i have the ugliest accent everr!!?

Question

ok well in the future..im planning on becoming an actress..but the problem is that i have an accent!! i hate it! will that get in the way of acting? AND how can i get rid of my accent?? 10 points would help YO.

Answer 1

Your accent shouldn't get in the way of your acting *if* you enunciate well enough to make yourself understood by native English speakers. Sometimes celebrities with accents are able to use their accent to their advantage. Look at Mira Furlan from Babylon 5--she's Croatian, but that didn't stop her from looking for acting work when she went into temporary exile in America. And Christiane Amanpour is popular on CNN despite her British accent.

Sometimes actors even use different accents in the creation of a character. James Doohan did it when he played Scotty on Star Trek. Peter Jurasik did it when he played Londo Mollari on Babylon 5. And New Zealand actor Kevin Smith did an American accent when he played Ares on Hercules and Xena.

For now, though, there are courses on how to lose your accent, available through outlets such as the Learning Annex.

Answer 2

There are simple ways to begin work on your accent now, without a speech coach or therapist. The goal is not to erase your natural accent (as it is who you are and you are proud of that person) but to be able to turn it off and on when you need to.

If you want to begin now to lose it simply practice when you watch TV - you can hear on TV those who speak kind of a standard speech (standard American English its called) - much like newscasters use. Simply start to repeat what they say and feel those words and sounds in your mouth.

What you really are doing is not getting rid of your accent, but learning how to do another one - the standard american one - if you can get that down and be able to do it, then expand and learn a variety of accents. If you are ethnic you can get more work if you can sound Latina, African American, Jamaican, etc.

But first, start simple, watch TV and repeat - it does work - I've taught speech for many years and its a great at home exercise. AND know that you can do it. AND know that you don't have to hate the accent you have - the accent you have now is a part of who you are and so it is beautiful.

Answer 3

Get a coach if you REALLY want ot get rid of your accent. But remember that the most successful performers aren't necessarily the stars with the "perfect" accents, but the character actors/actresses you see in supporting roles in EVERY picture. Because they don't lose popularity, they work their whole lives and live VERY well. Most of the "stars" of today are just a "flash in the pan" that make a few pictures and are never heard from again (and if they don't have an education to fall back on, the only time you see them is in "Where Are They Now?" and "Whatever Happened To" shows. Don't lose your accent, but make every effort to perfect others - it could bring you a wealth of work.

Answer 4

Since you are not planning to be an actress now, but, in the future, don't worry about it. As the times nears for you to think about acting schools and teachers, then you can work on getting rid of your accent.

Most actors in the U.S. have a standard American accent, although, there have been many characters actors that worked in spite of their accent.

Answer 5

You MUST get a dialect coach at some point. If you learn how to speak in a "Standard Stage" dialect, you will be able to play any number of roles. Otherwise, you will only be cast as "That girl from Alabama" or wherever. Training doesn't ERASE your own accent, you can always go back to it when you want and when it's appropriate for a role.

Answer 6

Get a voice coach. You may be able to find them in the yellow pages, but I would suggest asking a theater teacher to suggest someone to help you. If you don't currently have a theater teacher, contact someone in a college theater department. They may be willing to help you, but I cannot promise anything.

Another way to help you is to go to the midwest--Kansas, Missouri, Iowa. NOT Oklahoma. The midwesterners have the "favored" accent of acting. If you live there for awhile, you will be immersed in the accent. (I naturally have an Oklahoma accent, and then I moved to the real midwest and it's generally gone.)

Answer 7

Many US newscasters had to struggle very hard to lose their accents. It comes by hearing others with a standard American accent and then practicing, just like you would dialogue in a play.

Listen to national news broadcasts and then imitate the newscasters. Record yourself, play back and compare. In time you will be able to sound like the rest.

Answer 8

You need a dialect coach -- someone who can train you to hear what you say and then teach you to speak in a different way.

It can also help if you travel to a part of the world where the local accent is VERY different from yours -- not so much because you will "lose" your accent, but because you will be able to DISTINGUISH your own accent as you are speaking.

I had the remarkable experience many years ago, in Britain, of suddenly being able to HEAR my American accent. In my case, I used this to concentrate more on speaking in my native accent (after hearing my father, after we were treated to an appalling concert of squealing tires, roaring motors and eventual smashing bodywork while having tea on a London sidewalk one afternoon, stick out his pinky while holding a cup of tea and saying, without the barest hint of irony, "Theah's beeeen a cah cresh.")

In short -- train your ear as well as your tongue. Learning foreign languages will help, too, as any experience you can get in detecting the nuances of pronunciation will give you more facility in speaking as you wish to speak.

And of course, this being Theater & Acting, I couldn't pass up the opportunity to refer you to the best dramatic example of exactly your situation, in the Sources field...

"You see this creature with her kerbstone English: the English that will keep her in the gutter to the end of her days. Well, sir, in three months I could pass that girl off as a duchess at an ambassador's garden party. I could even get her a place as lady's maid or shop assistant, which requires better English."

Answer 9

there are a lot of people who don't like the accents they were born with, my best friend being one of them, she's from England and hates her accent, but i love it.so there is a good possibility that someone will like yours.but, if you really don't like it you could get a voice trainer which is expensive or go about it in a less expensive way!!! rent some movies that have people talking in a different way than you. or get a book on tape/CD that has some one with a different accent than yours. plus book stores have sections (usually) on self vice training.well, any way good luck with your future career.

Answer 10

Speech Coach