How Can Hollywood Stars Speak With So Many Different Accents?

The answer is simple, they get help from an acting coach who is referred to as ‘Dialect Coach’ in the film industry. Which means he (or she) helps the actor speaking in different languages or with an accent. That can be for example a standard American accent. This is needed, when the actor is originally e.g. from Australia and speaks with a strong Australian accent, but the character he’s supposed to play is from the US.

It can also be, that the performer has to speak with a Russian or German accent, to pretend his character is originally from Russia or Germany, but the actor himself was born in the United States and has no idea how e.g. a German would sound. So in this scenario, the dialect coach helps the stars to design the voice and speech of the character so that they sound authentic.

Let’s take a closer look at one of those dialect coaches, Britta Zeimer. She started as a German dialect coach in 2015 with coaching famous actors for the show ‘Man in the High Castle’, and is now an experienced and knowledgeable dialect coach who worked on shows like Supernatural, Timeless, Altered Carbon or Woman of Marwen. She loves playing with languages and accents and is always excited to train actors for their different roles. She also prepares actors for auditions, or helps individuals (actors and non-actors) to get rid of their accents and to speak German flawlessly (which is called accent modification). Her clients usually find her through word of mouth but also through her website www.brittazeimer.com.

Please allow me a word about her exceptional qualifications. She holds the equivalent of a LLM as well as a B.Sc. in psychology (major in learning end evolutionary psychology). She is also a professional coach (CTI) and worked in the field coaching and counselling in one way or another throughout her whole career. She has many interesting and funny stories to tell, but she said most of them cannot be shared, as, of course, there are non-disclosure agreements to follow, but she knows exactly how the wind blows.

Even though she is based in Vancouver, she works all around the world via online platforms and being versatile is her forte, she is flexible with her methods and believes in inculcating the style of teaching that helps all her clients to achieve their goals. The one thing that all her clients love about her is that it barely takes them any time to get familiar with the basic pronunciation & learning of vowels and consonants. Britta also incorporates her culture’s general behaviors, attitudes, and morals to make learning more interesting, authentic and fun.