So I have a client that sent over a voice over to see if I could get the “empty room” sound out of it. That’s pretty much how it sounds. Like the guy was a good 2-3 feet away from the mic and has very little presence.

Now that I’m editing the audio, I’m thinking that the talent didn’t stand in front of the microphone and speak into it. By the way it sounds, I’d have to guess that he stood in the sound booth sideways so he could read the script from a stand.

Is there anything I can do in Adobe Audition that would help reduce the “distance” between the VO talent and the mic? There’s a slight reverb in there as well.

You might be able to make it sound a little better with EQ, but sadly theres no such thing as a 'de-verb' filter.

Maybe mix in a little room ambience from a different venue???

Or you could use a pro audio talent & engineer to begin with.

I'm available.

Another guess, the talent could have been inadvertantly standing behind the mic, which is possible to do with a side address mic that was positioned 180-degrees incorrectly.
Who was monitoring their recording?
I'd call for the "do-over" filter in this case. The voice-over is too critical a component to need to be fixing rather than just tweaking a little.

Do you know for certain it was him standing int he wrong spot or is there added reverb?

I filmed a pgeant a few weeks ago and recorded off the mixer. They had so much reverb on the announcer's voice it sounded almost robotic at times. I played around in Audition 3.0 and tested the center channel extractor. Turns out almost all the reverb was in the center channel and the voice was still heavily attached to the L/R channels so it got rid of almost all reverb adn kept the voice intact.

Thanks David but I had nothing to do with the recording of the audio. I'm just speculating that the talent was not posititioned properly to the mic. "Do-Over" does sound like a good option but who knows what will come back the 2nd time. Some EQ tweaks did make it sound better and adding music to the piece helps eliminate hearing some of the reverb slightly. I can hear it because I know it's there but to others they don't seem to notice anything. Other than that the talent apparently kicked the mic stand a few times as well when reading. Oh, the fun!

Thanks David but I had nothing to do with the recording of the audio. I'm just speculating that the talent was not posititioned properly to the mic. "Do-Over" does sound like a good option but who knows what will come back the 2nd time. Some EQ tweaks did make it sound better and adding music to the piece helps eliminate hearing some of the reverb slightly. I can hear it because I know it's there but to others they don't seem to notice anything. Other than that the talent apparently kicked the mic stand a few times as well when reading. Oh, the fun!

Sorry, but if you "kick the mic stand a couple of times when reading" then the proper designation is no longer "TALENT"

"Guy/Gal who read my script" would be more accurate/appropriate...

My 2 cents anyway.

Try using an expander in addition to EQ. That, plus the music bed you're using might get you in the ballpark. As mentioned earlier, there's really no substitute for proper placement/delivery.

Sorry, but if you "kick the mic stand a couple of times when reading" then the proper designation is no longer "TALENT"

"Guy/Gal who read my script" would be more accurate/appropriate...

My 2 cents anyway.

Exactly!
That's the equivalent to an on-camera spokesperson picking their nose.