I’m in four different films this year, and I have four different accents. I sound different in every film. You have to love a character to play it well, and change in my work is what I want.
My whole deal when I do accents or dialects is I gotta fool the locals. If I fool the locals then I’ve done my job.
Personally, just as an actor, I love accents; they’re fun.
Accents are interesting, because they very often inform the way a person moves.
It can get a bit boring working on accents.
When I was younger, I just liked the sound of different accents, and I used to just play around to see if I could do things. I hear accents like music, so that’s what helps me to learn them.
It blows my mind that you get Shakespeare where the ‘low’ comedy characters have got Northern or Welsh accents.
I can do so many accents that I’ll never be able to use. There aren’t casting calls for a black guy to play a Scottish highlander. I can hope. I’ve got my brogue ready. I just need the opportunity!
I find people interesting and I love regional accents. I love the Norfolk accent actually but I haven’t heard much as I’ve only just arrived but I shall go out and find it.
I like doing accents and I like learning as much as I can learn.
I’m happy to do voice-overs. I always have a good time doing them. I like to explore vocal nuance and accents and different people, different personalities. In a way, it is a lot more freeing than having your face up there.
In Nova Scotia, there are some definite down-home accents, and it’s funny because you can go to Sydney, and one guy is from North Sydney, and you can’t understand a thing he’s saying, or Glace Bay or wherever.
Years later, when I was working as a trolley wally in a supermarket, I tackled the boredom by talking to the customers in as many different accents as I could manage. I started with one that I didn’t think would alert any suspicion – generic Asian – then moved on to Irish, Welsh, Australian and American.
I was always quite good with accents – I always had quite a good ear – so from the age of about 13, I used to do a lot of voiceover and dubbing for foreign films.
I’ve been to the Bahamas. It’s a beautiful country with truly excellent people. When I took a cruise that docked for a couple hours in Nassau, it mostly reminded me of a giant version of my grandmother’s neighborhood in Mobile, Alabama… but with better accents.
In the battle of substance over flash, few to none of the Al Jazeera correspondents are recognizable to U.S. audiences. Many have foreign names and accents; none have best-selling books atop the list or can be heard pounding their shoes on the nightly infotainment podium.
I worked the drive-through at McDonald’s and tried out different accents – Italian, Russian, Irish.
I grew up in a lot of different places, so I pick up accents pretty quickly.
My dad had such a cool job. When you’re a voiceover actor, it’s a whole different skill – you’re bringing these huge, larger-than-life monsters and characters to life. And, also, you have to learn accents.
I’ve been a fan of accents my whole life. I love trying to parrot or mimic voices that I hear every day, whether it’s a geographical accent or just somebody with a funny voice who sells you your newspaper and your cigarettes.
German accents and Hassidic accents aren’t that romantic. They’re more harsh. Although Hebrew, when spoken by certain people, sounds beautiful. There’s this beautiful woman I know who speaks Hebrew, and when she speaks, it’s so attractive. Maybe it’s who’s speaking it.
I do voices. I can sound like a man or cartoon character. I also have very believable Spanish and English accents.
I like to mimic accents. I don’t even know if that’s a talent. That’s just a weird thing that I do.
I knew at a young age that I wanted to do comedy, and maybe part of that was trying to fit in at school because I had a weird name, and my parents had these accents, and I was definitely a late bloomer.
I almost failed one drama course. All the actors talked in phony accents. It shocked me. I went out for track instead.
London, from the architecture to the culture to the fashion to the accents, feels like it’s a special place.
I can do Shakespeare, Ibsen, English accents, Irish accents, no accent, stand on my head, tap dance, sing, look 17 or look 70.
I’d love them to have adorable little American accents, but I do want to bring my kids up in Australia; it’s such a good lifestyle.
When we first sold the Wallace and Gromit shorts to America, people suggested we get rid of the strange British accents and put clear American voices on them, and we held out.
When I lived in India, I’d speak like an Indian to get good prices while shopping. I’m good with accents.
I know that people who have been to RADA and LAMDA can smash accents and do Shakespeare: all those things that I never really trained in.
That is the problem with comedy in India. Spoofing sells. Come up with original comedy about the hilarious nation we are, with funny accents and odd rituals, and we get into trouble.
I do accents. Sometimes when I’ve had a few drinks, I speak in different accents all night long, and then at the end of an evening someone will say to me, ‘Seriously, where are you from?’
I think pompous accents are inherently funnier.
Kids in school told me my parents had accents, but I had no idea; they’ve always sounded that way to me.
One of the reasons why I started creating my solo show is so that I have a place to put all of the accents that I do.
Behavior is mutable. It changes from place to place. It’s like accents, dialect – it varies from one area to another. But there are universal truths about what it means to be a human being. All the other stuff is like applique. Learning that was interesting to me and probably useful for becoming an actor.
In Australia, kids play in American accents.
I went through a lot of bullying early on. Girls made my life a living hell. We had come to America from a different country. My brother and I had accents. It was very tough.
It’s fun to do accents; it’s fun to do different periods – that’s why you become an actor. Because it’s fun to be a storyteller and play make-believe.
When British or Australian actors perform American characters, we laud them and talk about how great it is they are able to do this other accent that is not their own. Americans have different relationships with other accents.
Those English and Scottish know how to do accents.
Accents are not for comic relief anymore; they root the character to the place they’re from.
Pages: 1 2
