// BBC ENTERTAINMENT & ARTS — MODA & SOCIETÀ
Mum quits job as lawyer to voice Netflix cartoon
Emily McGonagle needed a career that better suited family life
A mum says she left her late-night legal career behind for voiceover work from home where she can care for her children.
Emily McGonagle started her working life as a lawyer in the capital, often finishing at 03:00, but started to question whether she could sustain it long term.
After having children, she decided to seek something "more flexible" than her daily commute from Colchester to Canary Wharf, and pivoted to voiceover work in 2019.
The 42-year-old voices eight characters for the children's television series Spike, which premiered on Netflix on 12 October and is its number one children's show on the site in the UK.
The cartoon began as a preschool animation on YouTube called Fire Spike!, which was about the adventures of a dragon and his friends.
It was created by a Lithuanian company called Bored Panda, founded in 2009.
When McGonagle joined the team, it had "less than 1,000 subscribers and minimal views".
It now has 1.25m subscribers and was the seventh most-watched Netflix show globally in its first week.
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