Hey, everybody. This is Freddie Rodriguez.
And I'm Wilmer Valderrama. Welcome to the DOOS podcast. I'm Michael Tuda Podcast Network. I heeart our partners and fearless leaders and disruption of podcasting.
But we're nearing, We're near Indiana.
We're here in the end.
That's right, that's right. We've had a plethora of wonderful guests. Yes, and today our guest is someone very personal to you, right.
Yes, very very personal. And this is a very vulnerable, very vulnerable place for me. Yes, because we know how that turned out, by the way I sound explained, by.
The way it is. But Samara Bay, you know, you.
See, you know we always explain this to our guests when they're here, and that our guests are quite intentional.
Right, Like we're we don't, we don't.
This is not one of those shows we're like, oh, you know this book so and so, like we have to have some type of connection tool or guess whether it's in mutual respect or whether it's like a specific subject or that so and in this specific subject.
You were many hats. Best author is one, Yes, and you have a book. What is the name of your book?
I have a book called Permission to Speak.
That's right, And I asked that many times in time you were you likesion, But tell everyone who's listening a little bit of uh, you know what your career is, what you've done, and I know you're onto other things too, and we love to hear that as well.
Yeah, okay, So two main things. One is how we know each other and the other is how it has evolved very organically in the many many years since we work together. But basically, in a nutshell, I have a background as a dialect coach and that is.
A rare, weird, niche job in.
Hollywood that no one even thinks about it until they're like, wow, that actor sounded really amazing and not like themselves at all, and that one didn't.
I'm sorry, how do you how do you wake up one day and say I want to become a dialect coach? Because you're right, it is a very niche It is a very unique occupation.
What made you become a dialect coach?
I'll tell you. I think the absolute heart of it is loving actors, like really having like a deep loving respect for what the process is of taking words written by it usually not you and putting them into your
mouth and making them a whole ass human. And if there's an accent on top of that, because either English is your second language and the producers, directors, whatever want a different sound coming out of you, or you're playing a very specific role that requires like oh, I'm from Boston and I'm playing somebody from West Texas, then there is a respect also for like, well, what's that culture's what are we doing with this? How story are we talent?
And it's quite and it's quite a collaboration, but really a partnership. You know, you you both have to go on this journey to discovery what does this guy sound like? Like I've had not like coach in Spanish because I was like, okay, where in Mexico is my character is supposed to be from? What is the Spanish? Because it can't just be like any generic Mexican accent. There's like
there's like twelve different Mexican accents, right, you know. So I think that's one of the things, like I think it's really important is when you partner I was home like Samara, It's like you really are like, Okay, we're going to have to figure this guy out.
And often when I'm pulling like audio tracks from the internet, from YouTube to be like, is this what we're going for. It's not just like the sounds like vowel sound, consonant sound. It's like the it's like the vibe of the person. Does this match the vibe of the character you're playing?
Is this going to help us tell that story of this person in this you know, maybe in this emotional state or maybe in this like aspirational moment of their life where they're getting out from where they were, you know, like these are the stories that we tell with our voice.
So you're talking about your love with actors. Where did that start?
Oh?
You guys. I was just home this weekend in northern California and I went to this Shakespeare festival that is some version of the one eighties Santa Cruz. Santa Cruz, there's a University of California campus there. My dad started as a professor there in the seventies teaching astrophysics, and so I grew up there and was brought along with them to this Shakespeare stuff.
When I was like ten, well, your dad used to you bring it to this?
Yeah?
My parents were like, I think we have a precocious kid on our hands.
Let's see if she can handle this.
And then it was like these beautiful, very modern imagine like you know, like bos Lhrman, Romano, Juliet type of Shakespeare. It just made me feel like, Okay, A, I feel very alive. Whatever's happening. B. I'm looking around everyone else does C. We're like breathing together. D. I don't know. Whatever's happening on the stage feels like it's like something
about the human condition. Right. All that was happening. And obviously when I was ten, I wasn't like a bathet, but I was It's like this, whatever this is, this is what I want to do, and it's I mean, it's cracked me up over the you know, intributing at thirty whatever years to be like, oh I my definition of this has changed a lot. The other half of what you were getting at is dialect coach, dialect coach.
