Tell a teen that there’s a local celebrity with roughly 9 million total followers across Instagram, TikTok and YouTube, and you’ll likely have their attention. Play them a clip of this influencer’s silky-smooth baritone voice, and they’ll likely recognize him as Stefan Johnson, Cleveland’s own viral social media artist with an impressive highlight reel of voice-acting and performance credits.
Impressive enough, in fact, that he was invited to participate in the 2023 Forbes Under 30 Summit, held in Cleveland.
“I grew up on Hough Avenue, which isn’t the best part of town, and just to be able to say I’ve made enough headway to be recognized by Forbes, such a massive name, and for them to want me to be a part of what they do — ‘humbling’ is probably the best word that I have for it,” Johnson says.
It’s a fitting description from a local celebrity whose upbringing in a “rough neighborhood” has preceded such a meteoric rise.
Johnson says that some run-ins in his younger days could have easily caused his life to take a very different path from the career he has settled into, operating out of the studio that he built in his South Euclid home.
“I was running with a crowd that started off pretty wholesome, before a few of those members decided they wanted to go a different route and start running the streets and stuff like that,” Johnson says. “It was, at times, enticing to follow their lead, but ultimately, I decided to stay on the straight and narrow.”
Johnson’s interest in focusing his attention to voice acting was first piqued while studying at the Ohio Center for Broadcasting. It was here that he realized how widespread the profession could be, encompassing opportunities in radio, TV, commercials, medical narration and movie trailers. Feeling unfulfilled by the series of jobs that left him feeling comfortable but passionate, he decided to take the plunge into entertaining full time.
Johnson says that people don’t realize that a majority of voice-over work, at least in his experience, is self-marketed. Even as he works with agents, his day-to-day might include reaching out to companies, sending them demos and hoping for an email or call back — and this has included plenty of rejection.
“(Agents) don’t send jobs. They send opportunities, auditions,” Johnson says. “You’ve got to compete, and you’ve got to send out an audition. …So online, people will see my wins, but for every win someone sees, there have probably been 20 to 25 no’s.”
The hustle has clearly paid off. Johnson was most recently cast as “Game Announcer,” which he describes as “the voice of God” in the Netflix animated series Scott Pilgrim Takes Off. His resume also includes voiceover work for Doritos, McDonald’s and World Wrestling Entertainment — a “Mount Rushmore” moment for a self-proclaimed “massive wrestling nerd” — as well as appearances in films such as Judas and the Black Messiah and Cherry, both of which were filmed right here in Cleveland.
Meanwhile, Johnson says his online notoriety, which took off during the pandemic, has helped to bring him a lot of new opportunities that he might not have had otherwise. His videos often feature the food world of Greater Cleveland, with detailed (and polarizing) snack taste tests, along with reviews of local restaurants’ dishes.
“I’ve already knocked out a whole lot of goals already,” Johnson says. “The next place I would want to go is voicing movie trailers. That’s kind of a tougher industry to break into, but I never thought I’d be doing live announcing either … so anything is possible, I guess.”
Stefan Recommends:
A Home Studio: “I’ve spent hundreds of man-hours fine-tuning the audio and video side of things, getting the atmosphere the way I need it to work the most productively. It’s my home.”
The Temptations: “I’ve always had a connection to (them). My grandmother used to listen to them … it’s one of those things where it’s music that I grew up on, through her, so it kind of comforts me.”
Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson: “He is a guy who has tackled literally everything, from professional wrestling to acting. He’s done voice-over and even dabbled in music a couple of times. He just seems to be the nicest guy in front of the camera and behind the scenes, and that’s kind of what I aspire to be.”
Stefan Johnson, photographed at the Peter B. Lewis Building.
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