EG Daily Reflects on Voicing Beloved Tommy Pickles in ‘Rugrats’

Before she became the voice generations of fans grew up with, E.G. Daily had to walk into an audition room and take over a part someone else had already recorded.

Elizabeth Daily, known professionally as E.G. Daily, is reflecting on one of her most iconic roles: the beloved Tommy Pickles from the "Rugrats" universe.

E.G. Daily attends the Last Chance for Animals 40th Anniversary Gala at Paramount Studios on October 19, 2024 in Los Angeles, California. | Source: Getty Images

The longtime voice actress, 64, wasn't actually the first performer to voice the animated toddler at the center of the show.

At the time of her audition, Daily said she was busy working on a musical in Los Angeles. "I was doing the musical because I just missed having a band, and I didn't have a band at that time," she told People during a recent conversation.

She explained, "So I was like, 'I'll do this musical that was offered to me,' that actually was on Broadway and starred Deborah Harry. And then it folded on Broadway and they shipped this up to L.A. and they cast me in this play at the Roxy."

E.G. Daily attends the Century City premiere of "Class Act" held at Plitt's Century Plaza Theatres on March 13, 1991 in California. | Source: Getty Images

"And then I ended up getting a major record deal from this play, 'Teaneck Tanzi: The Venus Flytrap,' and then I also got an agent who worked with me and said, 'You should do voice work. You're really good with your voice,'" Daily recalled.

Never one to shy away from a challenge, Daily agreed to explore voice acting. She already had experience in theater, film, and television, but the world of animation was entirely new territory for her.

"I'd only done lots of movies and TV, but I didn't know the whole framework of cartoons," she shared.

E.G. Daily attends the premiere of "Flatliners" at Mann Chinese Theater on August 6, 1990 in Hollywood, California. | Source: Getty Images

"And I wasn't one of those people that did cosplay or went to Comic-Cons back then," she continued. "I went on this audition and I was the first person in that room. And they said, 'We need to replace someone that's on this series. And we were looking for a different voice.'"

"So I went in, I looked at the claymation. I saw the little character. And I was like, 'Huh, I think I could do that voice. That sounds like a voice I've been doing since I was a little girl,'" she recalled.

Daily noted that, growing up, she and her friends would "always do these little voices" while playing together, a habit that ended up serving her well. She drew on one of those childhood voices for the audition itself.

E.G. Daily attends the Ratt Concert Performance at The Golden Monkey on July 5, 1991 in Santa Monica, California. | Source: Getty Images

"I had no idea what I was getting myself into. And my agent called back and said, 'You did really well and they booked you,'" she remembered. The news was thrilling, though it came with an unexpected challenge: stepping into a role another actor had already recorded.

"I had to go back in when they cast me and redo all the voice for an entire season that another person had done," she shared. "So I had to actually re-loop all of her lines in. And the beautiful thing was that because I'm a singer, I would just say, 'Oh, okay. No problem. Send me the tracks of her dialogue.'"

She continued, "I would listen and I just started to play with the melodies of how that person did the line. So I was able to loop an entire series, an entire season, really rapidly because the musical sense of my ear was like, 'I'll just listen to it and learn it like a song.'"

Looking back decades later, Daily calls the whole process "miraculous" and still marvels at how quickly it kickstarted her voice acting career. "Rugrats" became her very first voice role, paving the way for others like "Curious George" and "PowerPuff Girls."

That experience is exactly why she urges others to take chances on what they love. "I always say to people, 'Go reach out to those things you love and just go do them, and magic happens,'" she said.

"Rugrats" ran from 1991 to 2004, but its legacy has endured well beyond its original run, with Daily continuing to voice Tommy Pickles across a film franchise, video games, and a modern reboot.