Episode Summary
NERDS!! We’re going green with the legendary Diane Pershing, the iconic voice of Poison Ivy from Batman: The Animated Series! From her days on Broadway to voicing Gotham’s deadliest botanist, Diane shares her journey through music, theater, writing nineteen romance novels, and finding her true voice in animation.
We talk about Ivy’s intelligence, sensuality, and moral code, plus how Andrea Romano brought out magic in the cast. Diane also dishes on The Love Boat, writing for TV, becoming a film critic, and why chasing your craft beats chasing fame. It’s witty, heartfelt, and pure nerd joy. 🌿💋
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🕒 Timestamps & Topics
[00:00] Welcome + Diane’s intro
[02:00] Growing up geeky & Broadway dreams
[05:00] Musicals, music, and mastering voice
[10:00] Becoming Poison Ivy — “Tinker Bell on hormones!”
[13:00] Finding Ivy’s sensual intelligence
[14:00] Writing for The Love Boat
[15:00] 19 romance novels & the heartbreak behind them
[17:00] From novelist to film critic
[20:00] Quality vs. cash-grab sequels
[21:00] Embracing success & beating imposter syndrome
[23:00] Inside Batman: TAS magic
[25:00] Ivy & Harley’s friendship goals
[27:00] “Get me a Diane Pershing type!”
[30:00] VO advice: “Perfect your craft, not your fame”
[32:00] Acting > Voice: “Small V, Big A”
[36:00] Life, travel & loving the fans 🌍
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🌸 Key Takeaways
• Voice acting starts with passion — Diane turned music and theater into a legendary VO career.
• Poison Ivy’s voice = beauty + brains — “Tinker Bell on hormones” but with a PhD.
• 19 romance novels later — heartbreak makes great art.
• Perfect your craft, not your fame. Quality lasts longer than hype.
• Batman: TAS was pure magic — real actors, real emotion, timeless writing.
• Embrace your journey. Diane’s learned to love her legacy (and her fanbase!).
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🎧 Call to Action
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💬 Tag us with #DistanceNERDing and share your favorite Poison Ivy moment!
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🎤 Listener Questions
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🎧 Apple Podcast Tags
Diane Pershing, Poison Ivy, Batman The Animated Series, Voice Acting, DC Comics, Harley Quinn, Andrea Romano, Comic Con, Gotham City, Batman TAS, DC Villains, Pop Culture Podcast, Animation Podcast, Comic Conversations, Distance Nerding,
00:00:00
All right, nerds, grab your vines, your pheromones, and
00:00:03
maybe a battering, just in case 'cause this week's guest is as
00:00:06
iconic as Gotham's greenest goddess herself.
00:00:08
In another comic conversation, we had the honor of talking with
00:00:15
legendary Diane Pershing, singer, writer, actress, and the
00:00:18
mesmerizing voice behind one of Batman's most complex foes, the
00:00:22
seductive and intelligent Poison Ivy from Batman the Animated
00:00:26
Series. From her early days performing
00:00:29
in over 100 musicals to writing for The Love Boat and penning 19
00:00:33
romance novels, Yeah, 19, Diane's career is a master class
00:00:37
in creativity and passion. We talk about her musical
00:00:40
beginnings, her transformation into the voice acting icon, and
00:00:43
how Pamela Isley went from Tinkerbell on hormones to one of
00:00:46
DC's most empowering femme fatales.
00:00:49
So get ready to save the planet and maybe break a few hearts
00:00:52
along the way because it's time for another A Comic
00:00:55
Conversation. All right, ladies and gentlemen,
00:01:00
we have another Comic Con treat for you nerds.
00:01:03
This episode's guest is a singer, writer, actress and
00:01:05
overall massive talent. Please.
00:01:07
Welcome to the show. The deadliest metahuman Batman
00:01:10
has ever faced. It's Diane Pershing.
00:01:12
No, really, am I? As far as metahumans, yes.
00:01:16
Oh my gosh. In fact, I'm a metahuman, right?
00:01:21
Wow. I think I didn't realize that
00:01:25
until recent with Batman. Somebody had mentioned she's a
00:01:29
meta human. I'm like, it's true.
00:01:31
She's she's not a regular human. She has powers.
00:01:34
She has powers, absolutely. Yeah, and she's one of the few
00:01:37
villains that are in Batmans, rogues that actually have
00:01:40
powers. She has powers and also she has
00:01:44
a cause. Yes.
00:01:46
So she's not just evil for evil. I mean, she's not, she's trying
00:01:50
to save the world, right? Unfortunately, she of course has
00:01:53
to kill people to do that, right?
00:01:55
Which is sad. Right it's it's it's almost the
00:01:59
the retcon for Thanos level where the idea is she had or, or
00:02:04
Doctor Doom right where it's she has a good 'cause but she goes
00:02:08
about it in a way where is could be construed as evil.
00:02:12
Well, it really is. I mean, come on.
00:02:15
And she comes up with all these inventive ways to kill people.
00:02:18
So this is not the best human being in the world.
00:02:21
In fact, my granddaughter, when I showed her the first episode
00:02:26
and she sat there and she said, grandma, she's not very nice, is
00:02:30
she? And I said no.
00:02:33
And I had the best time playing her, You know, she.
00:02:37
Seemed like she was fun because again, I have a way that I
00:02:40
describe her that you'll probably appreciate.
00:02:43
But before we get into your story and learning about
00:02:45
everything about about you, we have a segment on our show
00:02:48
called Growing Up Geeky. What did you geek out on when
00:02:51
you were a kid? Oh, I was AI was going to be a
00:02:55
famous Broadway star, you know, that was what I was going to do.
00:03:00
So I was very involved in going to theatre and saving up my
00:03:05
babysitting money to go see matinees.