And then this sort of pivot happened when I got brought into coach women who are running for office in the twenty eighteen midterms just totally pro bonoun right, and it made me realize that so many other times I hadn't really totally put it together. But like my actors would ask me to help them with like a speech at the United Nations or a speech for an awards ceremony or something where they're playing the character of themselves.
But that's different than dialect.
This is different, but it would bring up the ways in which, like dialect work was always and I don't know, like you know, you get to tell me from the inside, But for me, as as I worked with all these different clients, was always about half like sounds and let's get this right and let's get it in your body and whatever, and half let's create an environment where you can like play and get and be bad at something before you're good, which I think is like not enough
of us have that safe space in our lives ever, And like what is it to breathe as someone else? Or what is it to breathe while doing something new that is making us get all activated? But like stay in it anyway, And that's public speaking as much as it's dialectoral.
You know, it's I love you trigger something that I've done a bunch of keynote stuff. And what's really helped me is comedy.
Because being funny in it and not just being funny.
And it's like when you do comedy, you understand the setup, you understand the build.
Up, you understand the punchline, the execution.
But in real life that's not how you tell stories. You don't tell stories to the massage. You to a story to your friends. So you're not really thinking about which is the operative word, which is the you know that's what.
So love you just an operative word.
You're using correct terminology and uh, you.
Know, well I was coached by.
That was trademarks.
It's resonated, something stuck around. But but I think it's a very very fascinating thing when you think about, Okay, an actor has to speak of the U N. He has to do a couple of things, and that sound like an actor who's just faking it, right, But most importantly, if you you know, if you're the United Nations, you have a certain passion for what you're about to speak about, and the right pronunciations of the technical terms and most importantly the operator words is probably going to be really
important when you say that, Like in storytelling, the level of urgency, the level of I don't want to say theatrical, because nothing about that speech is fake. But but there is there is a performance in order for it to transcend beyond the ping of that.
I made up this term in my book because I just didn't it didn't exist for what you're talking talking about called carrying out loud. And the idea is not just that we care about shit. We do often when we're speaking on a stage or in any kind of a metaphorical stage. This it's because we care, but many of us, all of us, are socialized to hide when we care because it's terrifying to me, Like I care about this, right, this is the vulnerability that actors are like used to doing.
Yep.
But so the idea with carrying out loud is just to offer like some language for what this process is that any of us can engage in where we're like, Okay, I care about this thing. I'm not gonna have to talk about it like I care about it?
Right?
How do I do that without like either pushing too hard overcarrying acting like we care and then it feels theatrical.
Over carrying over carrying. Yes, So there's two things. Right, you're very passionate about the subject. When you're too overly passion you lose people because people are like you're preaching to me.
Now, Yes, I like to think of it as a spectrum. So on the one hand, over here, you're like, I care about this a lot. We lovingly call this pushings poa I mean metaphor. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I care about it. But you know, we can tell when someone's pushing and it's it's not that they don't even it's not it's not that they don't care. Maybe it's that we can't read anymore because there's so much messy going on in
front of them. And then on the other end of the spectrum is I care a lot, but I'm going to pretend like I don't because and often this is like going into our throat and just being like, yeah, I mean it's cool whatever, like this is kind of my my life's work. But like if you don't like it, it's fine, right.
So it's like it's like overacting in a scene almost right, put it out there.
If you're in, you're in. If you're not, it's cool.
I mean, it's such an obvious like defense mechanism. It's so it's so like survival based. It's in a way, I just want to like love on anybody listening who's like, oh, should I do that?
Right?
Of course we do that. It's an incredibly valuable learned skill to be like I care, but like not really if that's inconvenient for anybody here. But if there's a spectrum and over here is over and overhears under, then what is the sweet spot in the middle. If we're getting up on a stage and we're time, what matters
to us? How do we access consistently so we can trust ourselves that level of care so that that that word passion you used right comes out and it isn't like this thing that pushes people away because it's too much, or this thing that makes people not totally seem interesting.
