Guy Pearce Quotes

In Australia, kids play in American accents.

In the U.K., we're surrounded by American accents. Anything we watch in television. We have 'How I Met Your Mother' and all these other shows here, so it's not something that's really alien to us.

We have so many American and English films in Australia that we hear those accents often, so they're not too hard to pick up, but it's always a challenge.

Because in Australia we're so inundated with American culture, television, this that and the other, everyone in Australia can do an American accent. It's just second nature.

I grew up listening to people speaking broken English. I probably picked that up. And I probably speak English almost as a second language.

People have asked me why are Australians and Brits so good at American accents, and it's quite simple. We grew up listening to the American sound on our TV. That's why American actors have a hard time with foreign accents.

When I go to Korea and they say, 'Sing like a Korean person,' I can't do it. I didn't grow up with that sound.

I think I've actually benefited from Australia being a kind of combination of both British and American culture. We kind of got the best of both British and American television and books, science fiction and fantasy, and so on. So I'm familiar with a lot of, for example, American books and television that a British author of my generation might not be.

Come English Settlement, I had it in my head that I didn't want to tour.

My uncle is from Argentina, so I grew up hearing Spanish. My Spanish isn't very good, but my pronunciation isn't terrible.

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 speak French, and I grew up with French, so my English is Franglais.

It's funny because when I'm outside Australia, I never get to do my Australian accent in anything. It's always a Danish accent or an English accent or an American accent.

When you become an American, they give you an injection so your accent changes.

I might be more fluent in Swedish than I am in Spanish. My wife speaks it to our kids, and they're fluent so I hear it all the time, so I've got that under my belt.

My mom used to call me a parrot, because the way I spoke would change in every country we'd go to.

I write in English because I was raised in the States and educated in this language.

In England, we're around so much American culture and TV anyway, so it's an accent that's always in our ear.

I didn't really like my Sydney accent - nobody likes the sound of their own voice - and when I was a little younger tried to change my accent gradually. But I've only ever really lived in Sydney and Los Angeles, so I haven't been influenced by the accents of some far-off land.

I spent a lot of time in London when I was growing up and I've always picked up accents without even really meaning to. It used to get me into trouble as a child.

If you're in America a lot, it's easy to get into playing American. All of it, the sounds, the energies, all very different. But it's really hard to do the accent. I tend to try and stay in it all day, which is the only way I can manage it.

And I grew up watching all the British ones so when you hear that from an early age, it makes it much easier than you guys who don't grow up with Australian television or British television.

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.

Most Australians who've got an ear can do an American accent because we grow up listening to them on television and in movies.

For the benefit of those who are not bilingual, I will now continue in English.