At acting school people didn't speak like me. It was all received pronunciation - 'ow now brown cow.'
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
As a young actor, I booked a movie in the U.S. I didn't speak any English at the time, so I learned my lines phonetically when I auditioned for it.
I had problems getting my words out. If people spoke directly to me, I understood what they said. But when the grownups got to yakking really fast by themselves, it just sounded like 'oi oi.' I thought grownups had a separate language. I've now figured out I was not hearing the hard consonant sounds.
I suppose that was my first bit of acting, the acquisition of an English accent. It was really just an attempt to be understood.
I knew the profanity used up and down my street would not go over the air... So I trained myself to say 'Holy Cow' instead.
Every time I create a character, I don't assume they speak like I do, even if they're Australian.
In college, I went to school for acting; we had to learn phonetics just to be able to do dialects and all that stuff. I'm somebody who does better just hearing it. I'll just imitate it, and I get it better that way. When I know too much information, I'm not great.
Going to a grammar school, you mixed with all sorts of different types and I used to listen to how they talked. When I did my imitations, I could sound like someone really rough, or I could sound like a cabinet minister.
Every single substitute teacher growing up could not pronounce my name, so whenever someone pauses, I'm like, 'Oh, that's me.'
I did my first movie, 'The Mambo Kings,' in America without speaking the language. I learned the lines phonetically. I had an interpreter actually just to understand directions from my director.
My accent remained terrible. It was very hard for me to initiate any conversation with someone I didn't know.
No opposing quotes found.