I sit down with arguably the best accent specialist in the world, Amy Walker from 21Accents, to find out what makes accents tick? Why do we have accents? The best way to learn accents? Plus a whole lot of fun along the way!
Here is Amy’s Video: The Quantum Physics of Accents: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qKPVr...
Find out more about Amy and learn an accent with her at www.21Accents.com or watch her channel @21Accents
Find out more about @tobyricketts at www.tobyrickettsvoiceover.com
Presented by http://oceania.gravyforthebrain.com – the complete voiceover career platform!
- When did you realize that accents were a thing?
- Mary Poppins and Dick Van Dike’s accent
- What is the ‘Standard American’ Accent?
- Some accents are a moment in time, such as old mid-Atlantic
- ‘The Quantum Physics of Accents’ video, and how we perceive accents
- How do we do accents and remain sensitive to cultures and peoples?
- Are some people naturally better accent ‘sponges’ than others?
- Putting in the work to learn an accent
- Do accents allow us to ‘act’ more in VO?
- Is there a linear spectrum of accents? Or An accent colour-wheel!?
- Do you have a favourite accent you like to occupy?
- Are there any accents you get stuck in?
- The elusive New Zealand accent
- How do you switch so easily between accents?
- English as a second language accents.. i.e. French, German
- What are some resources people can use to learn accents?
- Do you ever mix accents?
- The Most important thing about learning accents
- How did 21accents.com come about?
TRANSCRIPT:
Toby Ricketts
Hi welcome to VO life. Today, we’re really excited to have an accent expert on the podcast, Amy Walker, who I consider to be the finest Accentologist the world has ever seen as well as being incredibly talented and beautiful. And she’s on the podcast right now. Hello, Amy.
Amy Walker
Hello. Wow, that was that was maybe my favorite little intro ever!
Toby Ricketts
Good. I aim to please. We should warn the viewers that it’s quite possible that we’re going to be slipping into a lot of different accents today. Because that is kind of the point of this interview is to show just how amazing you are at accents and just explore the entire world of accents, which I I’ve been fascinated with for as long as I can remember. And I’m sure like you have as well. Take us back to like when you first like realized that there were accents and that you could kind of sponge them up?
Amy Walker
Yes, yes, the sponge days. They’re still I’m still a sponge. Probably watching Mary Poppins. And just my brain. I remember laying in bed at night. And my brain would be going over, you know, Ellen’s lines. She for those who maybe haven’t watched it quite as many hundreds of times as I have. She was the the maid. Yeah, like the one who would take care of the children. And it wasn’t really her job to take care of the children, but she would anyway. And so like the difference between how she would talk and how Mary would talk and how the cook would talk. And she’d say things like, you don’t underline critical to them, too. Yeah, you know, I found there was a banging around the cage. And I was like, What is she saying? They look like words, people apparently understand
what she’s saying. And I would just roll those things around in my head. And I would remember the shapes of them. And especially what was really helpful is when I would watch musicals, and there were lyrics, you know, because then I go, Oh, I know this word, something, something something and it would rhyme with that. So then I would be figuring out what the words were. And then from there, I would go. Okay, so that’s how we say it. If we’re from there, or you know, Mary says, HD to the system pool. And I’m like, okay, so it’s not St Paul’s, but you know, some pools. So then I would just, like log those things away. And I guess by virtue of her being there, and not everybody in that show sounding the same. Last year, did Van Dyck
Toby Ricketts
bring it up? I was gonna bring it up, because it’s so funny that we first learned on Mary Poppins because like the number one worst accent of all time, of course, appears Dick Van Dyke has just beautiful rendition of a Cockney accent, which is so bad, it is actually good. Like, it’s an accent all unto itself.
Amy Walker
All unto itself. And, you know, they didn’t give people the tools. Then this is pre YouTube. Yeah. I mean, I, they probably what did they film it in England? But like they just was, you know, your Dick van Dike – Go ACT!
Toby Ricketts
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, go back to go go. Like that’s what he he is when he is a Cockney accent, which I think is fascinating. And strange. He brought me problems because I didn’t even remember the maid or that she had a different accent. Possibly, because I grew up in the UK and British TV was kind of full of different accents. Like to certain extent there was like that, you know, I know BBC had a lot of work going on in Birmingham and a lot and all around the north and the south. And so there was always this kind of accent variety. Whereas I guess it’s kind of different in the US where there’s like, standard American, and it’s, it’s that all you get on TV pretty much in America.
Amy Walker
I mean, when I was growing up, yeah. Yeah. Unless it’s a character piece or a Disney, you know, or a villain. But it was, it was just mostly and they didn’t even call it standard American is if there is such a thing that it would just be like, no accent as if somebody could not have an accent. And then other people had accents. So you know.
Toby Ricketts
Yeah, I still get in there. Yeah, there’s there’s still so many briefs that come through from my US agents calling for an American accent. They just say no accent, but don’t even say that American accent but like, you know, standard or GenAM as it’s now known as but that it’s still kind of a hangover from the days of like, oh, you’re on screen. Well, you know, you’re this kind of vanilla flavored. Kind of California like California accent la accent feels like it’s the standard American accent right?
