What is your wildest fantasy? If you could visit other worlds, see fantastic creatures, or take on an entirely new personality, would you? For actors like 13-year-old Rain Janjua, this is an everyday part of the job, especially when, as a voice actor, doing his job can mean being more than just himself in so many ways.
Rain’s latest adventure is a voice-acting role of epic proportions and a leadership role worth boasting about. We caught up with Rain for an inside look at PAW Patrol: The Dino Movie and his secret for bringing the energy from the recording booth. Check out the full interview below.
Showstopper Magazine Online: Hi Rain! Tell us a bit about yourself.
Rain Janjua: I’m 13-years-old, and I’m a Toronto-based actor. I play Chase in PAW Patrol: The Dino Movie—that’s the third PAW Patrol movie coming out this summer. I also play Daniel Tiger on Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood Seasons 7 and 8, and I played Gecko on PJ Masks: Power Heroes.
I live just outside of Toronto with my mom, dad, and younger brother. Both of my parents are immigrants, so I’m half Polish and half East Indian (Punjabi). I just graduated grade 8 and will be starting high school in the fall, but I’m a year younger than all my classmates because I skipped a grade. I like gaming (I play Brawl Stars), I’m a big foodie, I like hanging out with my friends, I do beatboxing—I actually used to compete—and I do karate; I’m a brown-black belt, and also a blue belt in weapons.
SMO: What drew you to voice acting?
Rain: Well, I’m a silly person, and I do a lot of weird voices, probably because growing up, my mom would always randomly just do silly things and go into weird voices to entertain me at times, like, when I was eating or when she would help me get ready for bed or in the morning, so I guess I took after her. But outside of that, I’ve always wanted to do acting, whether that’s voice acting or on-camera or stage. It’s always been something that I really like. And as an actor, you get auditions for both voice-over and on-camera, and I happened to book some pretty big voice-over roles when I first started. And the more I worked, the better I got, and I’ve been enjoying it the whole time. It’s been pretty great!
SMO: In PAW Patrol: The Dino Movie, you voice Chase the German Shepherd. What was it like to bring him to life?
Rain: You know, it was really fun. I grew up watching PAW Patrol, and I think it’s really awesome that I get to voice my favorite character on the show. It’s really exciting, especially because when I was a little kid, I never imagined that the voice of the characters would actually one day be my voice. And then to be part of the actual movie, it’s really amazing. It’s a really big role and I’m very proud of myself—I think I did a really great job. I’m just excited to be part of it!
SMO: What can PAW Patrol fans expect from Chase in this movie?
Rain: Well, Chase is his usual adventurous, heroic, and brave self. You can always count on him! In the movie, you can expect lots of laughs from him, and at times some more serious, emotional parts, because he’s also very responsible. There’s some good character development in this story.
SMO: Chase is a leader! What does leadership mean to you?
Rain: Leadership is very important. Teamwork is amazing, but I feel like it’s a lot easier to get things done as a team with a strong sense of leadership; you definitely need someone to help lead a group in order to do something and accomplish a task. I feel like leadership is a necessity in life. A good leader needs to have strong people skills, like be open-minded, have good empathy. They need to be sharp and be able to read a room. But then a strong leader has to be a person who works on themselves, too, so they need to be confident and self-assured; they have to be able to process ideas really quickly in order to make good decisions, and they need to be reliable so that others can count on them. So leadership is a balance of all those things.
SMO: How did it feel to join such a recognizable franchise alongside talent like Snoop Dogg, Paris Hilton, Bill Nye, Terry Crews, and McKenna Grace?
Rain: It felt really amazing! PAW Patrol was my favorite show, and I watched it all the time when I was younger. But working alongside this amazing cast is, like, another great thing to add to that! I look up to a lot of these people in terms of the entertainment industry and just in general, and I think it’s really incredible and it feels like it’s not real, even though it is. It’s really astonishing.
I’m most familiar with Bill Nye the Science Guy’s work and Terry Crews; I watch a lot of shows with Terry Crews, and my science teacher sometimes has us watch Bill Nye in science class to help us learn specific concepts or lessons. Also, my parents listen to ’90s Hip Hop and Snoop a lot (they always have), so I’ve literally grown up listening to his music as well. I’m looking forward to meeting them all at the premiere—I can’t wait!
SMO: PAW Patrol is all about action and adventure, and we’re sure The Dino Movie will be no different. What are your tricks for bringing high-energy scenes to life as a voice actor?
Rain: I’d say I’m a high-energy person myself just in general—my parents would definitely agree with that—and I feel like I sort of just have to bring my natural energy when I’m in the booth, and I’m sure it conveys well in the movie. But there are tiny things I do to help bring that energy out even more.
So one unusual thing I do, my “trick”, I guess, is to do the opposite of what some of my voice directors instruct me to do. So usually directors would say to use your hands a lot when you’re recording lines, but instead of using my hands a lot, I actually keep them in my pocket. I find it makes me feel more relaxed in my body so that I can focus better on the acting part and more on making really big facial expressions. That works better for me.
