Rod Lurie Quotes

It's so funny how it's impossible for an American actor to play an English part or an Australian part. But by all means, come and bastardize our accent as much as you want.

Why is it when a white actor or even a black actor does a British accent, it's considered art?

They made me use an accent, which I wasn't thrilled about because a lot of us, obviously, don't have them.

Irish is harder to pull off. I know southern people and I really like the midwest, so I can tap into that a little bit. It's easier to sound angry with southern than it is Irish. Yelling Irish you can sound like an angry Leprechaun. I think me screaming like I am going to kill you in Irish doesn't work.

I never worked with a dialogue coach before, but I'd hate it if an American did a British accent and didn't do it well. It would be insulting.

Auditioning for a couple of years, 99 per cent of the time you are doing an American accent.

I think every English actor is nervous of a Newcastle accent.

I think it's sort of a rite of passage for a British actor to try and get the American accent and have a good crack at doing that.

You can't do Shakespeare with a Southern accent, honey.

I know that Philadelphians hate New York actors passing off New York accents as Philadelphian when they are quite different.

For years, I'd go to the movies and see guys doing Boston accents and think, 'Oh please, God, I hope I never have to do that.'

I'm so envious of certain actors that have that natural facility to hear a cadence and the rhythm of an accent, that it goes into their brain and just comes out. Chameleon voices.

I've done a few American accents. I've maybe passed a test. But I don't know if it makes things easier or not.

Sometimes in the mainstream movies, a character who is from the South is portrayed by a person who looks like a South Indian but speaks in fake accent.

Can I play a southern character? You betcha. Can I do the voice of Tourist Dad and Carnival Barker? Ya betcha. Can I do Fix-It Felix? Ya betcha. But I don't want to just play southern characters, so I hide it; I bury it. I tamp it down like a secret. Like a dirty little secret.

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.

Certainly people have said a lot of deeply unfortunate and stupid things in Southern accents, but that doesn't mean there's anything wrong with the accent itself.

They said [on a day show], oh, you can't do a Chinese accent. That's - and I said, I'm not doing a Chinese accent. I'm doing my friend's accent. And they said, yeah, you can't do that. And I said, OK, but can I do a Russian accent? And they said, yeah, yeah, of course, you can do that. I said, and a British accent? They said, yeah, go ahead. And I couldn't understand.

I guess when I first started speaking with an American accent, there's a tendency to create a caricature of the accent because you just exaggerate the pieces that stand out to you.

I think it would be a problem if Hollywood was casting British actors only as villains; if that were the case, then certainly there would be cause for concern.

I don't want to say I'll never play someone with a cockney accent, but I think I would be irritated by me doing it.

I used to say that whenever people heard my Southern accent, they always wanted to deduct 100 IQ points.

I had a dialect coach to get an American accent, and then another dialect coach to come off it a bit. There is something deep and mysterious in the voice when it isn't too high-pitched American.

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.

What I try to do with the accent of any character I play is not necessarily to do something that's generic - an Indian accent and that's how it sounds, for example. I think the accent needs to sound authentic on this person.