The official Unsolved Mysteries podcast recently launched with Steve French serving as the shot. As a voice actor, French’s work ranges from serving as the announcer on Alec Baldwin’s Match Game reboot to the promo voice of The Mandalorian. As he’ll be guiding Unsolved Mysteries fans through new unexplained stories every Wednesday, we spoke with Steve about the history of the franchise and what fans can expect from the official podcast.
Horror Geek Life: We’re here to talk about the new Unsolved Mysteries podcast. I don’t know about you, but I’ve been a fan of the series for decades dating back to the original iteration in the 80s and 90s. Were you a fan as well back then?
Steve French: Oh, absolutely. I can still hear that theme music from when I was a little kid. I can feel the carpet in my townhouse in Maryland growing up as I’m gripping it with my fingers, from watching those mugshots come up on the TV. Oh yeah, it was one of my favorite shows growing up. I don’t know why, three little kids, my brother and my sister, we used to sit there in front of that TV every week and devour that show, absolutely.
HGL: Do you remember any stories that stuck with you, or any stories that particularly haunted you?
SF: I do. I don’t remember all the details of it, but there was a story about… I believe it was an abusive father with a large family and a bunch of kids. And the mother, this poor mother that was abused terribly. I can’t remember if she was actually murdered by the father or she disappeared, but I remember there’s a sequence where she’s giving all the kids these toys, these cars, and one of these kids is fighting back against the father, that to me was… I’ve never forgotten that all these years later. There’s something about the way they told these stories that really stuck with you.
How about you, do you have any that pops out for you? I’m always interested in the ones that people remember.
HGL: One of the unsolved murders that stood out to me was this elderly couple in an RV, and a man forced his way in and started shooting at them, killing the man’s wife for really no reason. I was always hopeful they would find that guy. They had a sketch of him and he had this long, stringy blonde hair, and I guess as a child he just really creeped me out.
SF: We were just talking about the sketches. You know, those sketches stuck with you. I would always think with that sketch, I would be too afraid to open the blinds at night because I would be afraid that that sketch would be looking in the window at me. They were terrifying.
HGL: It was probably exciting when the opportunity to do the Unsolved Mysteries podcast came your way. How did that happen?
SF: It came in sort of like any other audition. I get my auditions emailed to me, and there was this one for an Unsolved Mysteries podcast. There were a couple sample scripts, a few paragraphs a piece, and my first thought was, ‘Oh my God.’ In the voiceover world, you deal with so much rejection that the healthiest thing you can do for yourself is, do the audition, do the best job you can, and forget about it. Try to burn that audition from your memory so you don’t get worried about it and aren’t sad when it doesn’t come around.
I think a substantial number of weeks went by, and then I got another email that said I was in the running, or I was being considered, and if I could do a callback with a few more scripts. The thing that they were talking about, because Unsolved Mysteries has such a variety of cases that they talk about, was, ‘We want to see our voice actor’s range, if he can do different types of tones and tell different stories.’ And I love that they were talking about that, that it wasn’t just, ‘Yeah, be a creepy narrator and do whatever.’
There was such a sensitivity to the types of stories that they would be telling, and the moods, and the emotions that would come up when we’re telling these stories. So that really affected me. I was so happy when it was maybe a few days later, or a week later, when the wheels got set in motion and they said it was going to be me. It took a few months to sort of back-and-forth before we were ready to start recording. I auditioned in September and recorded the first episodes in December. So that’s quite a long gestation period to kind of sit with something, but it’s been a great project from start until now.
HGL: When the series came back on Netflix, they opted not to even go with a host or narrator, simply because following Robert Stack is difficult for anyone to do I would think. Obviously, that wasn’t possible with a podcast. I’m sure they looked at a lot of people trying to find the right voice. How does that feel on your end, stepping in behind an icon like Robert Stack, to essentially become the new voice of Unsolved Mysteries?
SF: It’s still surreal, I’ve had a few people say that, you know, the ‘new voice of Unsolved Mysteries.’ I think, honestly, I have to kind of set that aside a little bit. I have to kind of think about it as, ‘Alright, I’m just going to work.’ Because if I stop to think about it as Unsolved Mysteries, what it means to people, and the legacy that Robert Stack created, that I think I would just crumble under the pressure of it. But it’s just really important to me – I was never going to be Robert Stack. I was never going to replace him. I was never going to imitate him, but try to give people the same sense of what he made us feel.
I think that it’s a variety thing. You know, he was obviously sort of famously mysterious, and had sort of a spooky side to him, but deep down, it always seemed that Robert Stack cared deeply about the people that he was talking about, and he sort of challenged us to care for them. And I hope when people listen that they hear those same things. I’ll never try to imitate or say things the way he says them. To have those aspects of his performance were so profound.
