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I had a Southern accent but I had broken it so hard.

I, on the other hand, have a bit of a southern accent.

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.

The accent got lost somewhere along the way. I'm a little embarrassed about it. When I arrived in LA I assumed I'd be able to put on the American accent. It proved difficult so I had six months working with a dialect coach and it's become a habit.

The great thing about not being American is that you don't assume you know what a Southern accent sounds like, so you have to be specific.

A Southern accent is not a club in my bag.

I just developed my act way back in the late '80s. I went to college in Georgia, so I picked up the Southern accent. I talked like that with my friends all the time, because it was fun. It was funny... All my friends were real Southern. We're buddies, so I'd say stuff to make them laugh. So that was pretty much it.

In my normal life, I do not speak with an accent. It's harder for people to realize my hearing loss in everyday life.

I think we Southerners have talked a fair amount of malarkey about the mystique of being Southern.

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.