Why you are dropping out of the American accent when the stakes are high

Have you ever wondered why you are dropping out of the American accent when the stakes are high?

Listen as I share with you how to maintain the American accent when the
scene gets emotional.

• Why you’re dropping out of the American accent
• How to sustain the accent when you get emotional
• How to stop thinking about the American accent when you
perform

LINKS MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:
Ready to take your American accent to the next Level? Register for my FREE 5 Day American accent challenge: katherinebeck.com/challenge

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SHOW TRANSCRIPT

You're listening to the All American actress Podcast, episode 46. In today's episode, we are talking about why you are dropping out of the American accent when the stakes are high. That's coming up next. Unknown Speaker 0:16 Ready to go behind the scenes and learn what it really takes to build a sustainable career as a working actor in the US film and TV industry. Join me Katherine Beck, your all American accent coach, as I give you the insight and inspiration to take action on your career, learn my best tips and tricks to performing with an American accent and hear from working actors and other industry professionals. To give you a comprehensive overview of this biz we call showbiz. Unknown Speaker 0:48 This is the All American actors podcast. Unknown Speaker 0:54 Before we jump into today's episode, I want to give a big shout out to one of my students Trudy agar. Judy, you'll have to tell me if I'm pronouncing your last name correctly, who says I first learned about Catherine's course through a five day challenge that was kindly offered to everyone during lockdown. It has been a goal of mine to master the American accent. And Katherine's course makes this possible. Her program offers detailed daily lessons and videos which you can refer to at any time, her roadmap helps you navigate all aspects of learning the All American accent, Catherine is an absolute delight to work with all Trudy, thank you so much from the bottom of my heart that really warms my heart to hear those kind words from you. And it's been such a joy and pleasure to work with you. You're so dedicated to the craft of acting, you're always so open to learning and trying new things. And I applaud you for that. So thank you so much. It really means the world to me that you took a few minutes out of your day to send me that review. And if you would also like to be featured as our star listener of the week, all you need to do is leave us a review over on Apple podcasts, it would mean the world to me, all you got to do is tap those five stars leave a very brief review and you'll be featured here on the show as well. So if you are loving this podcast and this episode, go ahead and leave us a review. Okay, we are going to talk all things high stakes and dropping out in just a minute. But first, I got a question for you. Are you on tick tock? I have recently joined, although that's not 100% true because the first time I joined was two years ago at the very start of lockdown. My daughter introduced me to tic toc. And I was like what is this thing? Okay, I don't have an account. But I was very hesitant. It was all as dancing. And I was like now this is not for me. You enjoy my dear daughter, but I am staying away from the talk. But now two years later, I am on the talk I am tic tock obsessed, I can't get enough of the TIC TOCs. And I am loving creating content on this platform. So I want to know if you're out there, I'll tell you what I am enjoying about this. It is just pure fun and the ability to be creative. And I'm finding that joy to perform on camera again. I stopped finding that joy a handful years ago. I love performing but I still wanted to perform just through my voice through voiceovers and something happened recently going back on Tik Tok and I found myself enjoying performing again. So I'm doing a lot of acting challenges on there which are super fun and just trying different things out being playful, being bold, being silly and letting my audience while it's small and it's growing, letting them see me, you know all different sides of me so I have just been having a blast. If you are on Tik Tok, let me know give me a follow. It's Katherine Beck voice coach. That's where you can find me over there on the TIC TOCs. And yeah, come join me. I think this is a really great platform for actors. So if you're not yet on there, definitely get on the TIC TOCs because I think this is a really great way to showcase your talent and build a following. We know these days it's all about the followers as actors we need to have that following as well. We need to start thinking about how to market ourselves and get ourselves more visible online. So I highly recommend that you get on the TIC tock if you're not yet there. Okay, I've one more thing I want to share with you and announcement which I am super excited about because I've not done this for I think the last time we did this was in September of last year. I am going to be running my free Unknown Speaker 5:00 five day master the All American accent audition challenge we are back. And it is happening very soon. This has been so much fun to do. People absolutely love this. I've had actors come back and do the challenge over and over and over again. So you're definitely going to want to join in, all you need to do is head over to Katherine beck.com/challenge. To register, it's absolutely free, you'll be spending five days with me, and you're going to learn what it takes to master the All American accent in your auditions. Alright, now let's talk about why you're dropping out of the accent when the stakes are high. I'm very passionate about this, because I see this is very common with a lot of actors, both, you know, actors that are just starting out new to the American accent and seasoned actors, very well known actors that we have seen on screen TV and film that their accents really great. But something happens sometimes when we get emotional and hear them drop out. Why is that? Alright, I'm going to break it down for you. You may not like my answer, but I'm going to let you know what is going on. Now, when we speak, that is an automatic response. Our body knows exactly what to do how to form speech sound, so we don't have to think about it right? Every time you're having a conversation, whether it's without any extreme emotion, or it is an emotional conversation with another person. It is an automatic pattern of movements that you do to speak. Now, when we are actors, and we are asked to perform in another accent. So American accent for example, it gets harder to sustain that accent when we get emotional. Because if you have not developed and instilled these speaking habits so that they are now an automatic response, in