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Actor

1973-02-12 · Toronto, Ontario, Canada · Female

52 series in the catalog

Tara Lyn Strong (née Charendoff; born February 12, 1973) is a Canadian-American actress. She is known for her voice work in animation, websites, and video games. Strong's voice roles include animated series such as The Powerpuff Girls, The Fairly OddParents, My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic, Teen Titans, Xiaolin Showdown, Ben 10, Drawn Together, The New Batman Adventures, Rugrats, The Proud Family, Chowder, Wow! Wow! Wubbzy!, Unikitty!, and DC Super Hero Girls. She has also voiced characters in the video games Mortal Kombat X, Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3, Jak and Daxter, Final Fantasy X, Final Fantasy X-2, Blue Dragon, and Batman: Arkham. Strong's work on Final Fantasy X-2 earned her an award from the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences.

Early life

Strong was born as Tara Lyn Charendoff in Toronto, Ontario, on February 12, 1973, the younger daughter of Syd and Lucy Charendoff. She was raised in Toronto with her older sister, Marla. Her parents were of Russian-Jewish ancestry, and Strong has said that her grandparents came to Canada after fleeing pogroms in Russia. She has described her Jewish heritage as "a big part of her identity". Her grandfather was a cantor, while her grandmother operated a catering business at Toronto's Beth Radom Congregation.

Strong has recalled that she was interested in performing from an early age. At four, she volunteered to perform a solo in a school production, an experience that encouraged her interest in acting and singing. She subsequently participated in Toronto's Jewish and Yiddish theatrical community. Although she spoke Hebrew rather than Yiddish, she learned her Yiddish lines phonetically and performed for Yiddish-speaking audiences. She also performed with the Toronto Jewish Theater in A Night of Stars and participated in a recording of "Lay Down Your Arms" with the Habonim Youth Choir, singing the song in both English and Hebrew.

Her family also had a connection to the retail business. Her parents operated a Toronto toy and candy store called The Wiz, which Strong has recalled as an early seller of Hello Kitty merchandise in Canada. She later described seeing her father in a Hello Kitty costume when she was a child, years before she herself was cast as the character. Strong has also recalled that her parents supported her interest in performing and that she attended acting, singing, and dancing classes while growing up in Toronto.

By her early teens, Strong was pursuing acting professionally. She obtained an agent at age 13 and, that year, was cast as Gracie in the Limelight Theatre's production of The Music Man, which she has identified as her first professional stage role. Around the same period, she appeared as a guest on the television series T. and T., starring Mr. T, and began obtaining work in animation. Her first major animated role was the title character in Hello Kitty's Furry Tale Theater, which aired in 1987. Strong was credited as Tara Charendoff on the series.

Strong later recalled that beginning professional acting while still in school made balancing her education and career difficult. She attended several schools and sometimes received instruction from on-set tutors while continuing to work, but remained determined to complete high school and graduated with her peers. During her Toronto years, she also studied improvisation and sketch comedy at The Second City's Toronto operation, further developing the performance skills that later became part of her work in animation and voice acting.

Strong continued working in Canadian television, film, theatre, and animation during her adolescence and early adulthood. Before leaving Canada, she had accumulated a range of acting and voice roles, including work on animated productions such as Beetlejuice, Care Bears, and The Garbage Pail Kids, as well as live-action work and the CBC sitcom Mosquito Lake. She moved to Los Angeles in January 1994, after establishing herself professionally in Toronto.

Career

Strong's first professional role was Gracie in Limelight Theater's production of The Music Man at the age of 13. She had a guest role in the action series T. and T. Her first major voice role, also at the age of 13, was the title role in Hello Kitty's Furry Tale Theater. Strong starred in the short-lived CBC Television sitcom Mosquito Lake. She took improv classes at The Second City in Toronto and continued acting in both animated and live-action shows and films, before moving to Los Angeles in January 1994.

Strong is the voice of numerous animated characters, including main roles in The New Batman Adventures as Barbara Gordon / Batgirl, Teen Titans and Teen Titans Go! as Raven; Fillmore! as Ingrid Third; The Fairly OddParents as Timmy Turner (Strong took over the role after the suicide of the original voice actress Mary Kay Bergman—the two were close friends) and Poof; Rugrats and All Grown Up! as Dil Pickles; The Powerpuff Girls as Bubbles; Ben 10 as Ben Tennyson, Upgrade, Blitzwolfer, and Buzzshock; Chowder as Truffles; Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends as Terrence; the singing voice of Meg Griffin and additional voices on Family Guy; My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic as Twilight Sparkle, Unikitty! as the titular princess, Wow! Wow! Wubbzy! as Daizy, and Dorothy and the Wizard of Oz as Joanni.

While recording lines for her role as Dil in Rugrats, one scene's script for Strong's character prompted her to make crying noises. During the taping, the producers suddenly paused and revealed to Strong that her voice acting of a child had been so realistic that she had inadvertently made a woman in the studio lactate. As the role was otherwise going to be offered to Madonna, Strong subsequently quipped that she was proud that the incident led to her keeping the role.

Strong has also lent her voice to English-dubbed localizations of Japanese anime such as Spirited Away and Princess Mononoke, as well as several video games, including her work as Elisa and Ursula in Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops; Paz Ortega Andrade in Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker, Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes, and Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain; Rikku in Final Fantasy X, its sequel Final Fantasy X-2, and Kingdom Hearts II; Krista Sparks in Twisted Metal: Head-On; Talwyn Apogee in Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction and its sequel, Ratchet & Clank Future: Quest for Booty; Keira in Jak and Daxter; and Juliet Starling, the main character of Lollipop Chainsaw. She also has a minor voiceover for the teddy bear Ted in the motion picture Ted. In Blue Dragon, she is the voice actress for Kluke for the Xbox 360 game, but not in the anime series. Beginning with the video game Batman: Arkham City, Strong would also succeed Arleen Sorkin as the voice of Harley Quinn. In January 2013, she voiced the character Plum in Cartoon Hangover's Bravest Warriors, created by Pendleton Ward. She also voiced Miss Minutes in the live-action Marvel Cinematic Universe series Loki.

Besides her voice over works, Strong has appeared in live-action roles such as National Lampoon's Senior Trip, Sabrina Goes to Rome, Sabrina Down Under, and The Last White Dishwasher. She also made guest appearances on shows such as Forever Knight, Street Legal, Touched by an Angel, Take Home Chef, Party of Five, Comic Book: The Movie, Kung Fu: The Legend Continues, 3rd Rock from the Sun, and The Drew Carey Show. She recurred as Miss Collins in Nickelodeon's live-action series Big Time Rush from 2010 to 2013 and starred in the Canadian series Pretty Hard Cases as Tiggy Sullivan, the head of a drug trafficking gang.

In 2004, Strong won an Interactive Achievement Award for her role as Rikku in Final Fantasy X-2. In 2006, she was nominated for the Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Performer in an Animated Program for her role as Dannan in Jakers! The Adventures of Piggley Winks but lost to her co-star, Maile Flanagan, who played the title character. Strong has also been nominated five times for Best…