If you were a child growing up in the mid to late nineties and loved anime, it is without question you would recognize Terri Hawkes’ iconic voice. Most well known as one of the original three voice actresses of Sailor Moon in the English language dub (Tracey Moore would be the first, leaving for creative differences, followed by Hawkes, and then Linda Ballantyne rounding it up when Hawkes would leave due to her pregnancy), Hawkes voiced Sailor Moon/Serena Tsukino for 69 episodes and three feature films in the English language dub, and most likely hers is the voice you immediately hear in your head when someone mentions the now infamous “DiC Dub”.
Recently, Hawkes made an appearance at Collect-A-Con Richmond, exciting many Sailor Moon fans of young and old. Hawkes doesn’t often do convention appearances so it was no shock that her line was the longest of them all. She took time to chat with everyone who came through, listening to stories from folks who were more recent fans, even as far back as fans around my age who vividly remember growing up with the anime and the manga, getting up to watch it as early as 5a or nearly toppling over themselves getting off the school bus to make it to the living room in time to hear the all too familiar tune of “Fighting evil by moonlight…”
Hawkes’ story of how she came to be cast in what is her most famous role is a very cinematic moment that in hindsight reflects what would initially be a very fast paced environment. What was originally supposed to be a nice evening with friends in her native Canada, soon became an evening that would change her life.
“I was on my way to take my friends to the Hockey Hall of Fame in Toronto when I got a phone call from my then-agent. They said there was a show called Sailor Moon,” Hawkes recalled. “They wanted to find the voice of Sailor Moon and wanted to meet with me right away.
So I arranged for my young friends to come with me to the audition. They sat in the waiting room while I went in to audition. I was in there for a little while, and when I left, I thought, ‘Well, that’s kind of an interesting show. They were scouts, Sailor Moon, and this troop of Sailor Scouts fighting the Negaverse. Oh, that’s interesting.’”
Then I got a call saying they wanted me to do the role of Sailor Moon. It was really unusual to receive a call that quickly. I said, ‘Okay, that sounds great. Let me know when we’re going to start recording, and I’ll be there.’ My agent replied, ‘Now, they want you now.’”
Much of the recording process for the English-language dub of what would today be known as the most popular shoujo anime in the world was hectic even from the start due to tight deadlines. While the recording process for an animated series is certainly different in many ways from “traditional” acting, Hawkes was still able to apply her classical theater training to the role.
“The medium may be slightly different, but the goal of good, interesting, compelling storytelling is the same,” said Hawkes. “I would say that about acting, too. The medium is different, like from stage to theater, TV, anime, animation, radio drama, but the goal is [the same].
The thing is to fulfill one’s role as the storyteller, and then also one’s role as the character as imagined by the writer. Then, of course, there are other influences as well, [such as] the other actors, the directors, people responsible for design, the producers, etc. The preparation for me is pretty much the same in all those mediums as an actor and as a director, and I rely on my training for a strategy I have to prepare.”
Since originally leaving to focus on the birth of her twins, Hawkes has been involved in many other projects, such as Toast in Bee and Puppycat and Love-A-Lot Bear in Care Bears, among many others. More recently, she returned to being in front of the camera in the web series Lady Ada’s Secret Society, where she plays Mrs. Hein, the headmistress.
In an interesting twist, Hawkes plays the antagonist in Lady Ada’s Secret Society, rather than the heroine we usually root for or at least support. Despite this, Lady Ada’s, which is a web series about a group of girls who rebel against their extremely traditional boarding school, is not that different from a certain animated series about teen girls dressed like sailor-suited soldiers after all.
“I was offered this recent job by Shannon Fester, who’s a friend, and she was a mentee of mine,” said Hawkes. “I loved the script. In some ways, it’s very similar to Sailor Moon. It’s about a group of girls in a school where they are discouraged from studying math, science, technology— all the STEM subjects. In other words, they’re discouraged from being themselves and following their passion.
