Hale was born in Canada to parents who are originally from Birmingham, Alabama. She grew up in the United States, attending the Alabama School of Fine Arts in Birmingham. While in high school, Hale began working as a production assistant. After graduation, Hale worked as an actress, commuting between Birmingham and Atlanta. She got her first big break in the 1988 made-for-TV movie A Father's Homecoming. Later she moved to Hollywood and has been doing voices for video games, animation, commercials, radio promotions, anime, and movies since 1993. She has also been a guest on several well-known TV shows, such as Charmed, ER, Just Shoot Me!, among others. She was sometimes credited as Carren Learning. She plays Cinderella and Princess Aurora in various Disney productions.She also voiced the undercover spy Sam Simpsons in the cartoon series Totally Spies .She later voiced Bastila Shan for the popular Star Wars video game Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, whose looks seem to be based on Hale's, as well as the female version of Jaden Korr in Star Wars: Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy. She voiced the female version of Commander Shepard in the video game Mass Effect. She is also known as the voice of Samus Aran in all three games in the Metroid Prime trilogy. In 2008, Jennifer Hale voiced Aayla Secura in several episodes of the Star Wars: The Clone Wars television series.