00:03:08
And I was also singer and I love to sing.
00:03:11
So those are my I didn't geek, if you know what I mean, on
00:03:16
anything nerdy and fun like that.
00:03:18
Just sort of. On our show, we have a different
00:03:22
connotation of nerding. Nerding is just anything you're
00:03:24
passionate about. Well then, honey, I had passion.
00:03:27
Oh yeah, yeah. You know you nerded out on
00:03:30
music. I really did.
00:03:31
I loved it on musicals and I'd learned.
00:03:34
I took out. I rented, not rented, that there
00:03:38
was free at the time. There was a library.
00:03:39
It was in New York, Donnell Library, it was called.
00:03:43
And I took out a score of a musical every week and brought
00:03:48
it home and plunked out the stuff on the piano and taught
00:03:51
myself all the songs. And then I would take it back
00:03:55
and then I would get another one out.
00:03:57
I mean, I was really dedicated. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:03:59
So, yeah, kind of jumping into everything on here.
00:04:03
You studied at UCLA for theatre arts, music, English.
00:04:07
How old were you when you first when you were first bitten by
00:04:11
that performance bug? Oh, I think I remember something
00:04:14
like 5 or 6. What what it was was I was a
00:04:18
very shy child and I stuttered badly.
00:04:23
And my mother had heard that if you get your child into some
00:04:27
kind of workshop where they have to get up on stage and perform,
00:04:32
write whatever, you know, that would help.
00:04:35
And for some reason I was willing to go up on stage and
00:04:39
recite a poem. And I can remember the moment.
00:04:42
Then I went, oh, I like this right, That was it.
00:04:48
Yeah, it's just being on stage. Being on stage, looking out and
00:04:52
thinking, no, I yeah, this is good.
00:04:55
I like this, yeah. That's all that's awesome.
00:04:58
I mean when we we all at some point and anybody who's in
00:05:01
entertainment, we, we find a place where, you know, we enjoy
00:05:06
entertaining people. Exactly.
00:05:07
Exactly. You know, because that's kind of
00:05:09
the, you can tell the difference between someone who's, well,
00:05:11
maybe I can be famous doing this and people who do it because
00:05:14
they enjoy doing. It and because they almost have
00:05:16
to, right, they have that fire in the belly.
00:05:18
Yes, absolutely. Yeah, yeah.
00:05:22
So you you've also, you also have the ability to say that
00:05:25
you've been in over 100 musicals all around the country.
00:05:29
What's one of your fondest memories on the set of one of
00:05:31
those productions? On the set, you mean?
00:05:35
You know that on the set is on stage?
00:05:38
Better. Much better.
00:05:39
You said stage anyway. No, I love them all.
00:05:46
There's an old musical called Kiss Me Kate, which is basically
00:05:50
The Taming of the Shrew, a musical version that was one of
00:05:54
my favourites. That was great.
00:05:56
Oh God, so many Threepenny Opera.
00:06:00
Little Mary Sunshine in one summer.
00:06:03
This was interesting. I was doing summer stock and I
00:06:06
did the lead in two shows that one was rehearsing while the
00:06:11
other one was performing. And 1 was my soprano voice and 1
00:06:15
was my much deeper voice. Hello Dolly.
00:06:19
Oh wow. I I mean, I had did Hello Dolly
00:06:21
when I was 23 years old. Obviously it was silly, but I
00:06:26
was down there like Carol Canning was for the original,
00:06:31
and then there was the soprano and I was able to do that.
00:06:36
And I think that was a large part of why I eventually got
00:06:39
into voice overs, because I had a very flexible voice and I also
00:06:44
heard Everything is music. I heard Everything is Music.
00:06:47
My father used to say when I used to talk that I sound like I
00:06:51
was about to break out into song.
00:06:54
Is really. Yeah.
00:06:56
Yeah, yeah, I, I, I, I, my journey on all this started in
00:06:59
music as well. So I, yeah, I'm, I'm, I'm a
00:07:01
baritone. So I'm like, there we go jump
00:07:03
between, yeah, different ranges there.
00:07:05
But at at the same time, yeah, just it's almost the same way,
00:07:09
just hearing things in music. And in musical term.
00:07:11
Or just even in general hearing the music and everything you
00:07:14
hear. In everything, right?
00:07:16
Yeah, Yeah. And being unable to not be that
00:07:19
person, right? Yeah, yeah, Because it it's
00:07:21
impossible not to hear it that way.
00:07:23
No, that's. Right.
00:07:24
You're absolutely right. Yeah.
00:07:25
Exactly. Is it challenging going from
00:07:28
doing music with a a band like the Establishment to adding and
00:07:33
acting for a musical? Like did you prefer one?
00:07:35
Did you prefer performing music in in rock and pop over musicals
00:07:41
or vice versa or? Loved them all and especially,
00:07:46
and this is an interesting thing, although I was a featured
00:07:49
artist in a lot of the things, my favorite thing is singing in
00:07:54
a group and I was in choir at UCLA with at that out of
00:08:00
somebody who's not even known now, but the famous Rodger
00:08:03
Wagner. He was a major choir choral
00:08:07
conductor. And there's a sound that you get
00:08:10
when you're singing with other people around the whatever, you
00:08:15
know, those vibes, those waves, those sound waves.
00:08:19
Somebody has described it as it's the closest thing we get to
00:08:25
God. Because that sound is my
00:08:28
favorite singing, even though I've done a lot of solo work,
00:08:32
right? But I love being part of a
00:08:33
group. Right.
00:08:34
It's, it's, it's something about hearing the music around you.
00:08:37
It's hearing the other voice is it's harmonizing.
00:08:40
Harmony with them and blending in with them and you are no
00:08:44
longer solo. You're just, you're making that
00:08:47
wonderful sound. Right.
