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

Tim Russell Has a Broken Ankle

by | Feb 16, 2009

I had a nasty slip on the ice taking the garbage out before work at my day job ( as Entertainment Editor for "The Morning News with Dave Lee", 5-9 am on WCCO Radio). I was walking back up the driveway my right leg slipped out from under me and my left foot, was...

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Tim Russell’s Oscar Blog

by | Feb 4, 2009

Oscar Hats off to the Academy for putting together a very entertaining show last night. Hugh Jackman proved to be a great pick as  host, kicking things off at 7:3o with a recession shaped musical tribute to the 2009 nominated movies, and later anchoring an...

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Sue Scott and Tim Russell on You Tube!

by | Jan 27, 2009

Yes, Tim and I can now be heard AND seen doing our thing each week on A Prairie Home Companion.  Various sketches from the radio show are now being video taped and uploaded to YouTube.  You can peek in on what we're doing live on the air for listeners all across the...

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Tim Russell is cast in new Coen Brothers Film

by | Sep 18, 2008

I was cast as a Detective, circa 1967, in the new Coen Brothers Film “A Serious Man”, now shooting in Minneapolis, St. Paul, MN. I auditioned for casting agent Rachel Tenner August 5 and had a callback on the 12th with the Coen Brothers. It’s a small speaking part but...

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The Los Angeles Show

by | Jun 12, 2008

A Prairie Home companion made its annual trip to Los Angeles for a June 6th performance at the fabulous Greek Theater in Griffith Park. We recorded this on a Friday night for broadcast the next day. It’s one of the few times Garrison will do this, out of deference to...

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Washington Post on our Presidential Candidate Voices

by | May 17, 2008

The Washington Post has been listening to "A Prairie Home Companion" the last couple of weeks and thought we were ahead of the curve with our impersonations of the current presidential candidates: McCain Might Not Like the Sound of This By Amy Argetsinger and Roxanne...

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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

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