Yeah, so you're almost like a good director is what I'm what I'm going massaging the Yeah.
That's a lot of it because I'm now I'm almost entirely now doing public speaking coaching, and often it's for business leaders. It's right, it's not Hollywood anymore. And you know, it's a huge mm applies because.
It's just you or like, wow, these are the crazy question.
Yeah, when you get to that level of coaching, Yeah, to coach individuals that are at that sea level, do you feel two questions one is are they more introverted and they're not good with their words because they're just geniuses what they have in front, so they can operate, but they just don't publicly speak, or they're just credible communicators that they're just like they know how to delegate in an interesting way because they're that leadership, or like,
you know, you don't what I'm trying to ask. If there's two there's two different powers and there are two different people you're gonna get at that.
Yeah, yeah, I think it's I Yes, I think those are the two categories too. For me, it's like either folks who were thrust into the CEO role and the public side of it, or even just the like all hands like meetings with their.
Or like they are gray CEO but they never thought there was.
Hot and they and they self identify as an introvert, or they self identify as I hate public speaking, which
of course does like so much allbody. I hate speaking is a job and then and then it's a story we tell ourselves, and then we look for evidence and right like this is a brain's word beautiful, but you need somebody to like disrupt that, or yeah, they just want to be like absolutely, like Olympic level pig performance and I love that too, right where they're like there's more to learn, or I'm continuing to challenge myself and
speak on bigger stage. Maybe like I'm used to speaking at the conferences for my industry, but now I want to speak to the press. Now, I want to speak to the public. Now I want to be a thought leader and like really claim my thought leadership and that kind of up level.
You know.
Again, it's story, like the stories we tell ourselves and how we can change them.
To make They're just fascinating when you see like attorneys or you know, the head of the sheriff's department or whatever and they have to you know, talk a by the gravity of a situation at a press how do you convey to the public, you know, public urgency or emergency or just a regular update on an ongoing case.
Like what are your thoughts? You're saying you have so many thoughts.
My main thought is it's not what anybody prioritizes when they're when they're becoming that position. And then you see in those moments of public crisis where the audience is just like watching I'm thinking, for example, of the fires here in La right when the audience is like watching being like I need some thing, like I need to be cared.
For like.
Microphone than you, you know, but like either one, it's either I want to flight attendant who makes me feel really comfortable or I want just like no bullshit, like just literally.
And everyone's relying on this cop or this whatever to like comfort them right, to like convey that emotion this right, and so like all of a sudden, they're thrust it in that position, is what you're saying.
And do you think in their throat at those moments and they're like, I mean blast but if and they're like, we're all on the case and we really got your back. We're all in the audience being like there's I don't I can't name it, but that's not enough.
Right, bringing us back a little bit to the beginning, and so of at all, I want to just drop a few names that you've worked with, because I saw this list here and I saw my name there, and I'm just gonna go impressive, Yeah, Galgadot, right, Pierce Prossman, an Olympic Cruz, Ricky Martin, Terry Crews, Terry Crews.
I thought he was just on here.
He has so many questions. Rachel mccadams, Wilmer Valdorama, that.
Guy, that guy.
Guy o'donno and Angelica Houston Wilmer abod Orama.
Was that like the low in your career you did not get that.
Have you listened to that guy lately?
Not the guy? Yeah, that's the one that got away.
I mean the production Like what if that had gone we would have like been together for years.
I don't know if he sounds like he went through a dialing coach.
At some point in the game, was like, look, you either either you want wilmermo Dorama or you want you don't want Wilmerdama, you know, and then eventually it worked.
But I have so many questions. So you were saying two thousand in seventeen, is that no? No, I'm like that. You guys are.
Yeah, so really really far away in the landland far away. Yeahre Hollywood was a little different, right, So if you were of any dissent somehow, if you're on network TV, you need to sound American because people thought if you had an accent on primetime television, no one was going to understand.