Amy Walker
Up. Okay, so there will be contention about this. In my world, since mostly it’s the world of film and Have you no entertainment? Then I would say, Yeah, most of the examples that we’re going to have of a general American are going to be from California and are going to be that accent. So there are mild differences. But you know, in a Midwest, so initially it was based out after two white guys in Ohio. There are some mild differences there to hear. But I would say the last like several decades, it’s really more more of a callback, not like a necessarily an uptick California, like this kind of thing. But, but those shapes.
Toby Ricketts
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And it’s yeah, it’s just like, while you’re sort of going through the different states in America, I was thinking back to like one of those, those American accents that was just for TV, which was the Mid Atlantic, like the kind of newsreel stuff that it was like, wow, the ships arriving on the car, that’s our dardardar, like, there’s that news really kind of voice which kind of had it set right in between those two things. And, and, but it’s interesting that that that accent kind of faded fell out of favor. And now when you do that kind of accent like this, it really places it in time, as well as space, you know, and I feel like there will be more examples of that, throughout the ages of like, where a specific accent was used a lot.
Amy Walker
Oh, yeah, time periods. Absolutely have accents. Absolutely. The 70s Nobody talks like that anymore. You know, when you watch some Spike Lee or like Scorsese, or, you know, when you watch some things from or Saturday Night Fever. Nobody talks like that anymore. They’re just certain it’s not even just jargon. But it’s just there’s like a, there’s a tambor difference, there’s a vibe, like when we color grade film, it was the vibe, when we color grade film. And we’re like, these are the tones of this era. It’s the same thing with voices and you hear it in singing. Totally, you know, there are different styles or different harmonies, different shapes, you know, the 90s. You can pick those those particular flavors. So, as actors when we’re playing those eras, if we don’t tune into that, to me, we’re doing a disservice because we’re we’re bringing in ways of talking that didn’t exist, then.
Toby Ricketts
Yeah, yeah, that’s very true, isn’t it? It’s an it’s like a state of mind at the time that that comes through in the voice like everything does. I mean, that’s the thing when, you know, you’ve taught a lot of people to use their voice as have I. And this thing about like, your authentic voice, or at least like finding your authentic voice, so that you can then change it and like, adopt other things. But it’s like how you’re feeling at the time. And how your state of mind is, is so crucial and kind of delivering certain things. Yeah, that’s interesting. Speaking of, you know, how you feel authenticity, etc. You’ve just come back from Washington, DC, where you and when you filmed, or at least by you tell us about it. It’s called the quantum accents, right? You’ve got this new video out, which I’ve just watched, and it’s fantastic. It’s about stereotypes, conditioning, code switching. Tell us a little bit about this project and kind of how it came about.
Amy Walker
Hmm, thank you. Yeah, the quantum physics of accents is. So this, I was invited by a wonderful museum in Washington, DC called Planet word, it’s brand new. And they, they had this gala opening planned in 202
0.
Toby Ricketts
Wow,
Amy Walker
didn’t get to happen until, you know, October of 2022. So fortunately, for me, that meant that they found me and wanted to bring me in to perform something and I was asked to serve requests, I get a lot, do a bunch of accents. Like, I know what that means to you. And with like, I mean, it’s with total respect, because their mission at that museum is absolutely my mission also, which is diving into what makes language language and communication and authentic communication and honoring all the different languages and ways that people communicate. So, but I hadn’t been there yet. And so it was like, they wanted me to kind of do a tour of accents or maybe show people how to do accents or something. But I like to do something that has some Pith and juice dives into
some places. So okay, I can make something. Some purpose. So unfortunately, I had some months and I just started rolling this idea around and, and working with it and building it and we’re, of course I do do those different accents and, you know, get to explore some different things, but it’s so that we can dive into that journey together and hold that space together and really Go to some, some shady places and some fun places and yeah, some
Toby Ricketts
more about harboring Well, yeah, I found it very mind altering, I’d say and and just the way that you, you bring about this, this whole thing about accents, and we’ve been familiar with it our whole lives and television and things has, has definitely, like used this idea of sort of, you know, touchstones and stereotypes a bit sort of too much like to some harm, and, you know, people have have have found their differences a lot easier than similarities in the past. But I feel like that is like we are on this the crest of this change at the moment where, like, attitudes are changing to exactly this kind of thing, like how people are perceived through their accent. But you’re saying it’s like, an exciting time to be in the space? It is, it is. Yeah. So on that note, like, are you concerned, like this has come from a position of being concerned over the last sort of two or three years, you know, we had in the voiceover world, we have the Simpsons voices sort of coming under fire and admitting that
they kind of, you know, they, they regret some of the decisions back when it was kind of okay to do accents that were kind of insulting to people and a culturally appropriating stuff. What’s been your journey through that sort of stuff, because as someone that does accents, like we, it’s, it’s difficult to write the line of, of being able to talk like someone else, and then to do the stereotype and overdo it and, and be unkind, you know, it is a fine line to walk. So how have you sort of navigated that space in your career?