this other accent, you're going to drop out, because our bodies have difficulty sustaining that when we get emotional, we tap into that part of our brain that holds the emotions. This is also the part of the brain where we hold our instincts from memory, you know, so the emotions are instincts, it goes into a different part of the brain than the analytical side, which is when we think we're we're thinking about the accent, we're thinking about the placement, we're listening to our voice and how it sounds, you know, we may be doing that when we're performing whether or not we realize it, it could be happening. But then we may clock out of that when we get really emotional and commit to these high stake emotions. And that's where we tend to drop out because we revert back to our natural accent. And that's where it starts to get noticeable for the person listening. And then you even notice that yourself in the playback, you go, Oh my gosh, I totally lost the accent. So what do we do? How do we fix this? It's so simple, but it requires work. It requires time. And most actors don't want to do that. I'm going to tell you why you should be doing that. If you want to have a sustainable career as an actor, you want to be a working actor, and you want that to be your profession so that you're not working another job, you just want to be an actor. Well, you're going to need to have an American accent in your toolkit because the bulk of the work and where you're going to make the most money as an actor is in US jobs. American accent so that needs to be a priority. Now if you're saying to me, Catherine, I'm not getting a lot of auditions in the American accent is just one here, one there. It's very inconsistent. Okay, I gotcha. I feel Yeah, I hear ya, that happens from time to time. And we got to reassess why that is and how we can boost the amount of auditions we are going out for. But we need to be ready for those opportunities as they come. And if you're not ready, it's going to be very hard for you when those opportunities come to stay consistent in the accent throughout the whole audition and not drop out when it gets very emotional. So you need to be practicing every day. Now that doesn't mean you have to be doing a lot of practice each day. But you want to make sure that it is part of your daily awareness. So you can practice in different ways. It doesn't always have to be practice words in sentences pronunciation, it could be just having a very short and brief conversation with somebody throughout your day in the American accent. It could be when you order your cup of coffee, it could be watching a TV show and talking back reciting the words that you hear the actor say in an American accent mimic them. It could be as you're walking down the street you know just Unknown Speaker 10:00 Seeing whatever you see in front of you tree, car, all the images and things that you see in an American accent. So I think, you know, make it fun and interesting, try different things to practice cold reading scenes in the American accent, definitely a must. But switch it up, don't always do the same things, because then it gets boring. And then you're just going through the motions, and not practicing effectively. So we got to be practicing every day. But we also then need to make sure this is where we also fall short with the high stakes and dropping out of the accent is are you really speaking from the American placement of sounds? Or are you trying to pull the wool over our eyes is that the thing where you're sounding American, but you haven't really changed your articulators to the way they would be used by an American because we can't see inside your mouth. So you figure I can sound American, but I'm not changing the position of my lips, and my tongue and my soft palate and my lower jaw, so people can't see what I'm doing. But I'm really great at mimicking. So I'm going to use that to get my way through this audition. But guess what mimicry. And you know, cutting corners, when it comes to placement of the accent is not going to be sustainable. When the stakes are high. When you add in the emotions, that's where we're going to notice that you're cutting corners with your American accent. So do you want to be a cutting corners actor? Or do you want to be a working actor? Do you want to fully commit to the work and attention it takes to actually book the role? Do you want to be a B list actor? C list D list actor? Or do you want to be an A list actor? Think of the top leading actors who are amazing at accents. Just think about the amount of work and time that they put into that performance? Are you putting in that same amount of work and time into your performance into your auditions into your American accent practice? If you're not, then why should it be any surprise that you're dropping out of the American accent? Why should it be any surprise that you're not booking that role? Why should it be any surprise that you're still working that day job and you're not a working actor? Why should it be any surprise. So if you want to change the outcome of your future, the outcome of your career, I challenge you today and each and every day to step up and be the All American actor that I know that you can be? That means not giving up? That means doing what you need to do to be competitive in this industry. When you're competing with people who are naturally from the US naturally speak with an American accent, you got to raise the bar. So let's raise the bar. Let's not settle for anything less. But great. That is my advice for you. This week, I challenge you to think about your process a little bit different next time you have an audition and don't wait till you get that American audition to do your prep work. Do your prep work today. Tomorrow the next day. So when those auditions come, you aren't ready to go. Alright, that is it for today's episode. Now. Don't forget, make sure you register for my five days to mastering the All American accent audition challenge. All you have to do is head over to Katherine beck.com/challenge. And I will see you there. Now if you love this episode, make sure to take a screenshot share it with me on your Instagram stories and let me know at Katherine underscore Beck underscore you can find me there if you got any questions or any topics you'd like to hear on the podcast. Just let me know. And coming up next week on the show we are going to be diving deeper into the perspective of the American character and why not thinking from the American perspective is holding you back from booking that us roll. Now make sure to share the show with all your actor friends, let them know what's coming up next week and invite them to tune in with you and learn how to become an All American actor so you can be the Working Actor you dream to be until then go practice your American accent and I'll see you back here next time.