You, right, I mean, I joke although obviously it is haha, not funny that half of my work was actually just soothing the nervous system of producers like they were just like, oh no, Middle America will be turned off by X y Z. And I'll be like, we got you.
And I wanted what was the you want to share? What project was that we did?
Well, it was a pilot that never went so no one will ever know. But here's this is the specific part about what's the pilot.
I would know about the pilot. Ye, I mean it's so annoying because no annoying. They didn't get picked up because it was it was lovely.
But I will say here was the challenge on that one. Tell me if this is your memory, you were it was a family drama to families.
Military is a military show called four Stars, and he was about two four star general families, right, So it's like a four star general and a four star general. They you know, they they went to war together and all that stuff whatever, and now their families are in
the family and business there in the military. And one is a reporter you know, and in Washington and all that stuff, and the other one is a young colonel played by the always Greade will and uh and you have Stephen Bauer played my dad and Bruce Greenwood played I mean, it was like the cast was just phenomenal and it's a beautiful I just saw the pilot again.
Because I was thinking of that idea. It was so good.
And we filmed in deep in like Seami Valley for Iraq, which was fascinating.
Which was amazing. That scene was crazy.
So it was so the It was a beautiful family drama that also had international turmoil type of.
You know, a compliment to the story.
You know, there was also there was also like an action you know aspect to it, but it was also about the core of the families and all that and it fell into the whole. Around this time, CBS would on cancer shows. There was no slots, so it was like, no matter how great your pilots were, if things were performing, you might not only get one slot a year, two
slots a year to put in something new. They still were making pilots though, so but I was supposed to be someone who had just kind of you know, grown up service, you know, whether universe.
It was cast with a brother and maybe a sister and a mom and a dad who all had American accents.
Yeah. Right, so then.
So the question is, would be the story of this guy who just has this little bit of a leftover right venezuelan sound like, no problem except if it confuses the audience, which in this case it might actually have.
And so hard he cooked it up. He's like, you know what did you know this? Like at some point did you want to write write in the line?
He just decided, you know what, I'm gonna have a little bit of a slight accent.
Oh he did that for you?
Oh wow, Yeah, because because.
The truth is like the performance, like they'd be like, the performance is great, but that one word, so I would end up doing like you can.
Talk about the process of a guy like coach on set is like like creating, how do I have no idea how to put this? Creating a this like a protective this for my actor where I am completely honest with them, but I'm also not prioritizing a tiny bit of sound over the like emotional truth of the scene. Like we're on the same team. But if they're hearing sounds and they're telling me to go in and give him this note, he knows and I know that we're playing this game and it's a dance.
But you were involved, and even though she was involved, Steven still felt like he had.
The Well, I just I was ruggling with very specific words, a lot of military formal stuff that I just have never said out there.
And literally they wanted to miss sound American overnight and like you sound you know you are the most American's very excited, but like you know what I'm saying. My agent would call this a dialect emergency and it always cracked me up.
But the idea of a dialect.
Emergency is like the night before, the producers are like Ohan over there.
Wa, but heres what was really interesting?
So kind of going back and I want to explain to audiences a little bit more of how this works, right because I think everyone's like, wait, somebody teaches you how to talk like an American accing like you know, so I just want to, you know, so specifically, what happens is when they're they're actors that are not either born and raised here or they have a crazy New York accent, but they need to sound like they're from La or you know, or they have a Puerto Rican accent,
but they got to sound Mexican can like, there are certain tools that you have to kind of acquired, but beyond those tools, you have to have some kind of coaching because if you've never been exposed to that type of communication, I mean that that type of uh you know of dialect, then you know it's going to take a second.
It's going to take a lot of repetition, it's going to talk a lot of rehearsal.
But sometimes they don't realize this thing until like you're in rehearsals and you're shooting next week.
And they're like, would you be open? This is how they come to you. Would you be open like maybe having someone bring.