00:08:49
Fabulous. As as as a musician as as, as
00:08:52
even someone who does voice, just listening for harmonies and
00:08:56
it's like, oh man, this would be great with this octave.
00:08:59
Or this would be great exactly. In this key or things.
00:09:01
Like that. Yes.
00:09:02
Yes. Gorgeous, gorgeous stuff.
00:09:04
Yeah. Some of the biggest joys.
00:09:05
I remember one side we had done the the Mozart Requiem.
00:09:10
And afterwards, I, I ran out of the concert hall and there was a
00:09:14
big grassy area and I just lay down on my back and started
00:09:19
crying. Yeah.
00:09:21
Because it was such an amazing experience, right?
00:09:25
Yeah, right. In, in, in.
00:09:27
Music in general can evoke so many emotions.
00:09:30
So many. It's it's one of those things
00:09:32
where words do not have to move you.
00:09:34
It's, it is the music itself that moves you.
00:09:37
Yeah. It's almost like resonating, you
00:09:39
know? Exactly.
00:09:40
The resonance. Exactly.
00:09:42
Absolutely. Yeah, you and I agree, my dear.
00:09:44
Right. So kind of transitioning here.
00:09:47
This is something that I've noticed about a lot of people
00:09:50
who work in VO. It's, it's the majority of the
00:09:53
people I talk to start in music and start as singers and start,
00:09:57
you know, as people who already have exercise with their voice.
00:10:01
Exactly. Exercise with their vocals,
00:10:04
right? And stamina.
00:10:05
Correct. Stamina, right?
00:10:07
Their tongue does doesn't get tired if they're talking to like
00:10:10
you know, most people don't know about the tongue.
00:10:13
Right, You know that. Kind of thing, right?
00:10:15
I've always noticed that when I go on rest periods, if I try to
00:10:19
hit a certain note that I want to hit and feel strained, it
00:10:23
bothers me. It really hurts me a lot.
00:10:25
Of course it does, especially notes that I know I can hit.
00:10:28
And I'm like, no, it shouldn't be like that.
00:10:32
Just have to clear my throat. There, Yeah, but yeah, you
00:10:35
transition. You transition into a lot of
00:10:37
high level video work. Some examples were, you know,
00:10:40
Mighty Mouse, she RA. Most notably, of course, the
00:10:43
infamous and sexy Poison Ivy. Yes.
00:10:46
Providing one of the most iconic takes on the character, your
00:10:49
smooth and sultry take on Pamela inspired performances for years
00:10:53
to come. Because there are a lot of
00:10:55
people who in their performances of Poison Ivy have taken it's,
00:10:59
it's very obvious they have taken, they, they've taken route
00:11:04
from you in the way that your take on Pamela Isley was what
00:11:08
went into your decisions on how to develop her voice.
00:11:11
Oh, I had the very first of all, it was one of those
00:11:14
serendipitous things that you say you can't control.
00:11:17
You have no way of knowing when luck and timing will actually
00:11:20
happen. I was hired for the Pretty
00:11:23
Poison episode just as a day player, you know, an operator on
00:11:29
the phone or whatever. And the person who was supposed
00:11:31
to do Poison Ivy, apparently the producers thought she wasn't
00:11:36
quite the right sound. And Andrea came up to me that
00:11:40
she'd worked with me before, and she said, would you like to
00:11:43
audition for this? And I said sure, because you
00:11:46
always say yes, right? And they showed me what?
00:11:48
She looked like Say no to Andrea Romano.
00:11:50
You would never do that. That would be a foolish move.
00:11:53
Yes. And I looked at the the cell and
00:11:59
I said, Oh my God, it's, it's, it's what's your name?
00:12:03
Oh, I love this. And I always do this.
00:12:05
And it's a great story. Tinkerbell.
00:12:07
Tinkerbell on hormones. Because that's what she looks
00:12:10
like. Right?
00:12:11
Exactly. So she actually does, and I
00:12:13
you're making me. Think I'm so sorry, Tinkerbell.
00:12:15
Yes, for those who love Tinkerbell, I apologize.
00:12:18
But anyway. And I thought, OK, so she's
00:12:20
really sexy. Well, that's fine.
00:12:22
I have that in my range because I do a lot of cosmetic
00:12:25
commercials and that kind of thing.
00:12:28
That's down here That's very sensual and very sexy.
00:12:32
But she's also a PhD, right? So you use that sensual thing,
00:12:37
but you put a little edge in it so that people can know there's
00:12:41
a brain operating. Oh my God.
00:12:44
And that's how I got the voice. And and I can I I all I hear is
00:12:48
it now. There it is.
00:12:49
Yeah, yeah. That's the voice.
00:12:51
Yeah, she's she's ridiculously intelligent and that's why she
00:12:54
can outsmart so many people. So many people.
00:12:57
She's brilliant, right? Literally the woman with a
00:13:00
slightly different sense of morals, right?
00:13:04
Could have run the world. You know, absolutely.
00:13:06
Let's face it, especially with her connection to the green and,
00:13:10
you know, just kind of everything that she was able to
00:13:13
do. Exactly.
00:13:15
You know, and, and even then, like even the unrealized things
00:13:18
that she could do, it's very scary to know the amount of
00:13:23
depending on the direction that you give someone like Poison
00:13:26
Ivy, the is what she was capable of doing that she didn't do.
00:13:30
No, but she also knew how to use the old fashioned sex appeal to
00:13:35
get what she wanted. So she was both a brainy person
00:13:40
really at the first feminist cartoon character I think, but
00:13:44
also knew exactly how to use what she did have also.
00:13:47
Right, Yeah, right, right, right, right.
00:13:50
So you've also written for TV which?
