Kate Higgins

**Catherine Davis Higgins**, born August 16, 1969 in Charlottesville, Virginia, also known as Kate Davis, is an American voice actress, singer, and jazz pianist who is best known for providing the English voice of Sakura Haruno in *Naruto*, Ami Mizuno/Sailor Mercury in the Viz Media English version of the *Sailor Moon* franchise, Gatomon and Meicoomon in the *Digimon Adventure tri.* film series. She is also a voice actor for Mattel's series *Barbie: Life in the Dreamhouse*, *Ever After High*, and *Monster High*, as Barbie, Briar Beauty, and Frankie Stein, respectively. She also voiced Felicity Fox in *Enchantimals*. She voiced Captain Zora in Shimmer and Shine. She had voiced Starla from *Blaze and the Monster Machines*.

For Disney, she is the current voice of Aurora, in addition to Angel and Jessica in the English dub version of *Stitch!* and Joy in *Disney INFINITY: 3.0 Edition* (replacing Amy Poehler). She also provided voice-over promos on Disney Channel in the early 2000's and provided background vocals for *The Legacy Collection* albums from Walt Disney Records.

## History

Kate grew up in Auburn, Alabama. Her major voice roles have been in English-language adaptations of Japanese anime, and she is best known as the voice of Sakura Haruno in Naruto. She has also voiced C.C. in Code Geass and Saber in the original Fate/stay Night. Between 2010 and 2013, she voiced Tails in the video game series Sonic the Hedgehog.

She also voices Kate, Stinky, and Lilly in the Alpha and Omega sequels. She became the voice of Ami Mizuno / Sailor Mercury in the Viz English dub of Sailor Moon in 2014, as well as the voice of Mario character Pauline in Super Mario Odyssey in 2017, for which she also performed the in-character vocals for the game's theme song, "Jump Up, Super Star!" and Starla in Nick Jr.'s Blaze and the Monster Machines.

Higgins earned a degree in music from Auburn University in 1991. She is a trained pianist who studied with the jazz artist Bob Richardson. She plays piano and has worked as a sideperson for many musicians. She released the first jazz album by her own name The Tide is Low in 2002. The second jazz album is Stealing Freedom. She is also in a band called Upper Structure. This features the same lineup as Melissa Fahn's R&B band in her album Avignon. They released one album called 6 by 5.

## Reception

Kate is one of the most well received castings of the 2010 recasting, with many fans praising her as the best Tails voice yet for sounding like a boy, a criticism common of that her Precursor, and for being able to emote properly, a common criticism of the adventure castings. In the review of *Sonic Free Riders* by IGN they had praised the new voices especially Tails' saying that he finally sounds like a boy.

## Trivia

* Apparently Kate auditioned for the role as Tails for *Sonic Boom*, but did not get the part for unknown reasons. She also had a feeling she would not get the part.
* It is currently unknown why she was auditioning or replaced for *Sonic Boom* as she had been voicing Tails during development and the other current cast had reprised their roles. Additionally, while Kate returned to voice Wave in *Mario & Sonic at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games*, she didn't voice Tails in the same game, the latter still being played by Colleen Villard as he is in *Sonic Boom*.