And they ask your agent because they don't ask the producers never want to be the bad guys. They ask your agents and they'll call your agent and they're like, hey, so has a little bit of an accent. Is it is it? Does he can he lose his accent and make it more American? And my agent calls me and says like, hey, they really want.
You to lose your action a right? Cool?
And for a lot of times what happens is I can do it to the script, but the moment mean that I'm flowing and I have to add live something.
That's why I start drawing outside the lions.
That's what my accident, absolutely, because you've worked on those specifics, so those things that you know, and then all of a sudden, I'm feeling and I'm vibing and I'm flowing, and all of a sudden, I'm making something a little saucy aired And.
Then we start with your the magical moments that we in the audience want to see. So now we're cross purposes because because he's like, shit, don't do those. Oh wait, but no, do those.
And that's one of the reasons why I said this is such a it's very fun for me. This is also one of these very vulnerable moments for actors where they have to kind of take the ego aside.
And this is not like it has nothing to do with you.
It has everything to do with the vision and the structure of what a filmmaker or a writer or a producer wants for their project, right, right, And they know you're the guy for the job, right, they know you're the guy for the role.
By the way you got the job.
Yeah, and by the way, like they there were you know, they were very excited, and I think you know, and CBS excited to work with me, and it's the first time I worked with CBS, and you know.
So we're like, let's go, you know.
And they wanted this family to be to have a Latin descent, you know, they wanted to but you know, they wanted to be American Latinos, which means like they don't have an accent, you know.
That'd being said. We started thinking like what if it was I know, he.
Was on a base you know, in South America for like the first his infant years. We started like, you're coming up with all these storylines in the background that that gave him kind of the ability to say, hey, you know, he has an accent because he was kind of raised on the base with locals from a different Latin writing country or something.
You know.
But the point I'm making is that eventually they'll make a phone call and they say like, hey, would you be open and working with the coach, And the answer is always yes, right, because let's let's go, let's do it.
And that's how we met, and we had a you know a lot of these great.
Conversations, Like I it was funny, it is like my vocaulary for English is really good, but my my pronunciations.
Just like that, like who I am? You know, it's just like what you.
Know how it sounds like now I now I have any easier time because I've been working for a lot longer and like you know, I've been speaking English for a lot longer, you know. But at those times when I when I had to do something that was not necessarily calling for someone like me, someone to be something like you know, like a military guy or something, we would have to do the coaching and then we started the exercise. But like, but you can talk a little
bit more about the process. So then you arrive on stead and here's the actor.
Were you, Here's here's your here's your actor, and okay, let us know when it when it's fixed.
Were you part of Like were you like on CBS's list of dialog Like how did you.
To you tell me?
We never know? I mean I had an agent and and I had a reputation frankly right, like it's often word of mouth, and I know I was I think still am. It's just I'm saying it in past tense because I'm not doing this work as much anymore. But like I think I was on the top of the
list for CIA, the big agency. You know, it's like it's like they would just be like, go to her, she you know literally with I think that they think is she doesn't fuck up her actors, because so much of the work is not just the vowels and consonants. It's making sure that you don't lose your your confidence and your sense of play.
And compliment to you.
Like a lot of acting coaches that are brought as an emergency to said because someone is having a tough time getting there.
You know, also is a really that you.
Kind of share a very similar kind of structure. You know, you kind of have to really. I always this is analogya. I've used it a few times, probably on the show too, but in life in general, it's it's like a picture and a catcher.
The catcher is a psychologist. He's a therapist to the picture.
He's got to come in massage the pitches out of your picture. Because in baseball, if that picture is the stress or he gets in his head, can get out of it.
There goes the game. Right, He's like he's gonna blow it at the mount right.
So the catcher comes up with a smile when he's like, hey, good, good, good, that's really good. Good speed on that ninth curve on that. Now, let's give me a straight because in this one we're gonna do blah blahah you know, or like, hey, you're coming in a little low on this, don't be afraid to go through it a little harder.
Let's go, baby, let's go.
We got this right, So that gets the picture. Okay, cool, it's me and him playing catch.
