I'm trying hard to keep my Australian accent. My mom would disown me if I didn't.
I've always felt very comfortable with accents. Once I get an accent, I can do it, and that's just something I've been able to do my whole life.
When I first tried the American accent, for a moment I thought I could never be an actor because I just could not do it. But then I thought, 'Okay, it'll just be something that I work at until I get it.'
You can learn any accent you want. It's a fascinating thing.
I did 'Christmas Carol' off and on through my teenage years, so I always had that dialect and that sound in my ear, which was so helpful. It became second nature.
I was too kind of brave and proud to want a dialect coach because I thought that showed weakness in my armor. But then you just learn it's a more efficient way of doing it. A dialect coach is really important because it takes a certain technical responsibility off your shoulders.
As a kid I decided that a Canadian accent doesn't sound tough. I thought guys should sound like Marlon Brando. So now I have a phony accent that I can't shake, so it's not phony anymore.
Most Australians who've got an ear can do an American accent because we grow up listening to them on television and in movies.
You can't live in a dialect without tremendous work. Like any muscle, accents and voices and languages are all formed out of the muscles that we have in our mouths and faces and tongues.
I don't have a Jersey dialect. So when I approached the singing, I approached it the same way as an actor I approach a dialect, just as a singer.
I think I have a very strange, hybrid accent, and I've worked very hard to get a solid American accent, which is what I use most of the time.