00:13:52
Is. Yeah, You know, I'm a writer
00:13:54
too, because from the beginning I love words.
00:13:59
And we were voracious readers in my family.
00:14:02
I always had a book with me. Mom took me to the library once
00:14:06
a week. I checked out seven books and
00:14:09
returned them the next and got 7 more.
00:14:11
And I, I've always read OK, and I've always loved words.
00:14:15
And I have a facility, that's all I have, a facility I can
00:14:18
talk, you know? I mean, it comes up, I was
00:14:22
really good at essays in college.
00:14:25
I wrote a couple of little one act plays at UUCLAI.
00:14:29
Just love doing this. The Love Boat.
00:14:32
Oh yes, I was a writer on The Love Boat.
00:14:34
So I was a staff writer because a man in my neighborhood named
00:14:39
Bob Nunu, he's now gone and I partnered up and wrote a spec
00:14:43
script for Love Boat who we were able to get it through a, you
00:14:47
know, somebody he knew that kind of thing and they loved the
00:14:51
script, but they didn't want to buy it.
00:14:52
But they said write some more and we did.
00:14:55
And then they decided to bring us on as staff writers because
00:14:58
there was no other women woman on the staff.
00:15:02
And also they when they bring a partnership on, the partners
00:15:06
have to split the salary. So.
00:15:11
So was a very. We don't have to fully pay them.
00:15:12
Hello, right, Fully, you know, and I was on there for six
00:15:16
months. We wrote a lot of we wrote two
00:15:19
or three episodes, you know, the little short ones.
00:15:22
There was three stories and everything and all that stuff,
00:15:25
and then new producers came in and fired everybody.
00:15:28
Which is the story of television writing, right?
00:15:31
Yes. And other writing, Yeah.
00:15:33
Yeah. Fire the entire staff, hire a
00:15:35
new one. Done.
00:15:36
Right. Done so in going into the
00:15:40
writing that you were doing and the writing that you've done has
00:15:44
your acting in form the writing that you that that you do.
00:15:48
Well, what an interesting question.
00:15:51
Yeah. Because when I'm, well, you
00:15:53
know, I wrote romance novels, too.
00:15:55
You're going to get to that, right?
00:15:57
I wrote, I wrote romance novels because I had been with the man,
00:16:02
first of all, I was married, had kids, divorced, da, da, da, da.
00:16:05
And I was with a man that I thought I would probably wind up
00:16:08
with. And we broke up and he broke my
00:16:13
heart. And I was very sad and very sad
00:16:16
and very sad and irritated that I'd have to go through a period
00:16:19
of mourning, which I didn't want to do, but OK.
00:16:23
And a friend said, here, read one of these.
00:16:24
And I said, what's this? And he said she she was a she.
00:16:27
She said it's a romance novel. I said, excuse me, do you know
00:16:32
who I am? I don't read romance novels
00:16:36
because I'm such a snob. I really am.
00:16:38
I, I work on it, but I'm still a snob.
00:16:40
OK. And she said, I said, she said,
00:16:43
what do you think they are? And I said, you know, a bunch of
00:16:45
women waiting for men to come along to fix them, women being
00:16:48
raped by sheiks in the desert. She said no, no, no, no, it's
00:16:54
changed. It's not like that anymore, give
00:16:56
it a try. She gave me a book and in that
00:16:59
next year I read This is Not a Lie because I counted 300
00:17:03
romance novels. Each one took me one day to
00:17:07
read, unless it was a longer one, and then it took me two
00:17:09
days. Fact.
00:17:11
At the end of which I said I can write one of these.
00:17:15
And I did. All right.
00:17:17
So did it inform me? Yes, the dialogue is how I
00:17:21
always write up, always wrote. I started with the dialogue and
00:17:24
I filled in the other stuff later.
00:17:27
But that was from my theater train and that was from my
00:17:30
acting background where I inhabit each character as it's
00:17:33
talking. So my dialogue was always
00:17:37
probably been the best thing. My prose was fine, but, and I
00:17:40
don't think I wrote any masterpieces, but I wrote good
00:17:43
enough, you know, And I sold 19. Of 19 books, yeah, that's what I
00:17:47
was gonna get into is you wrote 19 romance.
00:17:48
Novels. I wrote 19 romance novels.
00:17:51
Yeah. Yeah.
00:17:52
And it was wonderful fun. Loved it.
00:17:53
Right on top of that, 'cause I just want to kind of touch on,
00:17:56
you know, your the, the other writing credits and aside from
00:17:58
19 novels, you are also a film critic for the Malibu.
00:18:00
Time. Film critic for years.
00:18:03
Yeah. Yeah, I love films.
00:18:04
I'm a major film buff. So yes, it was wonderful.
00:18:07
Fun writing film. I mean, you got to go to all
00:18:09
these movies, right? You know, I did stop finally
00:18:13
because I realized that what had happened is I stopped watching
00:18:17
movies for joy. I was always looking for what I
00:18:20
could write about it instead of being an audience member.
00:18:25
It's still with me, by the way, 'cause every time I watch
00:18:28
something, I'm already saying, oh God, they could have cut that
00:18:31
act by about, you know, that sort of thing.
00:18:33
I can't help it, but it's it's better than it was.
00:18:36
Yeah, I I've gotten to the point where now I'm fairly decent at
00:18:41
turning myself off so I can just enjoy it for what it is.
00:18:44
I try, Yeah, I do try. Yeah, I think almost.
00:18:48
I'm watching it with two separate parts of my brain,
00:18:51
right? Because I do have the critic
00:18:53
part still, but the other part is enjoying, right?
00:18:56
Or not. The I, I, I had a friend
00:18:59
recently post something online that that was talking about
00:19:02
films in general, saying no filmmaker goes into making a
00:19:08
film intentionally trying to make a bad film.
