Johnny Heller

What was the first audiobook you performed?

“It was in 1991! It was, as I recall, a little kids pop-up book called The Wave. It featured a wave and was about 7 pages long. It did not win any awards.”

What title or series are you best known for?

The Thomas Prescott series by Nick Pirog.

If a listener wanted to get to know your work, which of your audiobooks would you point them to?

Razzmatazz by Christopher Moore
The Gales of November by John U. Bacon
The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett
Only Way Out by Tod Goldberg
Tommy Dash: Was It Everything I Said? by Bill Scheft

Where else have we heard your voice?

Monsters — cartoon series
Apple News

What do you always have in the booth?

“I have little statues of my 2 heroes — Abraham Lincoln and Groucho Marx — and an embroidery Zura Johnson made for me of my signature direction to narration students: ‘SLOW THE FUCK DOWN.'”

How did you come to performing audiobooks?

“The late great Richard Ferrone took me to Recorded Books to meet Claudia Howard — she needed a youthful voice, an extrovert actor with a sense of humor to do kids books. It was an instant match! RB was where I learned everything.”

Anything else you’d like a listener to know?

“I really enjoy doing the entire gamut of audiobook genres. It checks off all of the acting boxes for me — except, of course, audience reaction. Having started my career on stage and worked for years in stand up, I’ve learned to play to the unseen audience. One must continually be working to engage the listener in every moment. I want listeners to know that this is an acting job and a labor of love. I want actors to know that there will always be ups and downs — live through them, learn from them, never take your audience for granted, and never stop learning and growing.”