Cassandra Lee Morris

Cassandra Lee Morris (born on April 19, 1982) is an American actress, blogger, editor, writer and voice actress. Morris has worked with Bang Zoom! Entertainment, NYAV Post and DuArt Film & Video on anime titles and commercial/audiobook narration. Arguably her best known role is Ritsu Tainaka in K-On!, Tsurara Oikawa in Nura: Rise of the Yokai Clan, Kyubey in Puella Magi Madoka Magica and Leafa/Suguha Kirigaya in Sword Art Online.

Biography
Morris was born in Connecticut and raised in Trumbull. She recalls her first-ever voice-over role as recording for an English as a Second Language learning cassette when she was 12. Her parents would occasionally pull her out of school to take her to auditions in New York City. When she was in middle school at around age 14, she was involved in an educational video series called Real World Science where she served as the on-screen program host as well as provide narration for the science videos being presented. She described her experience as good practice reading scripts, and noted that the producers at Mazzarella Media kept calling her back to do more videos, so she continued working on those through high school and college, where she would later help the company in production and script writing for other educational videos. She got involved in journalism when she wrote for the local newspaper The Trumbull Times where she covered high school sports. She graduated in 2004 from New York University with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Journalism and Mass Communications. In New York, she wrote for US Weekly magazine, New York Press, The Aquarian and Metro New York. She also worked as an associate producer and blogger on Cool in Your Code, a local television show that covered a different New York City zip code every episode. In 2010, she moved to the Los Angeles area, wrote for Patch Media, served as a blog writer and editor in the Prom and Formal Dances at About.com, and wrote blog articles for David's Bridal.

While in New York, she got involved in voice acting at 4Kids Entertainment and NYAV Post with English parts in anime dubs. Her first ever anime role was in Magical DoReMi, which did not air on television, and her first anime television role was with Yu-Gi-Oh! GX where she voiced Alice, and later Yubel, which was her first major anime role. In an interview she said that she would get instructions on how to voice the character based on a brief description and sometimes a picture of the character. Prior to voicing in anime, she was only aware of a few titles such as Dragon Ball Z which her brother liked, and Sailor Moon which her friends liked. She said "It's surreal because I took the original role (in Yu-Gi-Oh) because I liked the character and, of course, as an actor you want to work, but it came with this bonus of all these fans. It's amazing to be part of such a close-knit excited community." She would later provide voices in Pokémon as well as cartoons such as Winx Club and Chaotic.

Morris would later move to, and continue to voice act in Los Angeles. In 2011 she got a starring role of Ritsu Tainaka, the drummer and outspoken character in the girl band anime K-On!. She voiced the role of Saki Mikajima in the Durarara!! series which aired on Cartoon Network and which had a sequel in 2015. In 2012, she voiced Kyubey, the mascot character in the magical girl drama Madoka Magica; she says the Kyubey was one of the most controversial anime characters, and made people react strongly. In Sword Art Online, released in 2013, she voices Leafa. The show was broadcast on the Toonami block of Adult Swim, and ran for two seasons. In the romantic comedy Toradora!, released in 2014, she voices Taiga Aisaka, the lead heroine who pairs up with a guy in order to court his best friend while he courts Taiga's best friend. The show was one of the first anime to be dubbed and released by NIS America. In 2014, she voiced Sue in the English dub of Doraemon which broadcast on Disney XD.

Morris has narrated a number of audiobooks, a few of which have earned her AudioFile magazine's Earphones Awards, the first was for the young adult novel Dear Zoe by Philip Beard in 2004. Other Earphone Award-winning titles include Salt to the Sea by Ruta Sepetys, Pip Bartlett's Guide to Magical Creatures by Jackson Pearce, and The Tapper Twins Go To War (With Each Other) by Geoff Rodkey. The audiobook The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery, where Morris voiced the 12-year-old Paloma, won AudioFile's Best Audiobook of the Year and Publishers Weekly ' s Listen Up Award. Her narration of children's book A Snicker of Magic by Natalie Lloyd received a nomination at the 2015 Audie Awards and received the Honor Recording Odyssey Award from the American Library Association. Morris said that she has worked on many audio books for Simon and Schuster's Books For Young Readers series, where she would record at her studio in Los Angeles and would be patched over by phone line to her producer/director in New York.

Animated Series

 * Winx Club (2004-2015) - Chimera (4Kids Dub)
 * Diaspro (eps. 131-156) (Nickelodeon Dub)
 * Angel's Friends (2009-2012) - Additional Voices
 * Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug & Cat Noir (2015-present) - Sabrina Raincomprix (eps. 28-present)

Anime

 * Sailor Moon R (1993-1994) - Calaveras, Nipasu (ep. 62) (Viz Dub)
 * Sailor Moon SuperS (1995-1996) - CereCere (Viz Dub)
 * Magical DoReMi (1999-2000) - Melissa (ep. 44)
 * One Piece (1999-present) - Additional Voices (FUNimation Dub)
 * Yu-Gi-Oh! GX (2004-2008) - Yubel, Alicia (ep. 80)
 * Doraemon (2005-present) - Sue Morris
 * Pokémon Diamond & Pearl (2006-2010) - Marble (ep. 59), Nathaniel (ep. 138)
 * The Slayers Evolution-R (2009) - Uppi (ep. 4)
 * Pokémon Best Wishes! (2010-2013) - Gemma (ep. 132), Additional Voices
 * Love Live! School Idol Project (2013-2014) - Tsubasa Kira
 * Sailor Moon Crystal (2014-2016) - Calaveras (ep. 18)
 * Lupin the 3rd Part IV (2015-2016) - Rebecca Rossellini, Newscaster (ep. 6)
 * Children of the Whales (2017) - Neri, Ema
 * Little Witch Academia (2017) - Annabel Crème (ep. 4)
 * Lost Song (2018) - Monica Lux

Anime Films

 * First Squad: The Moment of Truth (2009) - Nadya
 * Blame! (2017) - Shizu, Little Girl A