00:19:11
Sometimes films just turn out to be bad because of production or
00:19:15
anything like that. But of course, yeah.
00:19:17
So like I try to go into every film with that mindset now
00:19:21
thinking, OK, what's the intention?
00:19:22
What do they want to do? What was the message they wanted
00:19:24
to get out? And sometimes, you know, yeah,
00:19:28
it doesn't come across the right way.
00:19:29
Or no, I know especially the when they keep doing #2 #3 #4
00:19:34
because the franchise made a lot of money the first time.
00:19:37
Yeah, it's it's it's so blatantly materialistic.
00:19:43
That's very hard to look past that.
00:19:45
Yeah, you know. Oh yes, let's do a blow up scene
00:19:48
here and yes, let's do it, you know?
00:19:50
Yeah, we I got into an argument with my Co host recently about
00:19:53
exactly that, saying like I I want things that focus on
00:19:56
quality. Yes, so if you're going to make
00:19:58
a sequel, if you're going to go and make ATV show in regard to
00:20:01
that, like make it something that adds to the lore and not
00:20:04
something that is just hey, we need a cash grab.
00:20:06
So just like right now, K pop demon hunters is the big massive
00:20:10
thing. And Netflix just announced
00:20:12
they're going to do multiple TV shows and about.
00:20:14
K Pop. About about all that and and I'm
00:20:17
OK with that if they are going to do something that is in the
00:20:21
vein of the first movie. Well, you're being, you're being
00:20:24
an idealist. I am very much so.
00:20:26
I know they're. Not going to do that.
00:20:28
No, no. And I have that same ideal as
00:20:31
you do. But the world is not made for
00:20:34
idealists, right? The thing is what what what
00:20:37
makes me sad about this is they would probably make more money
00:20:40
if they focused on it that way. Oh, well, yes, because they
00:20:43
would have an original thing that would grab hold of people's
00:20:46
attention. They'd want to go, and they'd
00:20:47
recommend it to their friends instead of.
00:20:49
Oh, good. The next thing with 17, you
00:20:52
know, it's special effects that blow people up, but yet they
00:20:56
live, you know, all those things.
00:20:58
Yeah. No, I'm with you.
00:20:59
Yeah. Yeah.
00:21:00
I wish. I love quality.
00:21:02
Right, right. It's it's, you know, wanting it,
00:21:05
it, it, it shouldn't be out of this world to want to expect the
00:21:09
same level of quality from the first as the rest.
00:21:12
And not just cash grab. Let's make money from this.
00:21:14
Shouldn't is a fine word. Right.
00:21:16
Right. I know, we know.
00:21:18
In the industry, it's what it is, yes.
00:21:20
Exactly. So I'm going to ask you this,
00:21:24
what's been the best experience from the journey that you've had
00:21:27
from from the beginning, even as being a 5 year old and, and
00:21:32
wanting to get into acting and everything and, and musical
00:21:35
theatre and music in general to where you are now.
00:21:39
What, or I guess what's the best the the most surprising part of
00:21:42
your journey? Now, now is the most surprising
00:21:45
part of my journey because what's happened, I, I think for
00:21:50
many years, most of us in the business are insecure in some
00:21:55
part of us, right, OK. And a lot of us, a lot of us are
00:22:07
it's it's called a not enough syndrome or the imposter
00:22:10
syndrome where we had certain goals and we didn't quite live
00:22:14
up to them. So the part of me that is very,
00:22:18
very spread I'm why I have so many quote gifts or talents, but
00:22:24
I never in my mind went to the top with any of them.
00:22:29
OK, I'm giving you just that. And this is not unusual in our
00:22:32
business. No, right.
00:22:33
Absolutely. So, you know, early on in voice
00:22:36
overs, I say, yeah, but I'm, I'm not on camera, you know, and
00:22:39
then if I was on camera, yeah, but I'm not the lead and and so
00:22:42
on and so forth. And so you find every excuse in
00:22:44
order to say that you are not as good as you you are.
00:22:47
As well. Exactly.
00:22:49
And then there came a time as I was getting older, when I went,
00:22:54
you know what? I'm pretty damn fine, just like
00:22:58
I am. And everybody that knows me and
00:23:02
my work thinks I'm great. And why do you keep beating
00:23:06
yourself up, Diane? So now I am at a quite advanced
00:23:11
age. I've been, you know, 50 years
00:23:14
doing voice overs and writing and singing and so on and so
00:23:18
forth. I was a disc jockey.
00:23:20
I was an overnight DJ on a one of those silly music stations
00:23:25
which play silly music all night, you know.
00:23:28
But anyway, I've accepted who I am.
00:23:32
I like who I am. And because of the work that
00:23:35
I've done, I have enough money to have a wonderful life.
00:23:40
I have two grown children with marvelous families and they're
00:23:45
financially comfortable, so I don't have to worry about them.
00:23:49
And they said to me, Mom, go have fun.
00:23:54
I raised them alone because their dad died when they were
00:23:56
pretty young and go have fun. Good.
00:23:59
So I've been traveling. Yeah, all over and having
00:24:02
wonderful, wonderful times. And and then doing the cons.
00:24:07
I love doing the comic cons. I really do.
00:24:10
I love meeting the fans. I do.
00:24:12
And they're so inspiring. They they loved the show, You
00:24:17
know, I mean, it's a great show. It is. 33 years still on the
00:24:23
air, right? And it and it still holds up
00:24:25
it's. Still.
00:24:25
Holds up. Beautiful.
00:24:27
Exactly the the acting is on par with anything that exists.