Amy Walker
Yay, important topic. Because it’s not just kind of harmful, it’s very harmful. And so many different angles. I want to go out with this. So, you know, it wasn’t okay. It’s just that white people among white people decided that it was okay. Because we weren’t paying attention. To what to Yeah, we weren’t paying attention. Yeah. So. So, and with VoiceOver nobody sees the actor. So, you know, when I first started in voiceover, I got all kinds of castings. I have even been at a job that I booked for something, you know, for a white character, that then they were like, Oh, can you just do this voice? And I’m like, What? No, you know, and so I started having to say, like, can you do the voice of a black boy? No. So, um, or not even can you just like, oh, and then you can do this, this character, also, because we booked you for the whole four hours. So I had to start just being really clear, also, with my reps, like when I turn something down, saying, I’m not turning this down
because of this, and this. And, you know, because that job should go to a person than out one of the bazillion brilliant actors of that actual ethnicity. So, so I think, like, with more people speaking out and more listening, this going on in the industry, it is changing, you know, I definitely see more breakdowns that that just state the ethnicity and, you know, we get a lot of sometimes it’s still really confusing, where they’ll say, open to any ethnicity, but you kind of get it feeling like the reference that they’re choosing or like Rashida Jones, do you think it well, so? Is it a texture thing, like they’ll say, it’s a texture thing, but I’ll just, if I feel like I know what they want, and what they want is not light me, then I will just not. So it is something that’s very, very important, especially for white people that we’re not, you know, anytime I do an accent at all, it is with compassion. It’s never to, to make fun of anybody. It’s to. It’s like, it’s with so much love and wanting to feel what it feels like to be different, you know, to be from different lands. And, you know, that’s why we act, right?
Toby Ricketts
Exactly.
Amy Walker
So, but I definitely have increased in my sensitivity over the years to in realizing more of the impact of even when my intentions are loving, that just – still what I represent. And and because of the history of so much harm, that it the intent and the impact, don’t equate. Yeah, so I just I’m very intentional about which accents I do.
Toby Ricketts
Yeah, it’s fantastic. And I think you’re right that it does, like you know, it’s coming back to like imitation is the highest form of flattery. It’s like I want to do your accent to really feel You know how it feels my mouth? And because I love the sounds that that you know, that you make when you talk. But Yeah, doing it for the right reasons I think is so important. Speaking about sort of, you know, you know, adopting, you know, accents that that people have from from other cultures and stuff, do you think some people are naturally better at some accents adopting others because I’ve, I’ve always found that when I’ve been around people with strong accents, I will just start to do it, like almost involuntarily. And, but when I’ve tried to teach accent to some people, some people like my, my sister, for example, who also grew up in the UK moved to New Zealand, she’s still sounds like she got off the boat yesterday, she doesn’t even hear the fact that she has a different accent.
And everyone’s sort of talking differently. And it’s a bit of a spectrum, I think in between that, that there are the total sponges. But when you sort of, you know, teaching people, do you think some people are naturally just just pick it up quicker than others?
Amy Walker
Yeah, I mean, I think it’s, there’s a cross section of natural and practice, for sure. We all those of us who are hearing are all growing up little sponges. And so we first learned to sound very much like the like, who were hearing, in my experience. What happens even with people who say that they’re tone deaf, and we’re working on singing, I know they’re not tone deaf, because they would not sense when they talk. If they were tone deaf. We are very specific, very specific data in how we talk, you know, just those those particular melodies me. And if I go, you know, what I’m saying just from that tune, all right. All right. And like those intervals, if they actually were deaf of tone, they would not be able to hit those exact intervals. So that means to me that there’s some interference in how they’re listening and what they’re allowing themselves to do. So perhaps they were told to be quiet, perhaps they were told that they can’t sing, or that they sound bad or
something. And so different things can happen. Sometimes. People turn off a part of that hearing, and then just like, start going and sing more, or sometimes they get quieter. And sometimes the ones that just go and they go like, well, we’re going up. So I’ll just go up in some way. It’s like that side of perfectionism that, that will just do something and get it out there and be like, well, I couldn’t, I couldn’t be perfect, because because I can’t pay attention to it, because I don’t have time. And on the other side of that it can be so so much focus and so much constriction, that then there’s another piece of it that they’re not listening to. So the fascinating thing for me and why I love coaching is because it’s just about opening into what is what are what doors need opening in the brain of this person who grew up doing this thing where we just sponge and repeat.
Toby Ricketts
Absolutely, yeah. And, yeah, it’s interesting to find those kinds of trapdoors, or those, those things that, that do free people, because like, it’s amazing when you give people permission, sometimes people don’t even know they need to be given permission to do something, and they don’t even know it’s an option until you say like, I love my one of my art friends, we used to just like muck around with, you know, roleplay and stuff. And there was this really sort of quiet girl, and he was like, you know, what do you think the loudest sound you could possibly make us like, just give someone permission in a quiet room. And just like, you know, with soundproofing, you just say, We’re gonna, like make the loudest noise you’ve ever made in your life here. And just like the ability to just shout and make noise is so freeing. And you realize this lets you do this at any time, it would have implications sometimes, and it may not be appropriate. But you can do it like it’s, yeah, I
think the same goes with, with with accents. I still even though I do accents professionally, like for a living, I still feel embarrassed when I go to parties and people or website, people say, Well, what do you do? And I say it, you know, to voiceovers and all these different accents, and they say, oh, and then and I’m like, Oh, you don’t want to you know, I don’t want to do I don’t want to do it. And it’s just like, it’s, it’s still something inside me that says like, that’s not how you talk, like, Oh, what if What, if anything is really bad, or like, you know, all those kinds of voices. So quelling those voices is a big part of the of the journey. What what are some of the other sort of processes do you have for learning accents? And you’ve got a few different tools in your box?