The thing about his work on the show is he did those things so effortlessly. He didn’t have to put on being spooky. It just sort of came naturally to him. He didn’t have to put on that he was caring for people, he just did. So I’m truly humbled and honored to even be in the same project that Robert Stack was and to carry on this particular chapter of such an iconic brand. It really means a lot to me and I take that responsibility very seriously.
HGL: Is there a different way you prepare when you’re recording these episodes or is it just another job where you can just slip in the booth and just do it?
SF: So, they send me scratch episodes, kind of the rough-cuts of the episodes so I can listen to it all the way through. I can listen to the interviews, they got a lot of the sound sort of laid in, so I can really get a sense of what it is. So there’s definitely more preparation in that I read through the scripts, I listen to the episodes. Sometimes, with certain voiceover gigs, you don’t even see the scripts until you start recording, so you just kind of fly by the seat of your pants. But this is really about sort of absorbing what story we’re telling.
For me, I take some time to think about how it relates to the other stories that we told, how does my delivery need to change to reflect the individual story that we’re telling. But, it’s interesting. Terry Dunn Meurer, who is our amazing producer who’s been with the show from the beginning… something he kind of guided me towards was, as a narrator, it’s our job just to tell the stories to carry our audience through it and to keep it moving. So we don’t have to sort of belabor anything. Again, we don’t have to put too much on this. The material is dark enough as it is, and just sort of telling those dark stories sometimes can be enough.
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So they’re longer sessions, we do two-episode sessions when we do it. We record every other week. I get in my booth here, I have no extra lights in my booth other than my monitor, so I go to my dark place in my little cocoon here and try to tell these stories the way they should be told.
HGL: There are several episodes of the podcast out now already, and you’ve touched on unexplained deaths, though the podcast has also delved into ghost stories. Is the podcast going to have a format similar to the TV series where there’s going to be true crime and unsolved murders, but also UFO sightings and paranormal stories as well?
SF: Absolutely. The thing about Unsolved Mysteries is there’s something for everybody. I’m a fan of the show, so all of the stories are interesting to me, but what’s also interesting is that even within the fans of the show, there are people who maybe have certain interests. Maybe they’re not into the paranormal, but they’re into the unexplained deaths, or the missing persons. Or vice versa.
The cool thing about the podcast is that every week we’re giving you something new and something a little bit different, and I would certainly encourage people that even if they don’t think that they’re into one aspect or another, give some of those episodes a try, because you might be pleasantly surprised. Every episode has something in it that surprises me or baffles me or confounds me or scares me or even uplifts me. That’s what I’m excited for listeners of the show to get out of this as well. It’s definitely something that will capture your interest in one way or another.
HGL: Yeah, you can only cover so many stories on the TV show, so one of the great things about this podcast is that you can delve into all kinds of other mysteries that haven’t been covered on the TV series. We talked about how some cases from the original series still remain unsolved, so I’m also wondering if maybe the podcast can revisit one of these classic cases? Maybe with new information or updates that could finally help solve some of these mysteries?
SF: Oh yeah, I certainly hope that that’s the case, and that we get to use the podcast for that format. At Unsolved.com, people can submit tips after they listen to episodes. The website keeps an archive of information from all the different cases, so that’s a great place to check out if there have been any updates there. I certainly hope that as things move along, especially with where we are in 2021 as social media and technology have improved, that we’re able to get the word out even more than it was before.
Unsolved Mysteries has, I think about it from the old show, they’ve managed to help solve I think 25% of the cases that they had broadcast, and I hope that we can make that number go even higher.
HGL: I’m sure you’re going to be hosting this podcast for a while, but like many of us, I’m sure you’re also keeping busy as much as you can as well. Are there any other projects you’ve got lined up that our readers can watch out for, aside from the podcast?
SF: Yeah, you know, I’ve been lucky to have a handful of things going on. The funny thing about the world that I live in is that oftentimes when I’m working on something, I’m under an NDA, so I can’t really talk about it. But for anyone interested in some of the stuff I’ve been working on, I’ve got a website, SteveFrenchVO.com. You can see some of my past work there.
I’ve been very fortunate that this is one of the gigs I’ve been able to work on during the pandemic. It’s become so much more than just a voiceover gig. This show has a very special place in my heart and a special place in our culture and to have my career taking me down this path where I get to be involved in something that’s so important is very special to me.
You can listen to Steve French on new episodes of the Unsolved Mysteries podcast every Wednesday. To find out more about the podcast and Unsolved Mysteries, you can also visit the official website at Unsolved.com.
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