00:24:31
Exactly. Because you you what I loved
00:24:35
about one what Andrew Romano was able to pull out of all of you,
00:24:38
but also just the we don't want to get just your standard
00:24:42
everyday like like actors or voice actors and people who do
00:24:45
cartoons. You know, we talked about this
00:24:48
before with with Ingrid about, you know, we're going to get
00:24:52
Kevin Conroy off of off stage and and he's a Shakespearean
00:24:56
actor and he is going to play Batman and, and he brought so
00:24:59
much to that and they followed suit with every actor.
00:25:03
That everyone and I, I said that they really did also hire stage
00:25:08
actors, right? And so also the way we recorded,
00:25:11
which was in a semi circle with each of us with our own
00:25:14
microphones and each of us able to look at the person we're
00:25:18
talking to in the script and the act off each other.
00:25:22
We were not phoning it in. We were real, right?
00:25:25
And it was marvelous. The the tragedy that was Mr.
00:25:31
Freeze the the the episode, the heart part of ice.
00:25:34
Yes, it's it is a absolute on stage tragedy and it is
00:25:39
beautiful and and and and I mean just just even when when they we
00:25:44
go over to the new adventures, when they kind of change
00:25:48
everything over. Yeah, my anytime that I know
00:25:50
that I'm getting into the new adventures, that first episode
00:25:53
is you and Harley Quinn, right? Is the buddy episode that you
00:25:58
guys had in the first season. Yeah, and that's that's always
00:26:02
my, I've got to strap in because I'm going.
00:26:04
To start watching, it's. One of my favorite episodes.
00:26:06
There we go. Yeah, you're in for a wild ride.
00:26:09
Right. And and that's again when when
00:26:10
they said, Hey, Diane's here, I got excited because again, that
00:26:14
brought me right back to that episode of, of, of of you and
00:26:19
Harley Quinn and that that relationship that you had
00:26:23
friendship that you guys had, which I mean, that's expanded
00:26:26
now in. Into something a little
00:26:28
different, yeah, but you know why?
00:26:30
Not but it started with that exactly, you know, and, and, and
00:26:32
it's very beautiful, you know, and then and then the again, the
00:26:36
acting is amazing right between yourself and then you're getting
00:26:41
someone who's who was mostly in in soap operas that created an
00:26:46
entire. Character that was so amazing.
00:26:49
God, God bless. She she and I became friends.
00:26:53
When we did the Gotham Girls, we did these things, you know, for
00:26:58
the Internet, and we became friends.
00:27:01
And when she got ill, I used to go visit her every couple of
00:27:05
weeks and read to her because she really was so fragile.
00:27:10
It was just heartbreaking. Yeah.
00:27:14
She was so wonderful human being.
00:27:16
I love that they that they were like, Oh, we need, it's that
00:27:22
joke. Get me an Arlene Sorkin type,
00:27:24
right, right. And they were like, well, why
00:27:26
don't you just get Arlene Sorkin?
00:27:28
And they got Arlene Sorkin in to do the character, and she was so
00:27:32
excited to do the character and it was, it was so great.
00:27:35
You know, you know that they used to be when I was doing
00:27:38
voice overs, I would say for about 20 years, I was one of the
00:27:40
reigning women and just regular, you know, commercials and just
00:27:45
an intelligent voice, a little bit of a mother voice, a little
00:27:48
bit of whatever, OK. And I was really big and I had,
00:27:52
you know, lots and lots of jobs. Not quite Don La Fontaine type,
00:27:56
but, you know. OK.
00:27:58
And then several times there was a thing.
00:28:01
Get me a Diane Pershing type. And the agents would say we have
00:28:05
her. Oh, OK.
00:28:07
And they would audition me. And I never ever got the job.
00:28:12
I never got the job that was supposed to be the Diane
00:28:15
Pershing type. So I wonder what they were
00:28:17
thinking of. Isn't that strange?
00:28:20
Yeah, I. Will it's, I've heard so many
00:28:23
stories of actors exactly doing the same thing.
00:28:27
So and so tight, right? And then you go and audition for
00:28:30
this character and it's like, yeah, you're not what we're
00:28:32
looking for, like. Something different what I know.
00:28:37
It's so weird. It is it is very weird.
00:28:42
So let's let's get into some wrap up questions here.
00:28:46
OK. I'm going to ask you the hardest
00:28:48
question you've ever been asked in your life.
00:28:50
Oh dear. Hey, you ready for this?
00:28:52
I don't know. OK.
00:28:53
It is very difficult, OK. All right.
00:28:55
What is your favorite kind of Taco?
00:28:58
With a favorite kind of Taco, it has to have lots of vegetables
00:29:08
in it for crunch, and I would say just a basic beef Taco with
00:29:15
lots of vegetables and crunch is Oh, and I like corn tortillas.
00:29:21
I don't like the flour type and I like them crispy.
00:29:25
Corn tortillas that are crispy. OK, I mean, that's really
00:29:29
boring, but that's how it is. No.
00:29:31
And it's interesting. We ask this to every every guest
00:29:34
we talked to. Yeah.
00:29:35
And it's just interesting. It's always interesting in
00:29:37
hearing everybody's tastes and their take on on what they like.
00:29:41
On tacos. On tacos, you know, you ask me
00:29:43
about a lot of other foods. I'll also tell you how I feel.
00:29:46
But that's OK, That'll be another day.
00:29:48
Exactly. It's for our next interview.
00:29:50
OK. All right.
00:29:52
So what's some some quick advice you might have for someone
00:29:55
trying to get into the industry, whether it's acting, writing,
00:29:57
just wanting to get in generally into the industry.
00:30:00
What is? What is something that you wish
00:30:02
you would have known when you were first getting in?
00:30:04
That that you? Want.
00:30:05
Well, my life has been serendipity.
00:30:07
My life has been just happening to be in the right place at the
00:30:11
right time and being trained #1 train, take classes, go to
00:30:16
schools, etcetera. It's not easy doing voice overs.