Amy Walker
What do you do? I do. Um, I really wanted to add a note on to what you were saying about the previous question. Yeah. Because I didn’t get to that part about the, about the work. So there’s that part of that about maybe having a facility maybe having an interest in wanting to do that more and wanting to explore it more, maybe having a musical ear, and then there’s putting in the time because, you know, and you know, from living in another country, I moved to Australia, and I could have just kept my American accent but it made a lot more sense. That’s me to not. But even prior to that all every play I did as a kid, I was working on some kind of an accent because I knew to me this is part of my job as an actor. So, and then you got to test that out, right? You got to go to a shop. And then when they say, Can I help you say, yes, thank you, I’m looking for a cardigan or something, you know, and you get so much better service. But then you meet someone actually from England. And then you get tested even more. So, you know, living in Australia. Where there Ozzy, so if something sounds different, I will No, because there will be like a. And then when you
get to like for me, it was about three days where they’d say, like when I was at uni, and if they were talking about how growing up in Sydney, or growing up in Melbourne or something like that. And I was and they’d say, Oh, yeah, did you know was it Sydney for you? And I’d say, oh, no, from Seattle. But you don’t have an accent. So then you know that you’re, what you’re doing is working?
Toby Ricketts
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And like I say to my students, if you ever really want like, if you feel like you’re kind of getting confident with an accent, then just go out to a different restaurant or pub for an evening and just method it out. Like just adopt that character. And it’s like, it’s the most like, adrenaline infused thing you can do. I remember even just ordering pizza, when I went to the States, for the first time was just like picking up the phone and going, oh, yeah, I want to order a pizza. And it was just like, oh my god, what if they know what if they know? And then you realize it’s like, even people from America speak differently. And even if it’s wrong, they’ll just be like, Oh, this guy’s from a weird part of the US or something? Like, it’s it’s so funny when you get into that. But there’s mind games and, and yeah, doing the whole method thing where you just, you know, you put yourself out there and there was a risk of failure, then because you’re like, if they realize that you’re you’ve that wasn’t quite right, then like, there’s this social cost, you know, of you have been going and you have to explain and you’re like, oh, actually, I’m just from New Zealand, I was
just trying an American accent. And, yeah, that’s, it’s a great way to do
Amy Walker
you have to you have to be able to do it with that kind of pressure, or you won’t be able to do it. That you want.
Toby Ricketts
Yeah, yeah. Speaking of another question that actually came up from a conversation I had with a buddy Scott tunnocks, who’s a British voiceover artist over in the UK, and we were talking about why the further you get from your own accent, like, the easier it is to act like you can, you can put on this kind of, it’s almost like a cloak you can put on and then like, it allows you to kind of get into the role, as long as you kind of know that accent quite a little quite a bit, then you can, you know, it allows you to kind of, you know, go a bit further than you then just using your normal voice like that. So if you ever had an experience with that, where the further you go, the easier it is to kind of get crazy on a character.
Amy Walker
I think it takes us back to permission. Yeah, so if we, by giving ourselves permission to be someone quite different, we allow ourselves because we’re not actually a different person. You bits in the kaleidoscope, you’re just mixing them around in a different configuration. So I think like when I realized that, that was the biggest freeing moment for me of like, Oh, I’m actually initially when I was a kid, I wanted to be different people. But you’re really not. And so there’s something about that, that freed things up in my life as well. But then also like great, well, then I can go anywhere. And I think I mean, I’m probably more interested in characters that have a different life experience than than mine just because I’m living this one. But in terms of freedom I think it’s it’s I don’t know if I felt more free or less free in any particular role. It’s just about being completely inside it. Like what how do you I guess I guess there’s a spectrum of distance between this accent and the other accents, but
Toby Ricketts
yeah, yeah. Yeah. Because that’s true, isn’t it? Because yeah, it’s not it’s not a linear spectrum. It’s a spectrum with all these different points. Like yeah about with all you know, with like, I’ve always tried to come up with this kind of like a color wheel for accents. Right? Where because like, it’s really okay, if you take American you take British and you take Australian and New Zealand that the vows in Australian are closer to American vows. And the New Zealand are closer to British. So that is it’s kind of a spectrum like for certain words, not all words, but Got it? Yeah, yeah, like so. I’m kind of fascinated. I’d love to can’t let it come up with a color because the other really interesting thing is that some accents especially like New Zealand and South Africa have lots but and and Boston have have direct correlates that go right through so someone from Boston will say something. I can’t think of one right now. Can’t count can’t can’t, they’ll say count can’t. And we didn’t
New Zealand say count as well. And so like sometimes, like when you’re watching something with a strong Boston accent, it’s your brain just goes well, he just like spoke with a New Zealand accent for a second. Ah, yeah, and because there’s there’s just these like little portals through to that, like I that’s exactly the way I say that and my accent. And like, there’s some really interesting ones around the world. Like the fact that like a really heavy Welsh accent sounds a lot like a an Indian accent. Very similar. Very similar pattern. Yeah. And it’s really easy to spill over from one end to the other, like to get that kind of that pollution that comes through. And I mean, and obviously things that are geographically close have similar things like my Scottish and Irish always gets, like quite confused, it’s very easy to spill over from one end to the other. We should work on that. On the accent, we’ll the Color Wheel of accents and see which vowels are shared and which aren’t. Yeah,
Amy Walker
I wonder if somebody’s probably done it. Maybe not. Get on it, Toby.
Toby Ricketts
I can own this space. You do a lot of accents. But you must have one that you enjoy doing more than others do you?
