Hey, youse guys, I'm Amy Walker.

That's right, I'm Amy Walker.

Oh gee, ah geez, that's right, Amy Walker.

Ah geez, I'm Amy Walker, okay.

[beeps] [Amy claps]

I'm Amy Walker, actress, singer, and writer,

most known for authentic accents.

And today from my home cave to yours,

we are looking at American accents in movies.

- Do you wanna be a cop?

- That's the Verrazano Bridge.

- Only exciting thing about--

- Who said I was getting rid of it?

- Give me a minute, Burt.

[hand smacks]

- We're in the middle of a practice, Leanne.

- You can thank me later.

- This is The Blind Side, directed by John Lee Hancock

in 2009, and we're looking at Sandra Bullock

doing a Memphis, Tennessee accent.

- This team's your family, Michael.

You have to protect them.

- I like the way she says "Michael,"

and it's a little bit nasal.

"You can thank me later."

You know that kind of a tighter Tennessee accent

that's not real drawly down in here.

Some of the things that make a Tennessee accent different

from, like a Texas accent, the jaw is a lot more tight.

So the sounds are gonna be a little bit flatter,

a little bit wider, like up in here, in the "what."

She really grasps, I think, the placement of it.

- And I will be by there after a while.

I gotta call you back.

Bye.

- When she says "after a while," there's that W-H,

but then she says, "I gotta call you back," -ack,

and then the tongue drops down a little further

than it would if it was staying up in here.

"I gotta call you back."

And then when she just went "back,"

it dropped into more of a standard.

- My name is on it.

Deliver what I ordered, all right?

Thank you.

- When you say "what," the mouth is

gonna be tighter up in the back,

and then it's gonna just flip down a little bit there.

What, auht, and it's gonna scoop back a little bit.

And then you get to that H your Ws.

You can just do wh-, wh-, instead of waa.

Other dialects where you'll get more of a "what,"

more of a schwa sound, uh, but the "what,"

that's nice and a little bit more north.

It also gives that emphasis that she's choosing to use,

to put her foot down there.

When you're playing someone real who existed,

then you gotta listen, not just for the general accent,

but what are those -isms that that person has

that are unique to that person.

- Families are always rising and falling

in America, am I right?

- Who said that?

- Hawthorne.

[imitates fart]

- What's the matter, smart ass?

You don't know any [beeps] Shakespeare?

- This is The Departed, directed by Martin Scorsese in 2006.

So we're gonna look at three actors from this film,

Mark Wahlberg, Martin Sheen, and Leonardo DiCaprio.

Mark Wahlberg is the only one

who's actually from Massachusetts.

- I know what you are, okay?

I know what you are, and I know what you're not.

- Obviously, Mark Wahlberg is all over the Boston.

"I know what you are."

That's that ah, totally relaxed.

So it's not arrr, it's not aaaah.

It's "I know what you are, and I know what you're not."

"Are" and "not," strangely, are very similar.

Like if it's in New York,

"not" and "are" are gonna feel really different.

But for Boston, they're really similar.

- Do you wanna be a cop?

Or do you wanna appear to be a cop?

- When Martin Sheen says "cop," it's nearly there,

but when you get that ah for a Boston,

it's like your tongue is a dead fish, aw, aw.

It weighs like a brick.

So it's not awh, that being more into like Brooklyn.

- A lot of guys wanna appear to be cops.

A gun, badge, pretend they're on TV.

- And then it's just gone.

He's got kind of the rhythm, but it's not, like, that open.

It's a little bit tight.

I think he's from Ohio or something.

- I'm all set without your own personal job application.

- [Dignam] What the [beeps] did you say to me?

- And Leo is so in the emotion

and sometimes when we get in the emotion,

the accent goes out the window.

They're kind of painting it in that it's okay for him

to just, like, sometimes have one and sometimes not.

- The only exciting thing about 2002

is that it's a palindrome.

- This is Lady Bird, directed by Greta Gerwig in 2017,

starring Saoirse Ronan, who's an Irish actress.

- Oh, so now you're mad

because I wanna to listen - No, it's just you're

being ridiculous, because you - to music.

- This is set in Sacramento, Northern California.

So when she says "because I wanted to listen to music,"

"I wanted to," that "wanted," I call it a hard N.

It's not "wanted."

It's not "wanted" with a D.

It's just "wanted."

Some of the distinctions of a Sacramento

or Northern California accent,

people tend to soften the consonants a little bit,

like when she says "East Coast."