But a group of girls love these subjects so much that they form an underground club, which they call Lady Ada’s Secret Society, and they use their science acumen to play pranks on the rest of the student body. They have a headmistress who thwarts them at every turn, and that would be me. It was great fun. I worked with a bunch of really talented young actors. Shannon’s writing is just yummy, funny, sharp, and meaningful, and Samantha’s direction was great. Andrew Hunter’s photography was beautiful.
It was just a really great group of people who brought this to life, and I’m looking forward to season two, which we should be working on in the new year.”
In addition to Lady Ada’s, Hawkes has also been focusing on her writing these days. Much of her work has been dramatic and comedic scripts for film, stage, and television, focusing on women’s and girls’ stories. She has amassed impressive credits, such as the animated Anne of Green Gables, and awards, including Best Television Pilot Winner at the Sydney Women’s International Film Festival for Fantasy Revenge, Inc.
She has even contributed to various academic writing and wrote the foreword for Sailor Moon Reflections by Roland Parliament (the voice actor for Melvin in the English-language dub), regarding Parliament’s memories and experiences during the recording of the original English-language dub.
From one writer to another, I always love talking shop and hearing what inspires them, as well as whose work they particularly admire to get a better look at their thought process. Hawkes was more than happy to indulge me along with her own goals as a writer.
“My goal as a writer would be to tell a good story for sure, but also to have meaning at the end of the day to somehow lift the audience up to present a social issue for contemplation, but to maybe code it in a little humor and fun and have the experience be entertaining as well as thought-provoking and hopefully maybe healing even if I’m going to aspire to something that’s really important to me,” said Hawkes.
“[As far as writers she enjoys are] Sally Wainwright is a UK writer. She writes really strong yet imperfect women with great humor and poignancy, and she’s so smart.
“[Also], Shonda Rhimes. She’s really been groundbreaking in so many ways, and she tackles really interesting scenarios with diverse, quirky casts and is not afraid to take risks. She’s a very good storyteller. I enjoy learning from her and Aaron Sorkin.
“I’m just about finished watching a whole run of The West Wing for the second time, even though he didn’t write Seasons Five on, but certainly the first four seasons of The West Wing are masterclasses in writing. He’s such a talented writer in terms of dialogue and character.”
I have been a passionate fan of Sailor Moon and the franchise since I was 8 years old, and I swore to Hawkes at the beginning of our call that I wouldn’t make our conversation solely about a certain blonde-haired meatball head with a talking black cat. Despite this, Hawkes was happy to let me ask my final question about our girl.
Whenever someone speaks to someone who is a part of what can only be deemed a “legacy” franchise, inevitably some variation of the question “Did you know that this was going to be huge?” comes into play. Certainly, no one can truly know that something is going to be life-changing on so many levels, but it’s an easy enough question to get that person to share their thoughts regarding said IP from then to now.
That said, Sailor Moon is easily the type of franchise that, even at the time, was gaining momentum around the world at an incredible pace. Out of curiosity, I wondered if there was any inkling that this franchise was something special—regardless of how you interpret that.
“I have always been drawn to stories about community and the strength of community, and also to female-centric stories about girls and women because I think that historically they’ve been underrepresented in stories in entertainment, and that’s changing now,” said Hawkes. “There’s still some inequity, but it’s changing. I really like the idea that this was a story about girl superheroes who are these regular imperfect students by day and superheroines by night, more or less. It really resonated with me as being a cultural phenomenon I hadn’t actually thought about, and I didn’t really know what anime was then. It was very new to me.
I could not have foreseen that this was, and still is, considered the gateway to anime by many people. I didn’t have that context to understand that. But when I first realized that this was a phenomenon beyond what I had imagined was actually on a phone call with my mother, who lived in Calgary. It was Halloween, so this must’ve been the late nineties, I guess. She loved Halloween. She used to dress up and greet the kids at the door and kind of play pranks as well. She just had great fun. In fact, she’s the one who got me into community theater in the first place.
Anyway, my mom phoned me and said, ‘Honey, I’ve been answering the door all evening, and all of these little kids are dressed up as Sailor Scouts.’ I said, ‘You’re kidding?’ She said, ‘No, no, and I tell them I’m Sailor Moon’s mom.’”
For more information on Terri Hawkes including upcoming convention schedule, visit her website HERE.
