CERTAINTY & TRUST ARE NOT THE SAME.

As actors, we know this. 

Great acting, after all, is a masterclass in trusting uncertainty.

Practicing sitting with it, learning how to swim in it, and, eventually, letting go enough to be able to splash about in it.

And that’s just the art & craft of acting itself.

Let’s not even start on the extra layers of uncertainty that the machinations of a highly competitive & commercialised industry thrust upon us…

And, yet, despite years of working to embrace uncertainty in both their crafts and careers…

Most of the actors I come across are still trying to approach accents through a lens of certainty.

Tearing their hair out in frustration when accents aren’t working for them.

Wondering why they always feel at odds with their acting.

Desperately struggling to integrate & feel at home in them.

And it’s not their fault...

Acting itself might be ancient but this accent analysis malarkey is relatively new. 

And nearly all of the research, understanding and education around them is academic, rather than practical or vocational. 

The focus is on rules, categories and connecting dots, rather than expression, human beings and connection. 

Even if an actor has been lucky enough to gain some of that academic knowledge about accents and how they work, rarely have they also had the opportunity to genuinely explore how to make them work for them - and by that, I mean, to make them work with their acting.

So, they approach accents the only way they know how:

by seeking certainty. 

And they view them through the only lens they know to look through: that academic one: 

They frame them as categories; as strict sets of rules within which they have to operate; as patterns of pronunciation to which they have to hold fast.

And then they’re left wondering why their careful cultivations of certainty, or mad dashes towards ‘right,’ aren’t integrating beautifully with their open-hearted approach to acting… 

But, the truth is, it was never going to work.

A certainty driven approach to accents and an uncertainty championing approach to acting will always be at odds with each other. 

The most frustrating thing? 

These actors already know the secret to acting in an accent with freedom and ease.  

They know it because they have been working at it for years.  

They’ve been working at it as long as they’ve been working at acting!

The approach to accents that genuinely works for the actor is not one that focuses primarily on knowledge and centres certainty. Those goals are purely academic.

The approach to accents that actually works for the actor is the one that focuses on building trust.

The kind of trust that allows you to be okay with uncertainty.

Trust that you know

what you need to know,

& what you need to do,

to sound good,

serve the story

and let go. 

No more or no less.

That’s the target. 

That’s the sweet spot.

That’s what gets you feeling free.

Trust.

Not certainty.

Don’t search for one at the expense of the other.

P.S. Reckon you might be reaching for certainty instead of trust when it comes to acting in accents?

Ready to leave that pointless, exhausting search behind and start building the sort of trust that leaves you feeling free?

EMPOWER > EMBODY > CONNECT, my signature programme for acting in an accent, gives you the blueprint for precisely that. 

Find out more here.