00:30:19
You have to have breath control, mic technique.
00:30:23
It helps if you have that was my phone doing that.
00:30:26
It helps if you have a, a musical background.
00:30:32
If you know, by the way, what I love about voice over people,
00:30:36
they're smarter than the average bear because they can actually
00:30:40
read and make sense of something in a second.
00:30:42
And we don't have a lot of time to study scripts or stuff.
00:30:46
It's cold reading. If you're, if you're good at
00:30:48
cold reading, that means the brain is functioning.
00:30:52
And we're also not as as, let's say narcissistic as many on
00:30:59
camera actors are. We don't care if we've gained 5
00:31:03
lbs or we have a pimple or we don't feel well.
00:31:06
We still do our work. It's not a problem.
00:31:08
How we look is not important. And I think that those qualities
00:31:13
are very special to voice people, to people starting out,
00:31:17
I tell them do not expect to break in immediately if you're
00:31:22
looking. Somebody came up to me at one of
00:31:24
the cons and she said I want to be a really big star and I'm
00:31:28
studying acting. And I said I'm going to let you
00:31:31
know what the secret is. Don't go for stardom.
00:31:36
Go for perfecting yourself as an actor.
00:31:40
Go for actually getting good at what you do.
00:31:43
You most likely will not be a star, so don't set yourself up
00:31:48
for what will feel like failure. Perfect the craft.
00:31:52
Perfect your craft, and I say that to anybody and everybody as
00:31:55
far as breaking in, take classes, do workshops, go get,
00:32:01
you know, just because you have a really nice speaking voice or
00:32:04
you're go so good at, you know, all all the people that come up
00:32:07
with the cons that do a whole shtick thing of Mark Hamill
00:32:12
doing joker. I I, it's fun, but Mark does
00:32:15
that. Mark, Mark does that.
00:32:17
I don't need you to do that, you know, develop your own thing and
00:32:21
also try very hard to network if you can, because almost no one
00:32:26
breaks in without someone helping them get in the door.
00:32:30
It's very rare to just, there aren't a lot of wonderful oh, I
00:32:35
went in cold and I got it. Nah, it doesn't happen much.
00:32:38
My my favorite saying that I've ever heard and it's stuck with
00:32:42
me since the day I heard it is small B, big A.
00:32:47
What is that? It's not so much about the voice
00:32:50
as it is the acting. Yes, right.
00:32:52
So small V for voice. Voice right?
00:32:55
Big A for. Acting, In other words, really
00:32:57
be an actor, right? Yeah, and a good one.
00:33:00
Being an actor. Absolutely, and I am a very good
00:33:02
actor. You know, I would agree, yeah,
00:33:05
with, with, with the resume that you have and everything that
00:33:07
you've done and yeah, even everything outside of your
00:33:10
acting career with, with music and theatre and everything that
00:33:13
you've done. I I would very much agree.
00:33:15
You are a good actor. Yeah, I am.
00:33:18
Yeah. I'm proud to admit it right now.
00:33:20
Yeah. Yeah.
00:33:22
Awesome, so so getting into something even more light
00:33:26
hearted here. Who would win the fight, Poison
00:33:29
Ivy or Queen Azura from from Flash Gordon?
00:33:34
Who from Flash Gordon? Queen Azura.
00:33:36
You know, I did Flash Gord did that.
00:33:38
Cartoon no character. No, I was Dale Arden.
00:33:41
Oh, you were Dale Arden. Yes, I was the straight person.
00:33:46
Oh. Man, I could've swore you were
00:33:47
the. Queen No, I think that was Linda
00:33:49
Gary, the late, great Linda Gary.
00:33:52
So I don't know who she is. So how can I answer that
00:33:55
question? You.
00:33:55
Can't. But actually, I would just say
00:33:57
that Poison Ivy would with any fight that you would do.
00:34:00
I mean, come on, the woman is amazing.
00:34:02
Queen Azora was one of the few characters in Flash Gordon that
00:34:04
actually had magic. So that's that's where I was
00:34:07
throwing that in. There was magic.
00:34:08
Person it was Malindi or or or Linda Gary, because we were all
00:34:12
a bunch over at filmation. We did we all we did everything.
00:34:16
Yeah, I mean, we had a bunch of us that were just did
00:34:18
everything. You know that was fun.
00:34:21
Right, right. No.
00:34:22
Yeah, we Poison Ivy by default. When's this one?
00:34:25
On. She's just going to bind them up
00:34:29
anyways. Anyway, she wants, right?
00:34:31
Just magic. Yeah, especially.
00:34:32
Oh my God, especially with some of the new powers they've been
00:34:34
giving her. Well, that see, I'm not up.
00:34:37
See, I stopped paying attention to the show when I didn't do it
00:34:43
anymore. And I haven't followed it
00:34:45
because I'm not. Do you know that when somebody
00:34:47
told me I should be doing comic cons and I said why?
00:34:52
And they said because you have a fan base.
00:34:54
I said, what's a fan base? I mean, is that the worst thing
00:34:59
you've ever heard? This woman is so somewhere else.
00:35:03
But that I went, oh, oh, oh, OK. And then I went online and saw
00:35:07
that I'm popular. Oh, I didn't know this.
00:35:10
And then I, you know, I called up this number that somebody
00:35:15
gave me to call. Turns out to be my managers
00:35:17
celeb works. But I said, hi, this is Diane
00:35:23
Pershing, Poison Ivy. I said, yeah, are you interested
00:35:29
in representation? I said yes, have lunch tomorrow.
00:35:33
That was it. But I had no idea.
00:35:37
I really, I had no idea. All these years.
00:35:40
Yeah. Weird, huh?
