Naomi Payton: A Voice Actor Longing for Stardom, Makes Her Dreams Come True [Part 2 of 2]

Naomi Payton

Born: July 1, 2003
Height: 158 centimeters
Notable skills and favorite pastime: Cheerleading (won 2nd place in a national competition), singing, and watching anime
Beginning in 2021, Payton voiced the role of Sumire Heanna, a member of the school idol group called Liella! in the “LoveLive!！! Superstar!!” TV anime series. Payton made her debut as a solo singer with the release of her single “Mahou” on March 1, 2023. Her second single, “Nemesis,” released on November 3, 2023.

“I didn’t have the understanding of what acting was all about”

(Continued from Part 1)
Naomi Payton says she has grown as a voice actor while playing the roles she has been cast in. She says that being able to stay with one role for a long time is what makes the job of a voice actor so worthwhile and rewarding.

“If this were a role I was playing physically, I think, it would be far more difficult to play the same role again after you haven’t played it for some years, for example. That’s because your facial appearance changes as you get older,” she said. “I appeared in a music video clip when I was 15. If I’m offered that role again now, I think I would turn it down, saying it might be difficult for the present-day me to play the role of a 15 year old (laughs).

“But if it’s an anime character, you can play the role after many years even if it’s a high school girl. And that’s a great thing. Fortunately, I have experience in both physical acting and voice acting. My hope is to use that to my advantage,” she said.

Having come a long way in her career, Payton has now become aware of her strengths through the experience she has gained. Looking back, the memory that left the biggest impression on her heart was her first-ever voice acting role she played in “BATON=RELAY,” she said. BATON=RELAY, launched in 2020, was developed under "The Next-generation Voice Actor Heroine Project" and centered on a game app of the same name. In the game, the player becomes the director of a voice acting agency and directs the activities of 16 novice voice actors and watches over their growth. The in-game voice actors were played by novice voice actors, just as Payton was, making it a unique game in which reality intersects with the physical world.

“BATON=RELAY has a special place in my heart partly because it gave me my first role as a voice actor,” Payton said. “When I look back on it now, however, I realize I entered the studio soon after I finished taking lessons and had learned little about voice acting. I would rerecord all the lines if I could! On a positive note, you can hear the Naomi Payton in her natural self! (laughs). It’s just a girl talking as she normally would. I was bending over backwards to express emotions but my effort didn’t pay off no matter how hard I tried. It was such a major struggle.

“On the other hand, if I tried to play the same role now, I would end up creating a voice tailored specifically to the character, and I don’t think I would be able to produce the same voice as I did back then. That's why I think it has a special place in my heart. In addition, I have fond memories of the way the staff treated me so sweetly.

“Each time I went to the studio, even though I was doing a really poor job, they encouraged me by saying something like, ‘Payton-san, you have a strong voice and great potential.’ I'm sure they believed I would improve if they encouraged me. I felt grateful, but at the same time I kept feeling anxious and humbled, thinking, ‘I don’t deserve praise like this at all!’”

Payton apparently did not take the director of her debut work seriously when he said she had “great potential,” taking it just as a compliment. But her later work in “LoveLive! Superstar‼,” which became her signature anime, and her activities as a member of Liella! are convincing enough to make one believe it was not just a complement. Today, when she acts, sings and dances in front of tens of thousands of fans, she appears perfectly confident.

“Yeah, people often tell me, ‘You always seem confident,’ but it’s just me trying to look confident,” she said. “In reality, I'm so shy and I get really nervous when I do something. Tens of thousands of fans come to the arenas and dome stadiums for Liella!'s live performances, so I’m struggling to keep it together before stepping onto the stage. I’m like, ‘Oh, no, I’m so nervous. What should I do?’ I get so nervous sometimes that the younger members worry and try to cheer me up, saying, ‘You’ll be okay!’ So I keep writing ‘hito’ [the kanji character meaning ‘person’] on my palm” she said, chuckling. It’s a popular belief in Japan, that writing the kanji and pretending to swallow it will alleviate stage fright.

