Anna Cummer
Singapore, Southeast Asia, Saskatoon, Hong Kong, England. Anna Cummer's biography before the work is a list of departures. She was born in Singapore to Canadian parents, spent half her adolescence in Asia and half in Saskatchewan, finished school at the French International School of Hong Kong, and took a Master of Performing Arts in England before returning to Canada in 2001.
She has worked mostly in a booth ever since. The best-known credit is Strawberry Shortcake in Strawberry Shortcake's Berry Bitty Adventures, a role that requires an actress to stay relentlessly sunny across years of episodes without going shrill, and the other durable one is Pepper Potts in Iron Man: Armored Adventures, where the writing makes Pepper a teenage motormouth and Cummer plays her at a speed the animation can barely keep up with.
Add three Barbie features, a title role among them, plus anime dub work including Mea in Popotan, Nozomi Daichi in The Daichis and Miyu Kuroi in the Mega Man NT Warrior series, and stage work between the recording sessions, and you have the profile of Canadian animation's reliable second name: rarely the face on the poster, frequently the voice you remember.
Movies (3)
TV (4)
Where to start with Anna Cummer
Begin with Iron Man: Armored Adventures, and not for the computer animation, which has aged badly. Pepper Potts in that series is written as a talker, and the comic rhythm of whole episodes depends on Cummer landing lines that overrun each other. It is the most demanding thing on her list and the most enjoyable.
For the small children it was made for, Strawberry Shortcake's Berry Bitty Adventures is the flagship, and holding that voice warm across a long run is real work. Barbie Presents: Thumbelina is the pick of the Barbie features since she has the title role, Barbie: Princess Charm School the glossier one, and Monster Buster Club puts her in an ordinary action cartoon. Dub-watchers should try Star Ocean EX, thin as a series and useful as an example of the Canadian dubbing style of the era.