Amy Walker
Favorite everyone always asked to revive it. Um, it just depends on what mood I’m in. You know, sometimes, like, I don’t know, I just like every, every script, every scene I ever do. I do one pass with just like Brooklyn, you know, one passed, just like something from New York, because there’s something gonna come out that I’m going to fight for hada that I’m just gonna say and not like pussyfoot around, I’m just gonna say it. And so I want I want like that passed, which I’m not going to do but it’s like, it’s like a layer of paint, I just want to know, is there right? And then I also like a Scottish past as well, because it’s quite different. So when you’re working a scene, and you get into a few little partner, and then you do a Scottish person, it’s completely differently. It’s totally gonna break up all those patterns, you see, because our rhythms different the melodies, different, all of that stuff. So I like to do those things and kind of break it up. But favorites is kind of a mood thing. I really like Australian.
Toby Ricketts
mean, it reminds you of a time in your life. You know, these some of these accents can fly again, with permission. Can like if you’ve got that character, like your Brooklyn one, it’s called Big and bombastic. You know, so unapologetic, and, like, I like how, like you allow yourself to do different things with different accents. You know? So maybe that’s, that’s such a great technique of using different accents to find a different truth in scripts, you know, to find a different power, like poetry around it, or Yeah, or some other truth. That’s a really interesting idea. I love it. I love it.
Amy Walker
I suppose most natural for me is usually in English. Yes. The great tingling around the house. And yeah, yeah, exactly. It’s so many layers in there of what’s said and what’s not fed and what’s implied.
Toby Ricketts
Yeah. But do you ever get stuck in the neck sense, because when I tend to break out my South African accents, I sometimes get stuck. And then everything in my head, my internal monologue starts to turn into South African men. And I find it a bit strange.
Amy Walker
I think I when I lived in a little village, in, in western Washington when I was 16. And there were a lot of people there from from Wisconsin and Minnesota. And they’d say talking about, we’re talking about it. And that is a sticky phrase. So I’d be talking completely normally, normally, I’m gonna erase that I would be talking like my self that I sounded like at the time, it was very much like myself now but maybe a little higher. And then I’d say yeah, and then we were talking about it. Or sometimes after I lived in Wellington, I would come home and it was I would just say yes, and they say are you saying yeast? Word?
Toby Ricketts
Yes, yes, yes, of course. I mean, the New Zealand I you know, funnily enough within your New Zealand accent like that was the moment when I was like, this lady knows what she’s talking about. Because I have come across so few people doing accents online, who can do an actual New Zealand accent because like, it’s such a, like, you hear from people who are trying to learn accents that it’s like it’s the craziest accent as well. To all over the place, and sometimes they really flit in like, just just like the whole mouth position is really, really interesting. But it seems to like be really popular in the states like Flight of the Conchords. There’s Taika Waititi doing his thing with Korg. And just this beautiful understated New Zealand humor that seems to be subtly permeating like the American scene. And it kind of comes back to the accent in a way because it’s so unusual. And so kind of flat and kind of like not sure of itself. And we all like go up at the end of every sentence.
Which which, which is really interesting. Can you talk a little bit about the New Zealand accent? I liked your story about the the phone card that you tell him the quantum physics video. What was your journey?
Amy Walker
Honestly? I tend to put my pen in the phone booth.
Toby Ricketts
Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah. What was your journey with an accent? You moved to Wellington?
Amy Walker
I did. I moved to Wellington from Wollongong, Australia. So I, unfortunately, had gotten a tainted view from my beloved Aziz Olivia. But like so there’s a you know, there’s a bit of a rivalry, I would say, between like, we invented the path. Taliban,
Toby Ricketts
they steal every good thing we have. Like, yeah. The Taliban so much inhuman, irrelevant.
Amy Walker
So much. So yeah, so I was there. And it took away moment, because I wasn’t like, in at uni in Australia, I was around people all the time. In New Zealand, I was looking for a place to live. I couldn’t work. So it wasn’t I wasn’t as immersed. And I came in with a bit of didn’t realize I came up with a bit of judgment. So about a couple of weeks in I was like, what’s going on? Why aren’t you picking those up? And so I think there was a an add on at the time. PHMSA. And it was like it was it has so much apptech Like aggressive apptech that I kind of like I started to just love like, There’s something so genuine and sweet that I experience from a New Zealand accent. That’s like, you have to come into any interaction like whether you’re just buying coffee. You have to have what I what I lovingly termed an arsenal of pleasantries, because you can’t just walk up and say you’re a black, a black, white, you have to say, Oh, hi, how are you? I’m good. How are you? I’d like to order something. I’m okay. What do you like to order a coffee? Okay, what sort of coffee? Would you like? Oh, I lovely. Would you like and it’s just like 18 steps?
Toby Ricketts
Yeah, yeah, exactly. And each one of us has to be like, is it okay? Is it okay? If I have a flat? Oh, no, no, no.
Amy Walker
Okay. Oh, sweet. Wonderful. Sweet is quite sweet. But I realized that I didn’t take a full breath in and so after about a year and a half the difference between it just being okay to be you and say what you want to say, I realized I was in my nervous system, which is not bad. It was just something that started to feel less authentic for me and how I wanted to be in my body. Which isn’t to say that I couldn’t find a way to do that. And to have a kiwi accent. I just found that. For me. That was my experience of it was more sort of this sort of energy in that way.