Right, right, but catch. But pictures are like actors.
There is I don't the word is not delicate, but there is sensive. There is a sensitivity to the to the finesse.
Yeah you know.
And that's why when we had our episode about directors, yeah, uh huh, the sensitivity of how you address your actors. Yeah, it's very very important.
Yeah you know. But the point is you have to have like the picture catcher mentality.
But often it happens in these tiny, little like ninja moments where you know, in between takes, like cut, we're going again, hair and makeup, come in and do like a little whatever, dab dab, and I whisper in your ear and then we all go together. If I'm whisper, if I wisp like a good whisper. Maybe is like it's the just that you know, you know, you're you're almost there, You've.
Got this, You've got this.
A bad one is why do you keep messing that up? Or like eighty billion other right, we could go with eighty billion other game?
You were you've nailed it ten times. I don't know what's happening?
Yeah, what the fuck are you doing?
Yeah?
And literally like I I often you know, have like have like the number one on the call sheet, like in a way I hold there. I have so much power, right, like it's important not to use that. It's really really what that moment is.
That we're trying to She's like a yeah, so the director comes to give you a thought and then oh yeah she has a mad thing to do. So like you have two Now you have two people and sometimes a writer coming at you.
So now you have your dialary coach, Now you have your.
Director, and now you have the writer that just wants to tell you why it's important to leave it as written.
And the director just gave a note of like try a different ways. So now you're really you know, processing, and then I'm there. Often what happens actually for a good dialect coach who like reads the room. Is that I'm holding back, right, You got to let obviously, you got to let them give their note first, and then I decide a if my note is worth going in after that be if my note is going to help what the director just said or heard it?
So are you are you listening to what the director?
If I can? Right, Yeah, it matters right because I am there for them, like I really am. Not as much as my job is to protect the sound, get those zunes right, My real job is tell a good story. My real job is like make the director's vision. Make your heartbeat to the speed of the audience, you know, like we're here to make arts.
I'll tell you something some an actor probably has never told you, but maybe it has, and you tell me if it did. There's a time where your nerves get so you're I've been doing this for twenty years quite by the time that you know, then I've done it for almost seventeen years or something in my career.
Right, So I trust my instinct as an actor.
I know that I'm about to kill it like I come in as a killer. I'm coming in on the set and I'm prepared and I'm ready, let's go, you know, and then you have this other layer. She's like, Okay, I got what I need to do for the character. I know who the character is. Now he has to sound this way, which is not who I sound like, right, And so you end up doing a take and immediately you look over to video village and the actor stuging
to producer is fine. The actor is talking to SCRIPTI that's fine because I know I know those two things. But the moment the actor the director talks to the dally coach, he.
Has a problem.
I know.
That's when I know, here comes the fucking note. And I'm sititting there like I see the lean over or whatever. And sometimes what happens is the directors like did they nail it or not know it because he's not looking. He's not here in the accent right. And by the way, sometimes the directors don't even hear it.
Or sometimes what we're actually working on is like a really specific like I said West Texas earlier. You know, it's like the director doesn't know I'm the keeper.
Of the sound, yes exactly.
And the actor and I are like in our own little dance because we're the ones who've been listening NonStop to clip that tells us how these people sound, you know whatever, and the director, Yeah, it is just looking.
Do you ever just let do you ever just go Well that wasn't one hundred, but it'll but it'll fly.
You ever do that?
And so like the action is maybe eighty percent?
Yeah, I mean I joke that. Like, as with any crew member, by the way, the dialect coach's job is to be super obsessed with the one thing I'm there to do and also simultaneously deprioritize it the instant it doesn't matter. Yeah, and so I like, my makes my heart be like my job wait, no, chill, no, my job, but chill and like that. But that is the thing, right, We have to be able to deprioritize it when it's just not what the moment's about.
Have you ever done that and then watched the thing that you were coaching on and then and then like the thing that you were like, it's like eighty percent, it's okay, and then you see it on TV and you're like.
