American · b. 1965 · 1990s – 2010s
Lani Minella is one of the most versatile and prolific game voice actresses of the 1990s and 2000s, known for voicing both male and female characters across hundreds of titles and for pioneering the casting of women in male roles.
Lani Minella began her voice acting career in the early 1990s and became one of the industry's most sought-after session performers over the following two decades, accumulating credits across virtually every major publisher and platform. Her distinguishing skill is cross-gender range: she voices convincing male characters as readily as female ones, a versatility that made her indispensable in an era when game productions frequently needed to cover many characters on limited budgets. Her most recognised roles include Nancy Drew in the HER Interactive adventure series and Candy Kong in Donkey Kong 64, but she has appeared in dozens of other titles in roles varying from lead protagonist to single-line background characters. Minella has spoken extensively about the craft of game voice acting — particularly about the physical technique required to produce sustained male vocal performance without damaging her voice — and has been an important figure in the professional development of game voice acting as a recognised discipline separate from animation.