice acting

for a few weeks and then the show is done for the next year or so. With MLP however, you just stay in touch with everything. How does that make things different for you?

Well, most shows that are series you do like once a week—if you are a regular on it—or once every two weeks, I think. But it has been over a long period of time, it has almost been five years, so we do have a short hand. There are writers we really look forward to seeing again and again...

Like the one with the beard?

Yes, totally. It’s just very familiar, very easy. I don’t mean you don’t try to do your work, but  voice acting is like anything: you want to take it seriously because it’s actually a job

and you are actually getting paid, but you also take it very lightly and we are able to take it lightly because we know each other so well. We are able to be very playful.

You are confronted with Rarity throughout the whole year thanks to Twitter and conventions and such. Does that change things, too?

Well, when I talk to people in Rarity’s voice at conventions I can make stuff up, so I am kind of like a free range writer sometimes [laughter]. Not really, I mean I am not writing episodes. I don’t get bored of it because I am not repeating myself.

What about your other characters? Let's talk about Derpy. It was a whole fiasco; it developed quite interestingly. How was that from your point of view?

The beginning was mystifying. I didn't even know what the word meant. I wasn't aware of it until the ‘poopstorm’. And then, you know, it was what it was. I can understand why it happened, but to be completely honest, I miss the old one—the original one—because people speak differently everywhere. I think it was a person I would like to hang out with, just like someone who was sweet and helpful and just differently wired, and who doesn't know someone who is differently wired, right?

Did you also do the replacement voice?

Yes. [As for] the very first replacement voice, they just said they didn't want anything in it that anyone could say anything about, just completely straight up and I was like, “Oh my gawd, really? Do I have to?”

And then when she came around as M. A. Larson wrote her, she was able to have some of the attitude back. More kind of just flakey, sort of thing. And I didn't think that was boring.

Since you are in Germany, did you ever come in contact with a dubbed version of the show or one of the shows you voiced for? Did you ever see “yourself” voiced by another person?

Yes, in Finland we met Annelie (editor’s note: Anneli Heed, best known for voicing Spitfire in the Swedish dub) and she is awesome and she was very funny.
Someone sent me a tape of all the different Lunas going “the night will last forever, muhahahaha” and it’s really long! At the end of it there is someone from Brazil and there is a Dutch one, a German one, a Spanish one, an Italian one, and I was like “oh my gosh, so many!” I had no idea. But I thought the German lady was awesome, like her muhahaha laugh was very scary.

Well, that’s a very genuine thing.

[Laughter] No, she was great! It was very deep, I was like “whoa, that chick is frightening,” and the Dutch lady, too. She was pretty awesome.

And about Twitter: we remember that in the past you never wanted to join Twitter. Tara pushed you to join finally and now when we open our timeline it’s Tabitha, Tabitha, Tabitha. What happened?

Well, you know, I think I am going a little off it again, because it got a little dark over the last two years. It has been tough in the world for people and you can really feel that the pressure is on them and it has a little less lightness to it at the moment.

I mean, you can try and be the thing that brings all the energy to it, but it's actually work. At the beginning, I didn’t find it work at all; it just seemed to be really, really effortless and I don’t know that that’s because of who is in my timeline or... I don’t think so, I think it's just the times that we live in, because the collective is under such a pressure, which is why it's really nice to be in a place like this. The people are here with a specific intention of being friends with other people. It’s very nice.

[...] You know, things exist with their opposites, so it does literally sometimes just bring out the [snarl noises] in people. You have seen it with the little backlash that happens sometimes.

We pretty much know everything about that.

I guess you do. Yeah, the real [really deep voice] nightmare.

Do you have any short funny story from the studio?

Well, I mean, it’s very banal. It's just so terrible. [...] We know each other so well, we don't really need to talk. The funniest stuff happens when we mess up lines and the people's body language when they work is often very funny, but really [nothing] rib-tickling, thigh-slapping [trademark Tabitha laugh], you know. You do your work.

We always hear that you are the one that brings the cookies—or did you stop doing that?

I think there might be a mutiny. Although, it’s very hard to fatten them up these days. Everyone’s on a diet and being healthy and I feel like the witch in Hänsel and Gretel, [cackling witch voice] “Come on my pretties, here is a cookie.”

That’s pretty much all we had to ask. Just one weird question that we promised to ask: what does Luna smell like?

What does Luna smell like? [no pause whatsoever] Cheese. It’s the moon. Green cheese.

[...] No, that's a really poor answer. Don't print that.

(Editor’s note: it was the question that was terrible, the answer was brilliant!)

Thank you very much!