Tim Russell

VOICE TALENT & ACTOR
SAG-AFTRA

Tim Russell

VOICE TALENT & ACTOR
SAG-AFTRA

Tim Russell is a radio personality and voice actor (SAG-AFTRA). He’s noted for his versatility, comic timing and variety of announcer and character voice styles. As an actor, since 1994, on A Prairie Home Companion, a nationally known Public Radio show heard weekly by over four million listeners, Tim worked with the show’s creator Garrison Keillor and now with new host Chris Thile, providing dozens of character voices and impersonations in the show’s popular comedy sketches. On the big screen, Tim has appeared in films by Robert Altman (“A Prairie Home Companion”), The Coen Brothers (“A Serious Man”), has worked with Oliver Stone, providing voices for his series, “The Untold History of the United States”. Tim’s latest film appearance is in the Irish production, “I am Not a Serial Killer”.

To learn how Tim Russell got his start as a radio personality and actor, read his Career History.

All of the wonderful characters…Dusty and Fred Farrell and all of Guy Noir’s various clients, not to mention thugs, demented geezers, Japanese waiters, Russians, Swedes, French maître d’, and of course the ever-amazing impersonations of celebrities and politicians: Obama, Trump, and all of the others…such a joy for…a writer. A bewildering plethora of possibilities.
Garrison Keillor

News

The Descendants: Paridise Has It’s Price

by | Nov 19, 2011

Director Alexander Payne has been anything but prolific but his output has been memorable: "Sideways", "Election", "About Schmidt", just to name a few well received films. You can add another winner with "The Descendents". George Clooney brings another Oscar Nominee...

read more

Hurrah for Tom Keith: A Remembrance By His Friends

by | Nov 18, 2011

Friends and colleagues of Tom Keith put on a show in his honor Saturday, November 12 at the Fitzgerald Theater. No speeches, no laments. Songs, magic, dancers, jokes, juggling, loon calling, the Mighty Wurlitzer, and a pie in your face. I was delighted to add my part,...

read more

“Tower Heist”: A Case of Stolen Affection

by | Nov 3, 2011

"Tower Heist" is first and foremost a very entertaining ensemble movie, with a cast of characters that we care about and a heist plot that we shouldn't. In other words, go for the fun but don't ask too many questions. Ben Stiller is Josh Kovacs, manager of an...

read more

“Martha Marcy May Marlene”: A Star is Born

by | Nov 3, 2011

"Martha Marcy May Marlene" is a psychological thriller about a young girl (Elizabeth Banks- younger sister of the Olsen Twins) who is traumatized by a commune experience with a charismatic cult leader ( John Hawkes from "Winter's Bone") and seeks the shelter of her...

read more

“Margin Call”: A Mamet Derivative

by | Oct 21, 2011

"Margin Call" takes us back to the financial shenanigans of 2008 and will provide more incentive for the 99 per-centers currently occupying Wall Street. Don't ask me to fully understand the packaging of worthless toxic investments ( hey, I was an English Major) but I...

read more

Tim Russell DEMOS

Commercial Demo

by Tim Russell

Animation Demo

by Tim Russell

A Prairie Home Companion Radio Show Excerpts

by Tim Russell

TO BOOK OR AUDITION:

To hire Tim Russell: contact Amy Oppegaard of Wehmann Models and Talent, Inc. in Minneapolis at 612.333.6393.

LA representation: Contact Wes Stevens of VOX in Los Angeles at 323.655.8699.

…Tim as the mafioso, callow youth, Yale smoothie, prickly curmudgeon, Paris boulevardier, Russian artiste, Swedish sourpuss, and cowpoke president…
Garrison Keillor

Tim Russell is well-known among writers, producers and engineers of commercial audio as one of the finest voice actors in the nation. I have had the pleasure of working with Tim for over 20 years, and have yet to see him get frustrated or impatient with any client. When I first met Tim, he was mostly known for his world-class impressions. Later he became known as a voice talent who could do great character voices, as well as a huge variety of announcer styles. His longevity in a fickle advertising business is a credit to his talent and professionalism.
Doug Dixon

President, Audio Ruckus

I’ve rarely seen or heard anybody who is as capable as Tim when it comes to creating characters or imitations on the fly. Tim has an amazing sense of timing. I’m not simply referring to his comedic gifts that are so readily apparent. Tim can seemingly hit the most impossible voice-over timings with relative ease and fluidity. Tim’s other rare talent is his ability to ad-lib lines that will have the recording room burst into peals of laughter. The only difficulty is that we’re always trying to find ways to add Tim’s character voice riffs to the radio spot – a dilemma I’m only too happy to oblige
André Bergeron

Engineer/Owner, Babble-On Recording Studios, Inc.

Radio acting is a rare skill, not much in demand. It’s all seat of the pants, hardly any rehearsal, and takes nerves of steel. And tremendous range.
Garrison Keillor

Tim has been at WCCO radio in Minneapolis for twenty-some years, since he was 20 or so, The Good Neighbor to the Great Northwest, the powerhouse station of my youth, and he’s done various announcing shifts there and now is a sort of cultural reporter and reviews movies. A good gig for him. And then for [A Prairie Home Companion] he does dead-on Schwarzenegger and Bush and Julia Child and Bill Clinton and every other impression, acts, can do double-talk French so Gallic that Francophones double over laughing (plus Swedish, German, Russian, Arabic, and very fast Italian).
Garrison Keillor

Rhubarb Tour Diary

Pin It on Pinterest