Toby Ricketts
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. So talking about because we’ve been, you know, you’ve been swapping in between accents. And it’s kind of your thing that you just like bang, bang, bang, go between them, especially in a want to talk about your, your chasing X sensors with Jim measurement, which is fantastic. But like, what do you what tools do you use to switch between them as like? I’ll ask it won’t give examples. How would you treat them so easily?
Amy Walker
Ah, it because I burned through the hard part. But when I was at this, just random idea back in this little website called YouTube long ago before it was Google before there were channels before there were ads. I was a struggling actress in Philly. Trying to figure out how to let casting directors know that I could do you know if it wasn’t an accent that I could already do? I would learn it And you know, be able to do it. So I thought, why don’t I just make a little video where I introduce myself in 21 different accents and a single take sounds like a catchy number. And so what? This whole idea, but the switching and I knew that switching was the hardest part. And so and I intentionally put accents together, like next to each other, like Australia, to Kiwi to Australia, and like, Irish to Scottish because I knew that’s the hardest part, like anyone can take their time and get into the zone and come up and do an accent and then cut and then get into the zone and then cut. And if you
find like a lot of the videos that happened after that there are cuts, you know, there’s still it’s still rare to see somebody not cut at all. So I just kind of knew intuitively that that was the hard part. So I spent a lot of time practicing. Where did those things live in my mouth? Sometimes when they’re new, you know, some people have like a particular line. And sometimes I’ve used that the moment. Yeah, yeah. Or like, or a little line from a movie or something little I’m your uncle Argyle that will get me there straightaway. So if I spend a wee moment I might do that. Or I might you know, something, or want to be a pair. I don’t like crazy. We mustn’t panic, we mustn’t panic. So, um, have your little ones, that’ll get you there. But then at some point, you have to it’s just the practice of over and over and over. So that you don’t have to, like have a little screensaver moment where you’re doing the line secretly in your head before you can jump. Yeah, it’s worth it because it’s rare.
Toby Ricketts
Yeah, and I feel like you’ve got to initiate that muscle memory that happens in your head. That’s just like, like, like driving I was compared to driving. I mean, like driving is an insanely complex series of things. There’s so much going on. There’s brakes, pedals, clutches, gears, children music on the radio, other road users and yet we just like sail through it, because we’ve been doing it for so long. And I feel like it’s the same with accents that you you learn all the gears and and all the different stuff. And then once you’ve committed that to kind of like your motor cortex and your and all the parts of your brain that that likes doing that subconsciously you can think about the acting and the performance and the music and all the things that you know we do when we’re speaking in our most comfortable way of speaking. So like do you do you have committed there’s still some accent where you feel like there’s still a bit of horsepower going into the accent?
Amy Walker
Sure, I would there are plenty that I haven’t really learned all the way because I never get them you know, I mean, I don’t I don’t have breakdowns for them. So or like maybe I’ve had one ever and so I’ll learn it up for that and and then like that RAM is gone. So yeah, definitely. The ones that I keep are the ones that I
Toby Ricketts
Yeah, absolutely. And you have a kind of a like, Do you believe in the kind of the masculine that you’ve put on the mask? I know that’s a big thing in enacting of putting on the mask but like, were you? Yeah, like like more about where you feel in your mouth and then your body language your body comes into it as well to remember Excellent.
Amy Walker
Oh, yeah, it should start in the body because it’s coming from this pinball machine, you know, ricocheting off all these trot traumas and sore spots and desires and things so you know, we want it to be free and connected we don’t want it to sound from the head up like you’re thinking it we want it to feel really organic. So
Toby Ricketts
what was completely forgotten the body and I’ve lost it yes, we can quickly move on obviously, I think you I think you did answer a and I think I wanted to talk about was like an English as a Second Language accents, which like I’ve I’ve never really been good at like doing different like French accents. German so when the person is not actually speaking, like with their native tongue is not it’s not it’s not English. And so it’s their it’s the effect of their spoken language that is affecting the way they speak English. Do you have a different way of learning those accents because I really struggle with with with with different European accents and making them different enough without being making them offensive, you know, learning those different tropes.
