Times Actors Transformed Their Voices For A Role

 In a 1994 NPR Fresh Air interview with Terry Gross, Sam Chwat, a dialect coach, discussed how he helped Robert De Niro develop an Appalachian accent for the role of Max Cady in the 1991 Cape Fear remake.

“We sat down and analyzed the videotapes of Southern prisoners, people who were put in Appalachian prisons for extremely violent crimes, men of about his age, white men of about his age, and we listened to them until [Robert] said, ‘That’s the guy I want to sound like, that one right there,'” Sam said. “And we analyzed … this guy’s accent and saw how far De Niro’s New York accent was from this, and we worked on sound replacements where he would do one thing and I expect another, that’s where we drilled for it.”

In preparation for her portrayal of Marilyn Monroe in My Week with Marilyn, Michelle would often spend hours working on her voice to develop an inflection similar to Marilyn’s. In addition, since Marilyn crafted distinct speech patterns for her public persona, Michelle had to take some liberties when imitating her voice in private moments.

“The voice that you come to associate with Marilyn, her voice in the movies, that’s not her voice,” Michelle said in a Making Of interview. “From all the reading and all the research that I did, that was a character that she developed. It was something that she put on. That was years of training, vocal coaching, and it was an affectation that she developed. And from my understanding, … her real voice was quite normal.”

Johnny combined unique sources of inspiration to take his deep voice into a higher register for his portrayal of Willy Wonka in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

“The character Willy Wonka for me, I started thinking about children’s show hosts, you know, those guys who talk, [like], ‘Hi. Good afternoon everyone. Is everyone happy?’ That guy … but then I thought, well, that’s an interesting place to start, what’s the next layer of the ingredients, you know?” Johnny said at an event in 2020. “And then I thought, … What would George W. Bush sound like if he were, not stoned, but incredibly stoned?”

Heath’s Australian accent transformed into a sinister voice when he played the Joker in The Dark Knight. Director Christopher Nolan noted that Heath’s fluctuating vocal patterns on set added to the character’s menacing presence, according to IndieWire.

“The voice was certainly scary because it would shift in pitch,” Christopher said. “You never quite know which way the pitch is going to go with the voice … The actual tone of his voice was a surprise too. Sometimes threatening and sometimes more sing-song and light.”

Idris altered his British voice to recreate Nelson Mandela’s South African dialect in Mandela: Long Walk To Freedom. Building the voice began with utilizing memories of his parents’ West African speech patterns.

“[Director] Justin [Chadwick] and I wanted to make sure everything else was absolutely as it was, especially the voice,” Idris told NPR in 2013. “And my parents are West African .. Which is very different from Southern Africa in terms of the way they speak English. However, that sort of cadence I’m quite used to. So I had a foundation to understand where to start from.”

While preparing for Being the Ricardos, Nicole spent two months crafting the voices she used to embody Lucille Ball: one for her personal life and one for the public role of Lucy in I Love Lucy. Part of her preparation included smoking herbal cigarettes, as Lucille smoked in real life.

“I worked on the dialect with a fantastic dialect coach,” Nicole told Jess Cagle in 2021. “Finding her voice was probably one of the key things because there’s actually two characters: there’s Lucille Ball, who was a heavy smoker and had a much deeper voice, and who speaks very directly and always looks you in the eye, and then there is Lucy Ricardo, who actually is placed way higher, an octave higher.”

Christian brought a memorable raspy voice to the role of Batman in the Dark Knight trilogy. He told MTV News in 2013 how trying on the Batman suit led him to creating an animalistic sound for the character’s voice.

“I went, ‘I can’t do this in a normal voice. I have to become a beast in order to sell this to myself,'” Christian said.

In a 2019 interview with Yahoo Entertainment, Lupita said her haunting Us voice was inspired by a condition called spasmodic dysphonia, which inhibits air flow, often as a result of trauma. 

“It’s where your vocal chords involuntarily spasm, creating this irregular air flow, and I built off of that,” Lupita said. “And it was from a line in the script that said she hadn’t used her voice in a long time.”

During a press interview for How the Grinch Stole Christmas, Jim talked about the process of becoming the Grinch, including his vocal changes as he explored the role.