But of course there are days when my natural energy is a bit low, so to be honest, I eat a lot of candy before I record! They always have some kind of candy in the waiting room at the recording studios. My favorites are those, like, little berry flavored hard candy. I love them! They’re so good! I eat, like, five or ten and then I get super hyped up because of all the sugar. And also caffeine—I like matcha; I drink it on the drive to the studio. But I have matcha regularly, so I can’t really say it’s one of my “tricks”. Mostly I’d say I keep my hands in my pockets, make really big facial expressions, and I eat candy. Yeah.
SMO: Did you have a favorite moment from recording your lines for PAW Patrol: The Dino Movie?
Rain: I wouldn’t say I had one favorite moment, and there isn’t any one particular session that stands out to me. I feel like it was all really fun, and I really enjoyed recording it. Every session was great because the directors and producers were really nice, and they always made sure I brought my best to Chase. It was just a great experience overall. Maybe the best part of that, if I had to choose, was working with Cal Brunker, the director. He’s a really cool guy, very, very nice, and he was great at making sure that every single line sounded authentic. I really enjoyed working with him.
SMO: How does PAW Patrol: The Dino Movie compare to some of your other recent voice acting roles?
Rain: I’d say it’s unlike anything I’ve done before, mainly because I’ve never recorded a movie for voice-over. I’ve only done shows. Also, I’ve worked on some big-scale projects, but this is by far the biggest project I think I’ve been part of thus far. So yeah, there were a few differences that I noticed.
So, because PAW Patrol is a movie and a bigger production, it had a different recording schedule than what I’m used to. I recorded my lines for the movie a looooong time before its release. I think it’s been like a year or two, and the sessions were spread out over months. Also the sessions weren’t super long, even though I still got a pretty good amount of work done in that time. I’m used to going into the studio to record once every two weeks or so for, like, a two- or three-hour session when I record for a show, and then the show airs within a year. So that’s a bit different.
I also noticed differences in the plot. For a movie, I guess the plot is a lot quicker than a television show because in a movie, I’d say it jumps right into the action and the main storyline. But a show has a whole season, so there can be a story that takes longer to tell. Also, I didn’t get the full script for PAW Patrol, so I didn’t get to read the entire movie. I was just given the scenes that I was in, so some scenes are still a bit of a mystery to me. I generally know the full story from the main plot points, but I just don’t know the fine details. Whereas for shows like Daniel Tiger, even if there’s an episode where I, as Daniel, only have a few lines, the producers still give me the whole script and I still read over the whole thing, so I know exactly what to expect.
SMO: You’re an Ontario Karate Champion with a brown-black belt, as well as a singer and beatboxer. Do any of those skills influence your acting?
Rain: I’d say beatboxing has had the most influence because it taught me how to use my ear more selectively, it gave me better diaphragm control, and it’s allowed me to do more weird tongue movements. So I kind of just taught my mouth to move in a way that most others don’t, and it lets me use muscles that I wouldn’t use on a regular basis; because of that, I have the ability to change sounds in, like, unique ways with better muscle control.
And karate, I guess it helped me develop more stamina through cardio training because, surprisingly, voice acting takes a decent toll on your body. When I finish a recording session, I’m pretty tired: it takes a lot of energy and focus to stay super energetic the entire time and to say the same thing over and over again for different takes, so yeah, I’d say that. And the other thing with karate is that when we do drills, we have to repeat the same movements over and over again, and in voice-over, when you read a line, you have to repeat the same line a few times in a row but slightly differently. So I guess you can say that maybe getting used to repeating the same thing, whether it’s a body movement or a character’s lines, was helpful. You know, for some people, if you’re not used to doing that, you might not have the patience to accept repetition as part of the process. But I learned that early on in karate, so it’s not something that bothers me.
SMO: Is there anything else you’d like people to know about you or PAW Patrol: The Dino Movie?
Rain: Yes! PAW Patrol: The Dino Movie is a very fun film! It’s great for kids, adults, families—people of all ages. It’s a great movie with lots of adventure and exciting twists and turns. It brings back lovable characters and has some adorable new ones, too. And, I mean, it’s got dinosaurs and pups—you can’t go wrong with that combination! I hope you get a chance to see it on the big screen when it comes out on August 14.
A bit more to add about me is that even though I’m an actor, I’m also just a normal kid. I do normal kids things: I enjoy hanging out with my friends, I like to have fun, and I like eating yummy food. A fun fact about me is that I really like fried chicken sandwiches—those are my favorite. Especially if they’re spicy. I love spicy food! I actually go and I review a bunch of chicken sandwich spots. It’s kind of my thing; I have a long bucket list of places right now that I want to try out in Toronto and the Greater Toronto Area (or the GTA, as we call it). Also, I love to travel a lot. I’ve been to, like, 40 countries, and I’m happy to put those two interests together! So if any of the readers want to give me recommendations for any good fried chicken spots either where they live in the US or somewhere that they’ve traveled to, please let me know! I’m always happy to eat some yummy chicken!