“I'd love to shout “kira!” in chorus with the audience”

It is likely that many fans have already read other interviews about Payton's voice-acting journey through this point, so let's dive a little deeper into her background. What was she like as a student? Also, from Payton's official profile, what exactly does the “Cheerleading (won 2nd place in a national competition)” refer to?

“I was doing cheerleading in junior high,” Payton said. “I enrolled in my junior high school because I admired the school's uniform, and when I went to the school information session, I saw cheerleading for the first time in my life. And it was so cool! I did classical ballet when I was in elementary school and loved dancing, but I wanted to try a different type of dance in junior high, so I joined the cheerleading club.

“However, I found out after joining it that they had extremely stringent rules. They even had a rule that didn’t allow members from participating in club activities if they didn't do well in their studies. My grades weren’t really good, so I always felt like I was barely surviving (laughs). But soon after, I began my work in show business so I unfortunately ended up leaving the club.”

Payton said the physical dexterity she developed through classical ballet and cheerleading has proven very useful in her current activities.

“Liella!'s dancing is not as demanding as cheerleading but it does require very lively movements, so I think my experiences from school are really helping me,” she said. “The same goes for the turning techniques from classical ballet. It [the set of techniques learned in classical ballet] has been helpful in finding ways to make my movements more beautiful in my performances while also helping me to maintain a good posture when standing. So I’m glad I did both.

“On the other hand, ballet is a dance where you have to maintain a high center of gravity in your body. So I'm really poor at street-style dances like hip-hop dance, where you maintain a low center of gravity and put your shoulders into the movements.

Payton is known among her fans as being a big anime fan, so much so that her childhood dream was to become a PreCure member. So we asked her to discuss her other anime-related memories.

“Oh my God! There are too many anime titles to mention,” she said. “I can never really name one, but I should at least never leave out the EVANGELION series. That said, I began watching it only recently, when I was in the second year of high school. I loved [voice actor] Kotono Mitsuishi’s work and I knew she played the role of Misato Katsuragi [a character in EVANGELION], but I tend to be put off by bloody or painful scenes, so I kind of stayed away from EVANGELION.

“But I thought that was not good for myself and I took on the challenge to overcome it. At first, I could only watch the battle scenes nervously from behind my fingers (laughs), but once I began watching it, I was totally engrossed! I began with the TV series and eventually watched all of the movies too, both the new and the old ones.”

She said there are anime titles that she became a fan of because of their theme songs, which sounds natural for her as she loves singing.

“What inspired me to watch Macross Frontier was its theme song, entitled ‘Lion.’,” she said. “'At the time, I often sang it as a duet with friends at karaoke and came to like the song before I saw the anime. So the song prompted me to watch the anime, which I came to love very much.

“Both May'n-san and Megumi Nakajima-san have a great singing voices, and Maaya Sakamoto-san’s ‘Triangler’ and Megumi Nakajima-san’s ‘Seikan Hikou’ are..., I mean, all the songs are masterpieces. When I covered ‘Triangler’ and ‘Seikan Hikou’ at one of my live events, the audience was asked not to shout out loud because of the COVID-19 pandemic. So, instead of shouting ‘kira!’ [a Japanese word describing something sparkling, and is also a line in the song with an accompanying pose] in ‘Seikan Hikou,’ the fans struck the same pose I did when I said the word, with glow sticks in hand, which was fantastic! I would love to do the ‘kira!’ with everybody in the audience shouting it in chorus the next time I have the chance to do it live!”

“The most rewarding moment is when my songs reach people”

Payton, who talked about her dream of performing as a headline act, made her recording debut in March 2023 with the single "Mahou”.

“I myself don’t have confidence in my singing voice. I’ve never thought it’s good, to be honest,” she said, “but many people around me have told me I have a great singing voice. I'm basically a skeptical person, so I wondered if they really meant it. But since people who have supported me have said they would like to hear my songs as a solo artist, I decided I should give it a shot.

“So I was fortunate to release a single with help from people who always supported me. The greatest thing was it made my fans so happy. I love singing, of course, and it’s fun. But the most rewarding moment is when my songs reach people. I owe a lot to everyone for the release. I want to say, ‘Thank you everyone for always supporting me!’”