00:35:42
Yeah. It's, but I could see how they,
00:35:46
especially agents that are like I've got representation, I've
00:35:49
got Diane Pershing. Yes, yes, exactly.
00:35:51
No, they were very, I mean, and I was one of the original ones
00:35:54
with celeb work. So they they keep honoring me as
00:35:57
a legacy performer and I say, oh, come on.
00:36:00
I'm just a voice person, you know, come on.
00:36:05
Again. And And there's the humbleness
00:36:06
in the in the voice acting. Community.
00:36:07
Yeah. Yeah, there is.
00:36:08
Level of just being humble and saying I'm just a voice actor.
00:36:11
No, you're an, you're an actor, and you're an amazing one at
00:36:13
that. I know and I am and I absolutely
00:36:16
embrace that. But but, and I am a little bit
00:36:20
humble because when I get all this love poured at me at these
00:36:23
cons, I think I'm really glad I wasn't younger.
00:36:27
And I might have taken it to heart and gotten a really big
00:36:29
head and been obnoxious. Now I say, OK, the work that I
00:36:33
did was really pretty good, you know, and I'm thrilled, you
00:36:37
know? Yeah, Yeah.
00:36:38
That's amazing. Yeah.
00:36:40
I love it. So what's next for you?
00:36:42
Do you have any anything you want to promote?
00:36:43
Any shows that you're doing? You know, I, I have to be
00:36:46
honest, I'm pretty much retired. I mean, it's again, as I said,
00:36:49
this is, you know, I'm not going to reveal my age on the air
00:36:53
because one doesn't do that. Correct.
00:36:56
But I think I look about 10 years younger than I actually
00:36:59
AM. And also I am traveling and I'm
00:37:03
enjoying my grandchildren and I'm, I'm travelling, I'm doing
00:37:08
cons. But I mean, I've been in seven
00:37:10
European and I've been to, I've been to Africa, I've been to
00:37:16
Antarctica. Really I've been to 5 or 6
00:37:19
different countries in Europe in the last five, four or five
00:37:23
years. I love travelling.
00:37:26
I love it. Yeah.
00:37:29
And just seeing the impact that you've done over, over again
00:37:33
over over the course of the last thirty, 30-40 years and, and
00:37:38
seeing the amount of love you have like internationally has
00:37:41
got to be amazing. Is it international?
00:37:43
Don't they dub most of the cartoons?
00:37:45
So they wouldn't hear my voice there, there.
00:37:47
There are a lot of especially like with Batman because of the
00:37:50
way the performances were done. OK, a lot of times they'll do
00:37:53
subtitles. For subtitles.
00:37:54
Right. And so a lot of people will
00:37:56
appreciate, you know, what it is the, the, the acting for what it
00:37:59
is because they're able to hear that performance.
00:38:03
You know, I just went on a cruise of the sin from cruising
00:38:07
small ships. I don't like the big thingies,
00:38:10
but anyway, Paris to the Normandy beaches where I got to
00:38:14
see, you know, where the allies came in and all that stuff.
00:38:17
And there was it's it's a it's a grand circle ships is the, is
00:38:22
the company that I travel with a lot.
00:38:25
And, and, and I, I came in this morning to here, to this con and
00:38:32
there was a beautiful bouquet of flowers.
00:38:35
And I looked at it and it said from Grand Circle, Wilma and
00:38:40
Dave, we missed you last night because they got there at seven
00:38:43
O 1. And I think I left at 6:50 or
00:38:45
something like that. And there was this gorgeous
00:38:48
bouquet of flowers from this, from the ship company that I
00:38:51
just travelled with. I, I mean, they knew I'd done it
00:38:54
because the word got out while I was on there that, that that's
00:38:58
what I'd done. But I was kind of blown away
00:39:01
because they're, they're over in Paris, right?
00:39:04
So I don't know. I'll have to find out who they
00:39:07
were. I don't remember them, but OK,
00:39:10
yeah. So where can everybody follow
00:39:12
you if they want to learn more about you and just kind of if if
00:39:16
they just kind of want to follow the exploits of Diane?
00:39:17
Perkins I'm so bad at this. I have a website and I pay a
00:39:21
Webmaster and I never go to it. And I'm bad.
00:39:26
No, But you can. Certainly you can.
00:39:30
Well, you can't really friend me on Facebook.
00:39:32
I won't friend anybody that I don't know.
00:39:35
But you can look at my Facebook page anytime you want and I have
00:39:38
a lot of stuff on there. How's that?
00:39:41
That sounds perfect. Because I don't really want a
00:39:45
lot of attention. I'm very happy where I am in my
00:39:48
life. You know, nobody knows who I am
00:39:50
from my face. That's what I that's what's so
00:39:53
wonderful about voice acting. You can be my My first job out
00:39:57
of college was a backup singer with Johnny Mathis.
00:40:00
Right, right, right. He could not go to have a cup of
00:40:04
coffee because he was lumped. And that's, that made a very big
00:40:08
impression. I thought I wanted stardom, but
00:40:12
oh, with stardom comes a total lack of any anonymity.
00:40:18
And I thought, no, I really don't want that.
00:40:22
And so that's why I like where I am now.
00:40:24
Nobody knows who I am unless I choose to tell them, right?
00:40:27
I like. That, yeah, yeah, it is good.
00:40:32
All right. Well, ladies and gentlemen, I'd
00:40:33
like to thank Diane Pershing for coming on the show again, for
00:40:37
all the nerds that are out there.
00:40:38
As always, thanks. And keep nerding together.
00:40:41
Thank you. Thank you.
00:40:42
Well, we hope you enjoyed this week's comic conversation.
00:40:49
This was the production of the Distance Nerding podcast and
00:40:51
Time for Tacos Media. For more content, follow us on
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00:40:57
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00:41:05
together.