Jimmy O. Yang Quotes

An agent once told me that if I would lose my English accent, I would never stop working in America.

I never would have guessed that I would get a job for the way I sound. I would get notes about how I should lose my accent, and part of me thinks, 'How dare you! This is who I am! Millions of people want to sound like me!' But it's sensitive, and I have tried to change it, with little to no success.

There is no such thing as an ugly accent, like there's no such thing as an ugly flower.

Try and fit in in a New Zealand playground with an Armagh accent - it doesn't work.

Americans always ask how much I love my accent, and I don't get that - I think I sound like a school teacher.

Can I eventually take classes and eliminate my accent? Sure. I guess anybody could. But this is who I am, and this is what I got. And there are millions of people who sound just like me. Millions. It's not like this is some novelty.

My parents speak with an accent. A lot of people that I know speak with an accent. I have friends who speak with an accent. Accents in a vacuum aren't a problem; it's how you portray those characters and how well they're served in a script.

Maybe my job on this planet is to make the Asian accent sexy.

I learned to change my accent; in England, your accent identifies you very strongly with a class, and I did not want to be held back.

Trouble is, some accents lend themselves to comedy.

I have a funny accent in every language.

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.

I made some flippant remark about not wanting my son to grow up with an American accent, and the next thing I knew, there were people in America suggesting I head back to Britain if I was unhappy at such a prospect.

I have a strong accent; it limits the roles, of course it does. I guess if I had moved to America a long time ago maybe my accent would have got less.

I'm not against accents - my husband's from Lancashire and has a rural Lancs accent. We've just got back from Scotland yesterday, and I love that Highland burr.

I know Asian actors out there won't even audition for a role that have an accent. But for me, I was the kid with an accent. I still have an accent to some degree.

It's inevitable that not everyone will like me, and that some will find me annoying. That's fine. All presenters deal with that. What's scary is the ignorance about what having a regional accent means, or indeed doesn't mean. It certainly doesn't equal ignorance.

Just because I don't speak English with an accent anymore doesn't mean that I'm better than the people who do.

I wanted to have a book that showed there's no one way to sound black. I wanted to tell teens that the way you speak is okay; you're good the way you are.

For too long, people have had to neutralise or lose their accent out of fear of prejudicial treatment or to fit in. This has then led to a lack of regional accents, which has allowed this lazy stereotyping and prejudicial attitudes to prevail.

I remember early in my career people telling me I needed to change my accent, that I needed to sound more professional, more BBC perhaps, but I think if I wasn't from Middlesbrough I wouldn't have done as well as I have.

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.

It's a challenge getting rid of your accent.

Whenever I'm in the U.K., people say I have an American accent. Which is, obviously, funny.

I've never worked in my natural accent, having studied so hard to get rid of it when I moved to England as a child where I was bullied at school for 'talking funny.'