Erik Singer is a professional dialect expert and accent coach, and as far as I can tell he’s a friggin’ wizard. Back in November, Erik Singer released a previous video with WIRED where he broke down the accents of 32 famous movie characters and how the actors nailed those accents.
Today, Erik’s back but this time around he’s dissecting the accents of movie characters based on real people. So, he’s taking a fine tooth comb to roles like Jamie Foxx playing Ray Charles, Natalie Portman playing Jackie Kenney, Cuba Gooding Jr. playing O.J. Simpson and so on and so forth.
I think the accents in movies are something that a lot of moviegoers, myself included, take for granted. I can’t even roll my r’s when speaking Spanish but someone like Daniel Day Lewis can nail the accent of Abraham Lincoln with only a little work. It’s hard enough to emulate someone’s mannerisms and overall aura, but to also nail the exact speech patterns is pretty mind blowing. (h/t WIRED YouTube)