Cree Summer Has Played Almost 400 Characters Since 1983!

YourBlackWorld.net, By Victor Omondi, Posted August 30th 2021

Walking down the career lane of one Cree Summer reveals an incredible attachment she’s had with the entertainment industry over the years. She was born into entertainment, and since she stepped into the studio and was up for the mic, things rolled just so easy for her.

Summer is well known for playing A Different World’s Freddie, Rugrats’ Susie Carmichael, Tiny Toon Adventures’ Elmyra Duff, and Numbuh 5 in Codename: Kids Next Door. She recently voiced Bunny Star on Nickelodeon’s The Patrick Star Show. She’s also known for playing Disney’s first Black princess, Princess Kida on  Atlantis: The Lost Empire. 

The beloved actress now stars in both animation and live-action. Going with her father to the studios is what she says started her off. She not only could learn a thing or two but also got a gig, which she says she attained out of “pure nepotism.”

Summer recently sat with A.V Club for an interview to reflect on her career path, and of course, talk about her return to the Sponge-iverse.

Starting with her most recent gig on The Patrick Star Show, Summer revealed that she didn’t have to struggle with the voice audition because the voice director, Tom Kenney, who plays SpongeBob was a dear friend.

She “got a cast to play Patrick’s mother, Bunny Star, who is about as sharp as a sea sponge. I also play Squidward’s grandmother, Grandma Tentacles, and she is about as sweet as a baby piranha,” she said.

Looking back at her first ever gig, Summer says her late dad, Don Francks, was auditioning for Inspector Gadget – “Penny,” and one day as she was just hanging around in the lobby area of the studio, she was called in, and that was the beginning of what would become part of her life.

“Why don’t you let my daughter read for Penny?” she said her father said before adding, “And that was it. It just took off like a spaceship after that. I was doing so many cartoons that I really wasn’t going to school.”

Summer also mentioned that she’d never signed up for any voiceover classes. “I never took a voiceover class or anything like that. It was just being surrounded by incredible talents,” she said.