Bostonia feature: Alum Will Lyman Is the Voice of Frontline
This article was originally published in Bostonia on September 22, 2020. By Joel Brown
The pandemic means hard times for a lot of actors, but Will Lyman is one of the lucky ones, as he’s also a voiceover specialist. He has been the gravitas-laden voice of WGBH’s Frontline on PBS since 1984, and he returns tonight as the documentary series starts a new season with “The Choice 2020: Trump v. Biden,” another installment of its every-four-years look at the presidential candidates.
Lyman (CFA’71) has also voiced a ton of commercials, most famously “The Most Interesting Man in the World” ads for Dos Equis beer, along with spots for BMW. And he is a renowned actor on stage and screen, whose roles included King Lear on the Boston Common for Commonwealth Shakespeare Company in 2015.
We asked Lyman about the ins and outs of voiceover work and the fate of theater amid the pandemic.