Ah, here's the inside.
I hear it.
Third way, There is a third way, which.
Is ABR alright, Also, then is it an ADR that's right.
So then is it your call to go, hey, he has to eight rs?
I mean with my dream producers, yes it is. They're like, let me send you the rough cut and you give us notes, right, or like tell us what scenes we're gonna need to go in on. Usually I'm thrown in at the last second for d R. But yeah, I mean that's so that's happened. I mean I got my start doing ad R.
That's happened.
Where you see the actors performance and you're like, you gotta, you gotta.
Okay, the actress performance is a dramatic way of putting Yeah, yeah, a few waywards sounds.
Performing the sound the only perform this network.
You're exactly right. Well, also, wait, since you said that, I just feel like it's it's important to say that so much of the job when you're when I am on a set is like, yes, these are the guardrails, let's stay within that. This is the sound we need to do for the story. We're talking so much of real life and accent work is messier than that. And like,
I don't even accent work. I should just say accents, right, And you know, and we know that so much of what is beautiful about how each of us sounds and how literally every one of us sounds different from everyone else. Is that the sounds coming out of our mouth reflect the life we've actually lived, the places we've lived, the people we've spent the most time with, the people we admire, the people we want never to sound like like that's
our life coming out of our mouth. So you know, yeah, my job on set is like, this is the right sound and this is the less right sound, But in real life that's not that's not the thing, right. And actually, part of my job has been my job that I made up, the part where I'm like, actually just coaching and consulting folks is often to help them see their own inner biases around sounds and be like, can we
what if we backed off on that? What if we check that bias and we're like, you sound exactly right for the message you're going to give on that stage.
It's you.
And that's why literally gain. The book is called Permission to Speak, and the cover has the word permission six times on it. It's like, that's because the permission matters more than the.
Speaking, right, right.
I know you fell in love with actors when you were ten watch Shakespeare.
But what was this specifically.
About accents that made you go into into dialect codes?
Okay, I have two quick answers. One is I got an MFA in acting, so I really was trying to pursue acting. Oh cool, if you ever like have I or whatever like like I'm available.
You sound like likely sealball. That is the most random question.
Yeah, I see it.
Yeah, I mean, let me do some preser.
What's a little video, we'll circle back, let's we'll talk about that after the episode.
But the other answer is, if I'm being like a totally honest dork about this, I loved impressions when I was little. I love Marilyn Monroe and I would do her voice. I would do British voice right, like there was I wasn't getting them right. But I was so curious even then about the relationship between how we sound and how we get treated in life. Oh, that's interesting, and the idea that we could change how we sound.
I mean, my fair lady. This classic musical is literally about somebody with a lower class, like a coded for class lower class British accent, who, because of a like social experiment by a mean dialect coach learns how to sound fancy and her life opens up. And I watched that as like a ten year old being like I am learning something about the world from this. Wow, not necessarily something that I want to emulate, right, I'm not like,
let me please be that asshole dialect coach. It came one, but that idea that when we change how we sound, our world changes for better and for worse, like really really like.
Feels like it feels like an interesting code, like a key to different different.
Under And now I've done you know, I did a lot of research on like social linguistics, which is like literally how the sounds that come out of our mouth happened because of the society we're because of the room we're in, because right, like we all know we sound different when we talk to like a three year old then we talked to a grandmother than we did when we talk to a lawyer who's mad. Then we like, is one version real and the other ones are fake?
Or are humans made to have these different versions of ourselves that come out in different rooms? And you know that's complicated and there's you know, aspects of that like code switching that feel really heavy. But also like we can celebrate it because obviously this is like an evolutionary trait in.
Humans, right, And what was that? The most interesting thing you found when you when you when you took up social linguistics was was that.
You know, I'll tell you one other thing. Thank you for giving me like permission to be like a nerd about social But here's here's the heart of it. And it's in a way, it's kind of what I just said, but I'm saying it differently because I love this. I love this. It's like a gift for me. Maybe all of us social linguists will say that every habit any of us have ever picked up our arms and us, the acts and stuff, the ways in which we sound more, you know, like our hometown and we've just talked to
our mom and we don't when we haven't. Every habit any of us have ever picked up in how we sound, we've picked up for a reason. It has served us in some way.
