Tara Strong's voice work covers a wide range of animated shows, movies and video games. The actor is very talented in creating distinctive voices that sound very different from each other. Minus her voice acting, Tara has also played roles in many sitcoms and live roles.
She originally began her career on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation show, Mosquito Lake, which was canceled after 19 episodes. She went on to appear in other sitcoms like 3rd Rock From The Sun and Touched By An Angel. Strong's voice work is, today, prominent in many video games, including Final Fantasy, Batman: Arkham, Mortal Kombat X and Jax And Daxter.
Ben Tennyson (Ben 10)
Tara Strong voices Ben Tennyson in the original 2005 series of Ben 1o. Ben 10 is a 10-year-old boy who finds a watch, the Omnitrix, that gives him the ability to turn into aliens.
Like Nancy Cartwright, who voices Bart Simpson, Strong was chosen for the voice of Ben, because women are often better at capturing the pre-puberty voices of boys, without animators worrying about the character's voice changing as they grow up. Using the Omnitrix, Ben 10 fights with many aliens and supernatural beings, such as Sixsix, who was voiced by Dee Bradley Baker.
Dil Pickles (Rugrats & All Grown Up!)
Like Dee Bradley Baker, Tara Strong's filmography is quite substantial in the entertainment world. Voice acting has become a niche entertainment career that receives very little glamor, but that encompasses the media that audiences consume. The lack of glamor associated with voice acting has meant that audiences often don't recognize voice actors in different roles. In Rugrats, for example, Tara voices Dil Pickles.
Admittedly, Dil is a baby and only makes baby sounds. Nevertheless, she reprises the role in All Grown Up! to play a now 10 year-old-boy.
Truffles (Chowder)
Truffles, the scary, screaming, centuries-old pixie stuck in a boring marriage, is Strong's funniest role to date. Truffle's voice carries the same scratchy twang to it that Dil Pickle's voice has. Apart from this, it is impossible to tell that Truffles is played by Strong. Truffle's voice is very unique and fits the character perfectly.
Oddly enough, there is an episode that deals with Truffle's voice, where the gang tells her that her voice is too scary and is losing the restaurant business. She buys a voice modulator to make her sound more sultry and approachable, but find that the men in her life no longer take her seriously. Strong appears as herself in Chowder when she and the other voice actors have to run a temporary car wash to make more money for the show to continue to air.
Raven (Teen Titans & Teen Titans Go!)
Teen Titans and Teen Titans Go! features Tara Strong as Raven, a half-demon, half-human girl with super evil powers. Raven is a particular voice for Tara because she plays a girl with a semi-normal voice. Raven's voice sounds similar to the voice of any regular American girl, however, because of her half-evil side, she speaks in a monotone drawl and with very subtle emotionality in her voice.
Most of Raven's vocal inflections show sarcasm, annoyance, irritation, impatience and anger. Raven is an interesting character, battling her natural impulses for evil and dealing with becoming a good superhero, rejected by the top dogs of superheroes. Tara Strong perfectly mirrors these internal rifts in Raven's voice.
Boh (Spirited Away)
In Spirited Away, Tara Strong plays another baby, this time a sumo baby who can walk, speak clearly, and understand those around him. Bo looks very much like a baby, with baby fat and a usual scowl on his face, always ready to burst into tears. Indeed, Bo is often seen crying, or threatening to cry to get what he wants.
Due to Strong's previous experience voicing Dil Pickles, a literal baby who only makes baby sounds, the voice actor was perfect to play Boh, because she understands the inflections and tonality needed to accurately portray a baby - even one that can speak.
Twilight Sparkle (My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic)
Another girl in Strong's filmography, Twilight Sparkle is different from Raven in that she is very much a very stereotypical girl. Princess of Friendship, Princess of Equestria, and the Element of Magic, Twilight Sparkle embodies stereotypical femininity, i.e. the girly-girl. This is not to be confused with weakness, however, as Twilight uses the magic of friendship as a weapon against villains when talking and reasoning with them won't work.
Strong's voice is strong, firm and female in Twilight's character. Twilight herself is purple, alluding to a firmness in her character that is not as breezy as white, or as flirty as pink.
Bubbles (The Powerpuff Girls)
"The softest and sweetest" of The Powerpuff Girls, Bubbles is also the most stereotypically feminine, from her appearance to her personality. Professor Utonium makes Bubbles by adding sugar. As a result, she has a natural affinity with animals and shares a love for them, with an ability to also communicate with them.
Despite this, Bubble's outward appearance and personality are deceiving, as she has the fiercest personality of the three when she is extremely angry. Bubble's voice is extra squeaky, reflecting her extra sweet personality, and it is one of Strong's most distinctive roles.
Various Characters (Family Guy)
Meg Griffin has been voiced by a few people over the span of the show's duration. In season one of the show, she was voiced by Lacy Chabert. The next season saw Meg Griffin being voiced by Mila Kunis, with Tara Strong providing her singing voice in the episode, 'Don't Make Me Over.' As is common practice for voice actors, Strong also provides voice work for various side characters throughout Family Guy.
She voices Eliza Pinchley in the episode, 'One If By Clam, Two If By Sea', which parodies My Fair Lady. Correspondingly, Strong also voiced Buddy Cianci Junior High School head cheerleader, Cindi, the Olsen twins, and news reporter, Maria Jimenez.
Timmy Turner (The Fairly Odd Parents)
While Strong has found many of her roles with Cartoon Network, she has also done vocal work for Nickelodeon. On The Fairly Odd Parents, Strong plays 10-year-old Timmy Turner, a boy assigned two fairy godparents, Cosmo and Wanda, because of his neglectful parents, who don't understand him.
Timmy's voice is similar to other female-led animated boy characters, such as Bobby Hill and Bart Simpson. Strong also plays Poof, Cosmo and Wanda's fairy son on the show.
Elise And Ursula (Metal Gear Solid)
Tara Strong voices the English version of Elise and Ursula in Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops and Peace Walker and Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes and The Phantom Pain.
This is Strong's darkest character, a childhood survivor of the Kyshtym disaster that took the life of her nuclear physicist parents. The nuclear explosion gave her psychic powers. Her personality would then be split during unethical experiments in East Germany to form Ursula, in order to improve her psychic abilities.