“My characterization comes from a feeling of a false sense of superiority,” Jim said. “I tried not to do Boris Karloff, but I may have been influenced [by him], I’m sure. Some people have told me I sound like Sean Connery … one person said Richard Nixon.”

When Joaquin played Johnny Cash in Walk the Line, he not only altered his speaking voice to match Johnny’s, but he also studied his music and sang for the film. 

In a 2005 Late Night with Conan O’Brien interview, Joaquin said he worked with a dialect coach to replicate Johnny’s deep baritone voice.

“It’s the most humiliating process I’ve ever endured because you do these exercises, [with] all these vowels, … and it’s so uncomfortable, I can’t tell you,” he said. “It was very, very difficult.”

Prior to filming Sophie’s Choice, Meryl not only learned Polish, but also German for her role. 

“I thought, if I learned to speak Polish then the … sounds of that language would be in my mouth, sort of, so I went to Berlitz [language classes] and got a teacher,” she said in a 2014 Entertainment Tonight round-table discussion.

Although her costar, Kevin Kline, was surprised to hear it, Meryl said presenting her accent to the cast was one of the most frightening moments she’s experienced as an actor.

“That was the most scared I’ve ever been, I think in my career, the first [cast] reading,” she said.

In The Last King of Scotland, Forest spoke with a Ugandan accent as he played ruthless African dictator Idi Amin. 

At the Toronto Film Festival, he said the project required more research “than any other character [he’d] probably ever played,” including work on his voice, per Female.com.au.

“I did a massive amount to prepare for this,” Forest said. “First of all I started learning Swahili, learning the accent, then I had to do study all the recording as well as all the books, tapes, documentaries.” 

Kristen said in a 2021 Howard Stern Show interview that she perfected her accent for Spencer, in which she played Princess Diana, with a dialect coach over the course of six months. The process ended up giving her TMJ symptoms, which eventually went away right before filming began.

“They make it a very physical thing and they describe what you tongues does, how open your mouth has to be. Like, when I speak, I barely open my mouth,” she said. “When [Diana] speaks, it’s open …  I look like a completely different person in trying to make that sound.”

In a 2013 ABC News interview, Margot said she had a positive experience turning her Australian voice into a Brooklyn accent for her character, Naomi, in The Wolf of Wall Street.

“It’s a really fun accent to do, and it’s actually easier to do coming from an Australian accent than doing a standard American accent because … there are no r’s,” Margot said.

To create the right accent for his There Will Be Blood character, oilman Daniel Plainview, Daniel told Chicago Movie Magazine he began by listening to recordings from the Dust Bowl era, as well as the voice of actor and director John Huston. Ultimately, talking into tapes and listening to how the voice sounded in his head before speaking it out loud guided his speech patterns in the film.

“I’m nearly always working on a voice of some kind, but I try not to do it in isolation from the other work,” Daniel said. “I talk to myself a lot, I have a little prehistoric machine with tiny tapes that are incompatible with just about any system I know of. I talk into that an awful lot to see if I can find a sound that means something. But nearly always it comes with hearing a voice in my mind’s ear.”

Alfred gave a convincing American accent in How to Get Away With Murder, but he told Robin Roberts on Good Morning America in 2016 that he was initially scared he may not get this voice right. So, he decided to talk with an American accent at all times on the set of the show.

“I stay in accent … because I’ve never worked in this accent before,” he said. “I’d never done an American accent for a job … This opportunity came along, and I thought, this would be so exciting, but the one thing I don’t want to do is be the guy who lets everyone down … So I stay with it the whole time when we’re shooting.”

Lindsay’s British accent in The Parent Trap was so good, it made her costar, Dennis Quaid, think two different girls were playing Lindsay’s dual roles of Hallie and Annie.

“I remember thinking, ‘Oh my gosh, she’s one of the most talented people I’ve ever met, period. Forget that she’s 11 years old,'” Dennis said when the cast reunited for a Katie Couric Media interview to celebrate the movie’s 22nd anniversary.

“Then I actually thought there were two girls, I really did, because [her] accent was so perfect,” he added.