Donnabella Mortel Walker: From NBA Cheerleader to Audie Award-Winning Narrator
Donnabella Mortel Walker is an actress, audiobook narrator, and entrepreneur whose career spans more than twenty years. She has appeared in network television shows, narrated dozens of audiobooks, and won a 2016 Audie Award. Today, she also teaches communication and emotional range to actors and professionals. Here is a look at her path.
Donnabella Mortel Walker’s Seattle roots
According to her official biography, Donnabella Mortel Walker was born and raised in Seattle, Washington, the daughter of immigrant parents. She was a performer from childhood, with school musicals, dance recitals, and ice skating shows.
She later graduated summa cum laude from Seattle University. In addition, she earned the Kelliher Award for the highest cumulative GPA in her graduating department. After college, she danced and cheered professionally for the NBA’s Seattle SuperSonics.
Acting on screen
Next, she moved to Los Angeles to pursue acting. Over the years, she trained with well-known coaches, including Stan Kirsh, Michelle Danner, and Lesly Kahn.
Her biography lists more than 50 screen credits. On network television, she has appeared in How to Get Away with Murder, NCIS, Jane the Virgin, House, and The Young and the Restless. Her cable and streaming credits include Westworld, Ray Donovan, and Atypical. On film, her work includes Savages, directed by Oliver Stone.
She has also worked in commercials for brands such as McDonald’s, Ford, and Coca-Cola. In video games, she voiced Zenkalla and Targa in Horizon Forbidden West.
An award-winning audiobook narrator
Meanwhile, Donnabella Mortel Walker built a second career behind the microphone. She is a 2016 Audie Award winner for the multi-voice audiobook of Illuminae by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff.
She also received an AudioFile Earphones Award, and her narration of Taj McCoy’s Even If the Sky Is Falling was named one of AudioFile’s Best Audiobooks of 2023. Her catalog covers fiction, romance, sci-fi, and young adult titles, including the Aurora Cycle series.
In her essay What 21+ Audiobooks Taught Me About Feelings, she writes that recovery is the hidden skill of narration. In other words, the hard part is not reaching an emotion, but coming back from it in time to read the next line.
How Donnabella Mortel Walker teaches presence
Today, Donnabella Mortel Walker shares what she learned. Her programs include Emotional Range Training for actors and Make It Land, a course on delivery and timing. She also offers private one-on-one coaching.
In addition, she created Against Orbit, an episodic romantasy audio series. She is also a co-founder of Plopjoy, a company that builds websites, apps, and systems for businesses.
Learn more
To explore her work, courses, and full credits, visit DonnabellaMortel.com. For more culture coverage, browse our TV Shows section.
Disclosure: Donnabella Mortel Walker is part of the Creative Geniusess family. Credits and awards are as listed on her official website.
The bottom line
Donnabella Mortel Walker has built a career on presence, from the NBA court to network TV sets and the recording booth. Her story shows how one core skill, making people feel something, can carry across screen, voice, and business.
