At Brian Sommer’s day job, he shouts things like, “Freeze, police!” At his other job, he purrs such lines as, “Kill him anyway.” Sommer, 43, is a San Leandro police officer who moonlights as a voice actor. Over the last three years, he’s performed in more than 40 video games, making him one of the busiest voice actors in the gaming industry. Sommer can summon a wide range of voices, from a Pillsbury Doughboy high to a Darth Vader low, but more than half of his video roles find him on the wrong side of the law. He’s lent his vocal talents to the video games Art of Murder, Sam & Max, Raw Danger and Death Jr. 2: Root of Evil.

Sommer is coming into his second career at the right time and in the right place. Video games have burgeoned into a 2.6 billion dollar industry annually and the Bay Area is one of the centers of creative production. Sega and Sony have offices in San Francisco, Electronic Arts is headquartered in Redwood Shores and LucasArts is in the Presidio. Also boosting demand for voice actors is an upturn in dialogue-heavy adventure-action games and high-memory consoles that allow for quality audio.

Source: San Francisco Chronicle