Those T's are very East Coast.

But if you put those consonants in,

people might feel like you're pissed off or something.

So it tends to be pretty relaxed in the mouth.

Not a lot of diphthong.

Really, what we'd call probably a pretty standard accent.

The thing about emotional scenes is

that it can be really hard to maintain something

that doesn't feel like you,

because you're in your most primal state.

- I'm not going to a [beeps] university

that's famous for its [beeps] agricultural school!

- The way she says "school," in this American accent,

it goes out, you know, "school."

She'd be used to "school."

So it'd be like err.

There's so much that's different in Ireland.

I mean the melody, you know, and the T's,

and the way it's so soft.

It's like water.

But to take all that and open it up a little bit

at the corners of the mouth and let it just sit

in the mouth would be more challenging.

Singing is really a whole different territory.

It can be easier sometimes to sing in an accent

because you hold the vowels more.

For whatever reason, a lot of people can at least sing

in an American accent.

♪ Everybody says don't, everybody says don't ♪

♪ Everybody says don't walk on the grass ♪

- She nails it.

She totally nails it.

- Who?

Who is this?

The hunting buddy, I know that.

- This is Brokeback Mountain, directed by Ang Lee in 2005.

And we'll be looking at Anne Hathaway's Southern accent.

She's originally from New York.

- It might be some pretend place

where bluebirds sing, and there's a whiskey spring.

- The way that her mouth is kind of puckered down here.

That's gonna work real well.

So you can see it real well in this scene

cause it's nice and close.

What's going on here, and then when she says "close,"

or "coal," or something, when she's got an L-word,

you can see that W happen.

- You've been going up to Wyoming all these years.

Why can't your buddy come down here to Texas and fish?

- It's kind of a fishing melody.

Why can't you do this?

[hums]

It's got a bit of weight to it.

That kinda melody is quintessential Texas.

- You know you're worse than Bobby

when it comes to losing stuff.

- "You know you're worse than Bobby

"when it comes to losing stuff."

That uh is a little more forward.

It's up in here.

You know if someone has the same melodic pattern

every single time, and if they have a lexicon

of all the different melodies they might have,

you know there's more flexibility there.

It feels more natural.

Her posture's great, her armature.

Her face is nice and relaxed, which is important.

For this kind of accent, you're gonna feel it

right down in here.

Be lifting up a little bit in the back of the tongue

to get some of that twang happening.

But it's not real tight.

It's nice and loose, and it's just letting the sound roll

out your mouth and settle right down in here.

- I thought you were gonna call.

- "I thought you were gonna call."

That L isn't so much of an L as it is an L with your lips,

which is similar to something they do in the U.K. with L.

In the South, you've got places

where you stick an L instead of a W, like South,

or where you put in a W instead of an L.

- I was Kappa Phi myself.

- Even though we ain't quite sorority sisters,

we just may have to dance with ourselves, Lureen.

- Anna Faris has this whole different thing going on,

and it is also Texas.

That's all part and parcel,

and something you can choose as well.

Anne Hathaway's character, especially later on,

she's getting real settling down in there.

There's something about the niceties

and the undertones there, that reminds me a little bit of--

you know, in England, where you can

sort of smile through your insults.

- People have the ability to invite

or not invite their friends to join.

- This is The Social Network,

directed by David Fincher in 2010.

We're looking at Andrew Garfield,

who was born in California but grew up in England.

He's doing an American accent here.

- In a world where social structure was everything.

- Now when he says "structure," "structure,"

he's got a bit of glottal catch.

In an English accent, you'd say "structure," yeah?

And it's got that up bit where you stop the sound,

in your throat.

In a standard American, you're gonna say "structure"

or "structure," but you're not gonna go "structure", struk.

So it's the same thing if I was gonna go into British

from American and I did the shapes correctly,

but I said "structure."

- That was the thing.

- "That was," "was."

That's another common thing that Australians

and English people often say "was" instead of "was."

So usually in a standard American,

it's gonna be a schwa, eh.

Different to British schwa, which is uh.

It's a bit more forward, yeah?

Back here, uh, was, that was the thing.

And "was" is not usually an important word.

- So I wondered why he was coming to me

and not his roommates.

- There are so many ways to say T.

Here he's saying, "coming to me,"

which is often done in England.

So the person he's playing does have quite a T that he does.

So you can say "coming to me,"

instead of tuh, where the tongue is like, behind,

it's a bit higher, and it's behind your teeth.