I'm from New York. I have a non, neutral accent. It can go any way you want.
Can I eventually take classes and eliminate my accent? Sure. I guess anybody could. But this is who I am, and this is what I got. And there are millions of people who sound just like me. Millions. It's not like this is some novelty.
I was always curious about the anxiety a person would feel when you open your mouth and you have an accent. You could have a Ph.D. or be a lawyer, but as soon as you say something, you may be diminished in the eyes of someone else.
I was always told at school I was posh, then I came to London, and here I'm told I have a country accent.
In Delaware, the largest growth in population is Indian-Americans moving from India. You cannot go to a 7-11 or a Dunkin Donuts unless you have a slight Indian accent. I'm not joking.
I played a Siamese girl from Thailand. I played an Arabian girl. I did a lot of American Indians. I never, ever was able to do a part without assuming some kind of accent.
People often ask me why I sing with a strong Irish accent. I suppose when I was five years old, I spoke with a strong Irish accent, so I sang with one, too.
I consider social skills a bit like learning a language. I've been practising it for so long over so many years I've almost lost my accent.
It's old news, me and my accent, but it always seems to make headlines.
When you speak in another accent, it affects you. You can't help but be changed by it.
To cultivate an English accent is already a departure away from what you are.
I had a thick accent, and people didn't understand me, and I was ashamed, and I fumbled. I radiated an uncertain energy; sometimes baristas sensed this and wouldn't try to talk to me, and then an insecure voice in my head would cry, 'He's racist!'
I found that Scottishness and Englishness are actually strong, instinctive things, whatever the historical reasons. Even the accent changes - just two inches across the border.
I have spent too long training myself to speak with an American accent, it's ingrained. I spend 16 hours a day on set speaking with an American accent. Now, when I try to speak with an Aussie accent, I just sound like a caricature of myself.
I lost the accent years ago, but I'm still very proud to be Scottish, and I love wearing a kilt.
Funny enough, every role that I have had, I try to tone down my accent or speak with better diction.
I always work with a coach. That's just a personal thing that I like to do. During interviews, you'll hear more of my accent, and I'll stress the wrong words.
The best way to honor real people when you play them is to try to tell the story of their dynamics and the struggles that they're dealing with rather than lose sight of the connections and personal relationships, and do a really good job at an accent.
America is remarkable, don't you think so? When I came to Washington, I was twelve years old. I spoke English with an English accent. It was assumed that it would go on in that way.
I'm obsessed with how people talk! Accents, dialects... So whenever I go someplace where an accent is extremely distinct - Minneapolis, New Orleans, Jamaica, Vancouver - I always find myself trying to pick up the subtleties of their patterns.
I started out in New York, and New York has a way of countering a Southern accent, naturally; when I moved to Los Angeles for a job, and I just stayed, the dialect out here doesn't really counter, and my Southern started coming back.
I get a lot of disbelief that my accent could actually be real, which seems strange.
I'm good with accents and stuff; it's mostly that I have a really good Spanish accent, so it sounds like I speak a lot better than I do.
I was born and raised in New York, so I was blessed - or some say cursed - with a strong New York accent.
I have played Polynesian. I have played an Arabian girl. I played an East Indian girl. And what was so confusing about that, which I mention in my book, is that I assumed I had to have an accent. Nobody said anything, so I made up what I call the universal ethnic accent, and they all sounded alike. It didn't matter who I was playing.
I am grateful that the people of Telangana supported me when I spoke in the Andhra accent, just as much as the people of Andhra embraced my Telangana dialect.
When I'm working in America, I wake up with an American accent and stay with it all day till makeup comes off. I just want everyone to be at ease, and not have the show's creators think, 'Oh my god, he's so English, why did we hire him?'
When I was about five, I could do a vaguely decent American accent - straight through kind of decent - and 'Hercules' needed some kids. I definitely wasn't a good actor.
I like a New York accent.
I wish I could adjust my voice, but it's just what's happened to me. It's because I've lived abroad for a long time, and my wife is English and my kids all have English accents, and every voice I hear is English. I've never intentionally changed my accent at all.
I'm from the South, where if you walk down the street and there's somebody behind you talking with a Southern accent, you can't tell whether it's a black or a white person.
Prior to going to college, I had a pretty strong accent, and that was one of the things I had to work on a lot. I went to North Carolina School of the Arts; my speech teacher... that was one of the things we really had to work on over the years, and thankfully I think it finally worked.
My accent has changed my whole life. When I was younger, it was very Nigerian, then when we went to England, it was very British. I think I have a very strange, hybrid accent, and I've worked very hard to get a solid American accent, which is what I use most of the time.
I speak with a Northern Irish accent with a tinge of New York. My wife has a bit of a Boston accent; my oldest daughter talks with a Denver accent, and my youngest has a true blue Aussie accent. It's complicated.
Normally, learning lines is fairly easy for me, but when you add an accent onto that, it adds a complexity that I had not anticipated.
I have trouble sometimes watching actors - even when they do a great job - with an accent.