Fame unseen: Rumson man finds success in the world of voiceover

By:  | April 30, 2024 |  Meet Your Neighbor |  Rumson

By Bill Clark

Tim Champeaux is not a household name, but it’s very likely that you’ve heard his voice drifting out of your television at some point throughout his many years doing voiceover work.

In that time, the Rumson resident has covered a lot of ground. He’s lent his talents to Best Buy ads during the holiday season, political junkies might recognize him for his work on past presidential debates on CNN, and Super Bowl viewers may have been enticed to put in an order for Pizza Hut after one of his spots went out to millions of sports fans during the most watched television event of the year.

But Champeaux didn’t set out to be one of the most prolific voices in promos and commercials. Nor did he stumble into it fortuitously. His journey splits the difference between tenacity and luck.

Born in Buffalo, NY but raised in Cleveland, OH, Champeaux grew up in a literal full house as one of seven children packed into a home with only three bedrooms and one bathroom.

After learning to play the trumpet and sharpening his vocal talents as a singer, he attended college on a partial music scholarship in New Orleans. As music is embedded in the city’s DNA, it would be hard to come up with a place better suited for an aspiring trumpet player to continue his journey. And as luck would have it, it was also a place where the people naturally pronounced his French last name correctly (Sham-Poe).

“When I got to New Orleans, right at the airport they said ‘Mr. Champeaux,’” he recalled. “I said ‘this is great.’ Still to this day, not just for that reason, but I still consider New Orleans my second home.”

A few years after arriving in Louisiana, Champeaux was offered a spot playing on cruises in Los Angeles. There, one of his bandmates told him that he had the voice for announcements. Each night, before he picked up his trumpet, Champeaux would take to the microphone and introduce the band.

After his time in the cruise business ran its course, Champeaux relocated to the northeast, ultimately to a spot on his brother’s couch in Brooklyn – a fitting place for a musician that would spend more nights on the road in the next 10 years than he would in his own bed, as he toured with The Second Step, a popular Brooklyn-based ska/funk/soul group.

Champeaux took to the grind once The Second Step came off the road.

“I was sort of looking for anything in the entertainment industry, anything peripheral to the entertainment industry,” he said. “I was a production assistant for a while and I was working on a movie shoot, so I was doing whatever I could just to sort of stay in the game.”

One gig that Champeaux booked was as an extra on the HBO prison drama Oz. During the day he would stand in the background of shots, putting on his best incarcerated face. Then at night he would freely take to stages around New York to continue his passion for music.

During downtime during shoots, Champeaux would talk to his “cellmate”, played by Chazz Menendez, who had grown his role on the show over the years. They talked shop and Menendez reinforced the idea that Champeaux might have a future in voiceover work.

“I would have been flattered if I knew what voiceover meant,” Champeaux said. “Chazz was an actual actor.”

Champeaux’s memory went back to his time pumping up the crowd on the cruise ship. That wasn’t what Menedez was referring to.

“I said, ‘oh, like the guy on The Price Is Right?’” Champeaux said.

Menendez walked him through the different opportunities that were out there. Commercials, movie trailers, promos – all needed a unique voice. Menendez reached out to his agent who agreed to meet Champeaux. “I went down there and I've never done a voiceover in my life,” he said. “They signed me that day and sent me out that afternoon to try to book jobs. So that's how lucky I got.”

But Champeaux didn’t know the esoteric nature of the industry. He arrived at the audition later that day with nothing more than confidence in his voice, entered the booth and was tasked by the casting director to “slate and go”(a phrase in the acting industry meaning to introduce yourself during an audition).

He repeated the phrase back and began to read the lines. The casting director laughed it off as a joke and prepared herself for a proper go around the second time.

Champeaux, still unaware of the meaning of this industry lingo, repeated “slate and go” again. The director immediately stopped him.

“She asked, ‘Is this literally your first audition ever?’” he remembered. “I said, Yes, it is.”

A bit embarrassed, Champeaux logged the term in his brain and gave them his best reading.  He did not get that job, nor did he book anything for the next year and a half.

Champeaux’s next break came when a casting director was looking for Northeastern talent that could pull off a New Orleans accent for Popeye’s Chicken. The midwestern raised gentleman with the French name could be heard nationwide saying “Love That Chicken from Popeye’s” in his best cajun accent. It wasn’t the natural gruff baritone that Champeaux relied on in so many auditions. It was just a take on the people he spent so many of his formative years with.

From there, Champeaux was attached to Sex and the City, NBC, the DIY Network, and other commercials and promos.

Years later, he auditions with confidence, crafting his style and substance to what the casting calls for.

Tim’s website is filled with clips and demos of famous spots he has been associated with. His ubiquitous voice spans the offerings of television and advertisements. Most people would be able to recognize at least one of his famous lines, but as famous as his words may be, the anonymity of the position makes any level of true fame tricky to come by. On a recent shopping trip, the clerk at Best Buy showed little interest in his credentials during a check out process.

Though fame and adulation may not be a reality, Champeaux says he wouldn’t give the job up for anything. The trumpet-player-turned-voice-over-artist still gets excited when certain jobs come through. According to Champeaux, the only position that might make him stray would be to man the booth at a major league stadium, using his gift to fire up the crowd for the next batter coming to the plate. Until then, Champeaux is happy recording lines in Rumson that play throughout the world.

Even if cashiers show little interest.