Inherently in us as Irish people, wherever you are in the world, when you hear an Irish accent, it's like a moth to a flame. There's a real personable pride and camaraderie about being Irish.
Also, I think having a musicality about me that helps in identifying different things in languages and getting them right.
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.
Americans aren't good at accents, but the English are because their accents change. You go five or six blocks and the accent is different, so they are used to hearing different pitches. In America, you gotta travel maybe 10 states before you can really hear a difference.
When I was younger, I just liked the sound of different accents, and I used to just play around to see if I could do things. I hear accents like music, so that's what helps me to learn them.
Because it was my first time acting in English, everyone on set was difficult to understand. It was a mix of Scottish, Irish, British and American English. To understand a Scottish accent or an Irish accent was so hard.
I grew up with a grandmother from another country and having a different language in my house. That gave me an ear for accents.
My dad knows every single accent from being an old Yiddish grandpa to being Indian or Jamaican. It was very cool to grow up with that.
I'm very lucky, because it's a combination of the German, the Hebrew, the Swiss, the French, and that accent helped because as soon as people heard it they knew it was me.
I like to think my accent isn't strong enough, but it's funny: I get people coming up to me in America and saying I sound like Mel B. She's from Leeds. They just hear a British accent and probably can't quite work it out.
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.
Having grown up in different countries - Jamaica, Italy, U.K. - I catch the accents quite easily. In the U.S., they don't know where I am from!
My parents have a brilliant ear for languages and mimicry and accents, which I think I've inherited - that I can listen to things and pick them up.
Accents are very easy for me.
There are things that Scotsmen get and other people don't get in the dialogue. Scottish characters can be pinpointed by a phrase, targeted very quickly.