In a bad or a good way.
It has served us. It has like helped you know, somebody will say, oh, I can't I hate that, I say like so much. Make me stop saying like, and I'll be like, we can get a little more bit more conscious about your likes and what those are, what those like hedging terms are doing. But also can we just love on that? Like where did we pick it up? Who do you love that? Sounds like that? Who are
you reflecting back? How has that helped you to connect with people in those other rooms, in those other relationships, in those moments before this one?
Right?
And like if there's shame wrapped up in that, can we deshame that?
Right?
Right?
But they're obviously raising that question because although it may have helped them, they feel that it's actually hurting them as well.
Right.
Yeah.
Often it's like I'm trying to up level. I'm now you know, in this more professional context.
And they're watching themselves give the speech or they get really self conscious. Yeah, and they're just like, oh my god, I said like like a million times. Yeah, I think but the old our producers do that, does.
That a lot?
Yeah?
I mean, are you calling someone out?
Ye's he says, my lot.
But he's just because he's so smart, he's just like he thinks about so many different ideas.
He has had a tough time. Hello, I was talking about a producer that we work with.
Yes, you know, you're just so smart.
I'm as a great example. I'm as a great example.
I am the king of But you know what an is?
I mean, linguistically speaking, it's just a little like you're dropping a little sign post that says a not quite donely processed, and often it allows your audience to process too.
Can I tell you what I think in like his?
Because I have the same issues myself when I do when I speak in the uh I'm saying, So what I'm doing is I'm buying myself time to piece together a sentence that I want to sound smart.
So do you mean that you don't do it when you're feeling more loose?
When I feel more confident and I'm running with my stuff, I rarely used to like or.
So this is thank you for that example, because this is like the old timey and I'm like insert irol. The old timy approach to public speaking is count your ums in us. Stop doing that, like police yourself, stop it. And my approach is like, what's going on in the inside psychologically that's making you feel like you have to prove yourself right because all of us have a version of ourselves. That's like, how do I prove myself well, I should, I should like shave off all the parts of me that.
Are super weird, but you should bring that.
I should say that my biggest words that I have. And then there's the other version of ourself that's with our favorite people, and how do we bring that version of us?
But you may be right, but like the perception that the overall perception is that if you do too many elms or too many likes, that it's there's a negative perception behind that, right, But you're saying, although there's a negative perception behind that, you should embrace it anyway.
Is that?
Is that?
What? No, I'm actually saying, Yes, And you know what I'm really saying is what Wilmer said, which is which is brilliant, just reflecting your brilliance, which which is what you said, which is what actually happens in the human body, is that when we are feeling more relaxed, more confident, like we have less to prove, like we're around our favorite people and they get us even if we're not. If we give ourselves permission to show up that way, yeah, we am the end a less.
Yeah, that's incredibly fascinating. But before we continue on, we are going to take a pause.
This is the end of episode one of two. Because you're giving us so much time. That's so thank you for listening and watching. Uh those some egos and wim with I'm Freddi Rodriguez. See you on the next one.
Dose Amigos is a production from WV Sound and iHeartMedia's Michael through That podcast network, hosted by Me, Freddie Rodriguez, and Wilmer Valdorama.
Those Amigos is produced by Aaron Burlson and Sophie Spencer Zabos.
Our executive producers are Wilmer Valdorama, Freddie Rodriguez, Aaron Burlson, and Leo Klem at WV Sound.
This episode was shot and edited it by Ryan Posts and mixed by Sean Tracy and features original music by Madison Devenport and Halo Boy.
Our cover art photography is by David Avalos and designed by Deny Holtz Clau and.
Thank you for being at Third Amigo today. I appreciate you guys always listening to Those Amigos.
More podcasts from my heart, visit the ir heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
See you next week.