Asked what genre of songs she wants to sing, her response was quick.

“Pop music! I have always dreamed of singing music with that sparkling sound, the kind of songs sung by idol girl singers,” Payton said. ‘Mahou,’ I wanted to begin [my singing career] with a classic idol song sort of thing, which I like best, as an expression of my own singing.

“Ryo Narimiya wrote the lyrics and music and did the arrangement. He is famous as a Vocalo-P [Vocaloid producer, or an artist who creates music using the Vocaloid voice synthesizer software instead of human singers]. I have always loved Vocaloid music, so I asked Narimiya-san because he wrote Vocaloid songs I love. My fan club’s name is ‘Payton Roman,’ so I asked him to include a phrase, ‘romantic mahou [magic],’ in the lyrics. He included it in the ideal part of the chorus, for which I am so grateful.”

Payton’s official YouTube channel features footage of her singing “Mahou” in her first live concert in March 2023. One can't help but smile when watching Payton, who dreamed of becoming both a member of AKB48 and a sparkling PreCure heroine, singing and performing on stage. Although she appears confident in the video, she said she was “actually a nervous wreck.” All she could do was “just avoid singing the wrong words,” she said with a smile. On November 3, 2023, Payton released “Nemesis,” her second single. The song presents a totally different world than “Mahou,” according to Payton.

Naomi Payton “Mahou”: Naomi Payton’s first concert “Maho” on March 21, 2023

“Perhaps it’s a song that shocks my supporters,” she said. “It’s a type of danceable tune I had never sung before and the sound has a different vibe than before. It’s so different they may go, ‘Who’s singing this?’ if they didn't see my name attached to it! (laughs). It would be great if many people listen to it.”

Payton’s dream as a singer grows but she also has ambitions as a voice actor, of course.

“One of my dreams is to play the role of a boy who is one of the heroes in a boys manga,” she said. “I know I wouldn’t be able to do it with my current skill level, so this is more of a long-term dream. So to realize this dream, and for me to take on many different roles, I’m determined to work hard to hone my skills.”

Concerts and fan meetings for fans overseas

Payton is scheduled to appear in late August’s “Anime NYC” in New York City. The event is one of the largest anime conventions on North America’s east coast. A large number of Japanese manga, anime and video game companies will have exhibits at this event. The convention will offer panel sessions and events on stage featuring the participating companies and guests.

This will be Payton’s first appearance at a U.S. event, but instead of shying away, she says she always looks forward to any overseas appearances.

“First of all, it’s going to be my first visit to the U.S. in a very long time, in eight years, probably, so I can’t wait!,” she said. “My father is American, so I think I have fair knowledge of what American culture is like and the country’s atmosphere, but it’s been ages since the last time I went and I may have forgotten some things, so I think I’m going to just enjoy staying in New York.”

A greater use of video streaming services and social media in recent years has meant, together with the influence of anime, increased opportunities for Japan’s music and the voices of Japanese voice actors to reach overseas audiences. How does Payton feel about her voice, the characters she portrays and her songs reaching overseas fans?

“In this day and age, anime easily crosses the national and regional boundaries, just as music does,” Payton said. “In fact, I get so many comments and responses from overseas fans on my social media accounts. So, even though these people may be very far away and I can’t go see them casually, I can feel them as if they are very close.”

When asked what she may want to achieve internationally, Payton had this to say:

“As my activities are mostly in Japan, my overseas fans have basically no choice but to come to Japan if they want to listen to my voice and singing live.

“So someday, I hope to have opportunities to take my voice and singing to where those fans live, for example, and having fan meetings or concerts overseas. People who cheer for me abroad are very dear to me, so I want to express my gratitude directly to them.

“But more than anything else, I want to give a genuine thank-you to my fans in words, so I’m going to use the English expression commonly used the world over and say, ‘Thank you, everyone!’”

Let us hope that Payton’s passionate voice will resound even louder across the globe.

Naomi Payton Love Say You -Voice in Love-

Text by Mika Abe
Photos by Osamu Hoshikawa
Translated by Atsushi Kodera