Dunmore native finds niche as voiceover actor

JP Karliak views success as a chance to help other genderqueer actors break into the voiceover business.

Karliak, 43, a 1999 graduate of Dunmore High School, currently plays Morph in the Disney+/Marvel series “X-Men ‘97” and will be among the cast of “The Smurfs Movie” early next year.

“It’s so important to me to use those opportunities and that platform to bring attention to authentic representation,” Karliak said.

Karliak feels his role as Morph — the first nonbinary superhero on television — has been the most personal to date as he uses his own voice, not a character voice.

“Even though I’m not a mutant, it was the closest thing to me,” Karliak said.

Karliak grasped the significance of the role while attending a convention in Anaheim, California.

“The amount of people who came up to tell me what it meant to them to see themselves reflected so positively in a superhero was really meaningful,” Karliak said. “That meant the most to me.”

The Long Beach, California, resident spent two years at Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C., before finishing up studies at the University of Southern California.

Although Karliak has lived in California for more than two decades, his earliest acting took place in Northeast Pennsylvania.

“I’ve always been a performer,” Karliak said. “My first theater (experience) was a preschool Christmas pageant at Marywood — that was sort of the beginning. It just kind of built from there. ... I did all the plays in high school.”

Karliak landed his first voiceover gig through “Marvel Mash-Ups” about 15 years ago but feels a role providing the voice of Wile E. Coyote for “Wabbit: A Looney Tunes Production” — starting in 2015 — catapulted his career forward.

Karliak eagerly anticipates joining stars including Rihanna, Nick Offerman and Natasha Lyonne in the Smurfs movie — a rare occurrence for a voiceover actor.

“For a big feature animated film, a lot of the time it’s mostly cast with celebrities,” Karliak said.

Karliak noted workhorse voice actors are often brought in to perform table reads or scratch tracks at the beginning of a production before the celebrities join toward the end, but his work led to a bigger opportunity.

“Especially in features, there is rarely the opportunity for a workhorse voice actor like me to break through and be seen in the same line as the celebrities,” Karliak said.

Karliak started Queer Vox Academy in 2021, a hub and learning space for queer voice actors that offers classes and workshops, public industry panels, interactive discord community and private industry roundtables.

The idea was developed to help queer actors become authentically cast in roles.

“I was talking with some casting colleagues where we were simultaneously celebrating that there was a greater amount of queer characters in animation and video games, but also bemoaning that they weren’t authentically cast,” Karliak said. “It turns out a lot of them did have some form of training — it’s just the doors were getting slammed in their faces. They weren’t even given an opportunity to audition. For me, it was about creating inroads with the industry.”

Karliak stressed it wasn’t easy growing up queer in Dunmore, but the actor later came to appreciate the character of the community.

“It’s a complicated relationship, but I love this place,” Karliak said. “I think the big moment was when my dad passed away in 2013. I came home for a month to help my mom get everything in order and so many of my classmates came out of the woodwork to support me. It really reminded me not only what makes those people special, but what makes this area special.”

Karliak credits Mary Casebolt — a high school drama teacher at Dunmore — for her unwavering support throughout the years.

“She was one of the first people that actually saw my potential and was supportive of my identity,” Karliak said. “I really felt she allowed me to blossom and seriously consider the career my dad thought I would starve doing. For anybody, regardless of who they are or what their identity is, having that teacher who believes in you makes all the difference.”