Monday, August 23, 2010

Accents: Part 1

In general, most of us who take on the acting profession will find ourselves, one day, presented with the challenge of doing an accent.. or two.

One of my recommendations to you is to saturate your ears with the sound of the given accent. Watch movies, documentaries and TV shows with the dialect you are looking for. I would also make your search era-specific. I’ve heard of acting schools teaching young American actors the English dialect by showing them episodes of Upstairs/Downstairs. While a funny show, unless those students are preparing a play/film set in that specific time-period (and depending on if they can tell the different regionalisms apart) listening to U/D will render them with a very mish-mashy, old English dialect. Rather, students should be shown current day shows so that their accents can be up to date. In the same vein, there is an across-the-board “go-to” for American’s when it comes to the cockney accent - Dick Van Dyke in Mary Poppins. Again, while a fantastic movie, his accent is dreadful. It’d be far better to search for an authentic cockney accent rather than go to an American imitating it badly. This advice is not just for the US -> UK accent change. It applies to every accent you intend to do. The more you listen to it, the better you will be at mimicking it.

Continued: Accents: Part 1 | The NYC Actor



Tuesday, August 10, 2010

Ask Me!: Submit before or after I get new headshots?


Help! I've seen some auditions coming up that I'd be perfect for but I only have an old headshot. Should I submit it anyway or wait until I get new ones?
Anonymous

Monday, August 9, 2010

Ask Me!: A Moral Dilema?



What do you do if you get an audition/job for something you fundamentally disagree with? Morally speaking?
For example I once went out for a Malboro commercial. I didn't want to support the tobacco industry and didn't give my best performance in the callback because I didn't want to book it. The money would have been really good, but I just couldn't stomach the karma of it. Is that crazy?
Anonymous