Veteran voiceover artist Randy Thomas is warming up her vocal chords for her tenth stint in the announcer’s booth at Sunday’s Academy Awards.
Thomas made history in 1993 as the first woman hired by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to be the Oscars live announcer.
Oscars producers heard the former Los Angeles DJ on the radio and encouraged her to audition for the role.
This year’s awards ceremony will go ahead without a host for the first time in 30 years, but Thomas’ job remains the same.
“I read the copy that’s written for me, generally what you’ll be hearing me do is introducing presenters and reading the winner walk-up,” Thomas told CTV News Channel from Los Angeles.
Seated with Thomas will be a script supervisor, who writes the segments for when the winner walks from their seat to the stage.
“We listen together, when they say ‘and the Oscar goes to,’ she points and that’s the walk-up that I read,” Thomas explained.
“I try to channel in my most elegant, rich tones. I move into a more projected voice.
“I don’t really think about how I’m going to say it, as much as making sure the words come out properly.”
As preparation, Thomas reads everything out loud first, just before the director calls to read it out on the microphone.
“I believe there’s mouth muscle memory so I will say the entire thing once and then we’ll go on the mic with it,” she said.
Thomas also said she drinks hot water with a little lemon to help her voice and if her throat is dry she’ll add honey.
“I just hydrate a lot, drink a lot of water and save the sugar for after the show,” she said.