Amy Walker
So the important thing for me is that this person is trying to speak correctly. No, they are trying their best to be understood to pronounce the sounds the best they can Okay. So you have to have some kind of an understanding of the language itself. To know when this person looks at these letters. What is their first thought the first thought is O th To know that it’s the, you know, oh, I know that it’s, you know, and or ah, or E instead of F, or, you know, so when you when you are coming from it from the place of first understanding how that person would say those letters in their language in French, for example. And then as, as I’m listening to my references, then, which for anything, and we can get, I haven’t forgotten that question about how to learn accents. So, for anything, the references are the most important. And I like to get video whenever possible, because I want to see how they’re how they’re holding their body, I want to see how their, what their
mouth is doing, what their tongue is doing. You know, all that is important information. And of course, you need audio. And then it has to be very authentic. Because there are little little bitty bitty things that would that you need analog that can be lost in translation, it’s wonderful to have a coach who can teach you how to pay attention to things that that you’re missing. But for me, for the most part, I’m soaking things up on all these subtle levels that I can’t like, it’s rare to trust that somebody else has gotten all those levels. For me, there are a few people that I that I’ll work with, when I have an accent that I need to get for something. But yeah, I need to trust that I’m getting all the little subtle information to. So then, when you’re watching somebody, if possible, watch them speak in their native language, also. So you can see oh, this is out there, though, the mouth is a little bit forward for the tongue, you know, for the lips as well. And then what are the melodic patterns? The youth? You know, you know, what are the different melodic patterns that they’re using in their native language? What translates in? How do they even interpret what our patterns
are? Because sometimes they’re right on and sometimes they’re a little interesting. Where do they place the emphasis on those syllables? Because again, it’s, they’re doing their best to speak that language. In, you know, in American English, if they’re, if it’s for American or British English, which is another thing. So if I’m doing a French person, depending on the project, I will often skew British English because that would be more likely, unless it’s a project where it needs to skew American English. So that’s, that’s kind of the first question. And then, it’s really important to not go, oh, well, French people can’t say th the same way. So it’s always going to be z. So every time they do this, it will be this, this, this is an all you can hear when you’re listening to them is zero, this is no, they see that that’s a th, they probably learned for this amount of time in school or wherever they learned it, that it’s or the and they’re doing their best. And sometimes they might say these and get it, you know, pretty well, it might take a little more effort. And sometimes they might not. Like I said, sometimes they might not. But that one kind of blends in in a way that’s not just going to
stick out at you. So this is a tiny glimpse into, like I’m paying attention to, what’s this going to be like for the listener is anything going to pop out and be maybe correct for that accent, but not understandable enough for this audience. And so if it’s not understandable enough, what’s something that I can do where maybe it takes a little more effort, but they’ll get it closer to the actual sound. And then I’m going from that level of, okay, from that baseline, they’re looking at it from this language, and then from like, that particular person, so you get to add in things about you know, their status and, and their loves and how they might really enjoy one particular word. So
Toby Ricketts
Well, I mean, the thing that I’ve realized in sort of studying accents and trying to get always trying to get better, is how it’s like fractals, like the closer you start looking, the more detail appears and the closer you look at that detail, there’s more detail all the way down, you know, it’s like and then you get to the individual person I know like, like, you know, when I studied with you, just the way that someone speaks with their layers of accents and life experience, etc. And, jeez, that that whole is just as deep as you want to take it, isn’t it? Yeah. Unfortunately, absolutely. Like dialectical things are important. You kind of got there with it with the French accent there in terms of there are certain like, when you’re especially when you’re improving with accents and and or If you’re trying to improv around a script, there’s certain words, which will authenticate the accent that you’re in, you know, certain things that they say in the ER let you sing with Minnesota. Like that.
That’s that little mnemonic that they have up there and, like cured. Exactly, yeah. So how do you first one I also back up, like when you were saying about, like finding a reference, when you’re learning accents, to find these little dialectical quirks and to find these, like quirks, how do you make sure that thing you found is not just someone trying to do an accent because there’s so many people on accent on YouTube trying to do accents. Not all of them are as, as technically proficient, as, as yourself. And some of them are sort of like, they kind of put you in the wrong direction a lot of times. So what do you have any, I mean, obviously, you know, what your your sources, but there are other methods that you can use to try and find actual people. Specially, yeah.
Amy Walker
So I love the accent tag on YouTube, because that, for the most part is not actors. I love actors, I am one, but we think about how we sound. So if your reference is an actor, even if it’s an interview, they are thinking about how they sound and if they’re from somewhere regional, there have their judgments that come with that regionalism. And so they might be softening it or skewing it a little one way or something. So I like just people who were, Hey, I saw this accent tag thing. And so I’m just gonna do it. And you know, I don’t care if they have one follower, if they’re from that place. And it’s been very genuine, what I found, and you have to, you do have to kind of search. But in case you’re not familiar, the accent tag is a is a tag where there’s a couple of them, where people will say where they’re from, and they will read a set of, or the answer, they’ll read a set of words and usually answer a set of questions. And then, hopefully, they’ll talk a little bit at some point in the
video and just be talking about whatever catches their interest. That’s the gold for me. Because even then, they’re trying to answer it, right? You know, they don’t want to be stupid, all the things that that they’ve get. And so it’s interesting to hear how those how they’ll say those things. And it’s sometimes it’s nice to hear the same word or phrase said in reference, because you can say, Oh, I see how that’s different. But then the gold is when they’re just talking, soak all that up, what’s their cadence? What, you know, what are all those bits and pieces. There’s the I the IDA, that international dialect of English archive, which is really hit and miss. You can be used to be one of the only and but it’s just very rarely, I don’t know why they choose the people who choose. Like this person was born here. But then they mostly lived there and then lived here. And then like they it’s not usually very precise in terms of like, this is a pure specimen.
Toby Ricketts
Yeah, exactly. Yeah.
Amy Walker
Or maybe it is, but they they were born and bred in 1950. And nobody talks like that now. So yeah, that’s my favorite.
Toby Ricketts
Yeah, that’s, that’s cool. Do you ever for roles or for fun, mix accents, kind of mix them up. Like this is a person who was born here, and then moved to this place? purposefully.
Amy Walker
Um I’ve heard that. I’m, like, sometimes they’ll say, a light accent. And I’ll take that to mean the same thing. Or I’ve had a couple of interesting ones that were like, We don’t want a we want a non distinguishable European. Just like, What the heck is that? Or, you know, I’m someone a different species, or a toaster, or an elf, you know? And so we’re you where you get to have fun, especially when you’re making something up that’s like another species. Because then you can take certain sounds from certain things, but then you’re having to make sure that you don’t ever get into like, this is obviously German, or this is Russian or something like that. Yeah, that’s, that’s fine. Yeah, I haven’t had one. Because it can be really hard for people then if you’re mixing things, then usually, their brain would be like, where are they from?
Toby Ricketts
Yeah, exactly. Yeah, that’s what you just said. And it’s, I’ve definitely found with my mixing my sort of mid atlantic stuff that I do for for like corporations that don’t want to sound like they’re just American or just British or whatever. Like, it usually lands sort of somewhere in the mid atlantic with maybe a pinch of Ozzy or something. But like, you don’t want to sound like you’re doing a bad accent. And I feel like there are rules that you learn with each of those accents. And you don’t break any of those rules, but you don’t sort of commit to any one kind of Val thing like it’s it’s an interesting kind of process to try and to try and go right we’re gonna go like yet like like halfway between kiwi and British there was like an anglicized Kiwi or or or you know halfway between Ozzy and Ozzie and kiwi is kind of interesting because you kind of lose the clarity of those those different handles that you have on the accent. Yeah, that’s fantastic. So coming to the end of the interview, is there anything else that we sort of haven’t covered in the interview? I do want to talk about your fantastic accent website. 21 accent?
Amy Walker
Yeah, yeah, so the most important thing of all, is recording yourself. When I didn’t really straight up answer the question of how do you learn a new accent, but you really can’t do it. Unless you record yourself and have any idea how well it’s translating what you’re doing. So, you know, I definitely video is great, it’s nice to have some some passive listening as well, I every time I’m watching a film, I’m also sponging which is great. But when I’m learning a new accent, or I’m doing the voice match, I will take the audio, the sample audio, I will drop that into my, my audio software, whatever that is for the logic, pro what, whatever, GarageBand anything. And then I’ll take a little piece, and I’ll copy that. And I’ll go paste space, paste space, paste space, maybe six or 10 times. And then you need to have times or at least for me the many ways. And this is like when you want to nail it. You know? Listen, repeat, listen, again, repeat, repeat while you’re listening or shadow.
And so because sometimes you’ll hear it’s really important to not only shadow, you know, to have times when you’re 100% listening, and then you’re speaking, but to also shadow because you’ll feel oh, they were here, and I was on that note. So all those different pieces, and then you do it again. And then you do it again. But it’s it’s listening, when you’re 100% Listening to what you just did, compared to the sample, that’s when you’ll really hear oh, no, I thought it was this, but the tone is completely different. And then it’s just it’s just going through all those layers. That’s kind of the basic.
Toby Ricketts
Yeah, yeah. And it’s, you know, an open when we looked at it, and I did that, that you really do find these a bit like the the fractal thing that you do find these truths in some of the way someone talks that you and you can, it’s a funny thing, because you can kind of feel it when you get it right. You’re like, Oh, they’re that how I moved right then that was it. And that little serotonin kick you that you ban is that’s about how we learn, right? It’s about when we know that we’re doing something, right. That’s very useful. It’s a very useful topic. So how did 21 exits come about? You want to just give us a potted summary of how you’ve got it, you’ve got a collection of excellent teaching experts, including yourself, did they grow out of the success of the YouTube channel?
Amy Walker
It did, yeah. So, so that video that I mentioned, 21 accents, I had a dear friend say, you know, you really should make a website, you should just grab that handle, or that it wasn’t handled as a URL. And so I did. And then it just became a lovely, kind of a, what we call an LA a side hustle, you know, to be coaching and keeping myself really sharp and all those tools as an actor and a writer. And then Alex was somebody who I started working with, and through the course of training him over two years, he’s from Spain originally. And now he books roles in LA as like the American Pie teenager, like just the All American team. And he loved it so much he wanted to teach also. So it kind of became like a platform, a way for him to teach also, and then other people wanted to teach. And so it became a little house where we can do what we love while we also have four other jobs. And then now we’re building a community. It’s in beta right now, what we’re about to launch in
January is all access membership, where people because we, especially after COVID, you know, it’s great to get to work one on one and there’s nothing like it, but not everybody can afford that. And we wanted to be able to reach more people. So it’s a library of the courses and then also weekly workshops where we get to work with more people.
Toby Ricketts
Yeah, that’s fantastic. I feel like the one of the most useful things It’s gravy for the brain. Oceania, which I head up here is that you know is watching other people as well like watching other people have a go you’ll learn so much from watching other people learn. And one of my favorite things about teaching I’m sure you find the same is that you you’ve just learned from every student as well, like every student learns for everyone else. So getting as many Any people on the call is a real bonus. So yeah, look out for that. viewers and listeners. The 21 accent sounds community thing sounds like sounds like it’d be a great place to try out some accents. Good Lord.
Amy Walker
We got several coaches on there. Yeah,
Toby Ricketts
I will thank you so much for your time. I hope you enjoy the rest of your evening in the in cold la now.
Amy Walker
Yes. Freezing 53 even. I had my coat on today.
Toby Ricketts
Is it below freezing and Fahrenheit always forget.
Amy Walker
Not even close as I can. my nervous system is outside my body I feel at all.
Toby Ricketts
Wonderful. Okay. Thank you so much for your time.
Amy Walker
Such a pleasure, Toby. Thank you
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