My mum won't speak to me unless I speak properly on the phone. I have to speak 'American' for work, so often the accent comes through when I'm not at work.
I have spent too long training myself to speak with an American accent, it's ingrained. I spend 16 hours a day on set speaking with an American accent. Now, when I try to speak with an Aussie accent, I just sound like a caricature of myself.
My parents speak with an accent. A lot of people that I know speak with an accent. I have friends who speak with an accent. Accents in a vacuum aren't a problem; it's how you portray those characters and how well they're served in a script.
My natural accent is American. I chose to speak with a U.K. accent when I was about to enter the final year at drama school in London. I was going to try to find a way to stay in the U.K. after I finished college and could not imagine trying to live and get work there with an American accent.
My accent was horrible. In Mexico, nobody says, 'You speak English with a good accent.' You either speak English, or you don't: As long as you can communicate, no one cares.
When you speak universally, it means that you speak from the Moon, you speak from the Sun, from the stars; you speak by being in every corner of the universe!
I speak English without an accent, and I speak Spanish without an accent. I really do have the best of both worlds.
I speak English, obviously, Afrikaans, which is a derivative of Dutch that we have in South Africa. And then I speak African languages. So I speak Zulu. I speak Xhosa. I speak Tswana. And I speak Tsonga. And like - so those are my languages of the core. And then I don't claim German, but I can have a conversation in it. So I'm trying to make that officially my seventh language. And then, hopefully, I can learn Spanish.
I spend most of my time speaking to people who totally disagree with me. I speak to gays, I speak to atheists, I speak to secularists, I speak to Muslims because I am trying to build a bridge between my heart and theirs so Jesus can walk across and they can come to know Christ.
The world has wanted me to speak differently than I speak. You know, I speak like my mom; I speak like, you know, like the whitest white dude; I speak like a Def Comedy Jam comedian doing an impression of a white guy.
Speak the truth.
Speak it loud and often, calmly but insistently,
and speak it, as the Quakers say, to power.
Material accumulation is not the purpose of human existence.
All growth is not good.
The environment is a necessity, not a luxury.
There is such a thing as enough.
Tell me the word that will win you, and I will speak it. I will speak the stars of heaven into a crown for your head; I will speak the flowers of the field into a cloak; I will speak the racing stream into a melody for your ears and the voices of a thousand larks to sing it; I will speak the softness of night for your bed and the warmth of summer for your coverlet; I will speak the brightness of flame to light your way and the luster of gold to shine in your smile; I will speak until the hardness in you melts away and your heart is free.
I could speak to you and say, 'Laytay-chai, paisey, paisey.' ... Why aren't you responding? Oh, you don't speak Swahili. Well, I've got news for you. The dog doesn't speak English, or American, or Spanish, or French.
To be honest, it's easier for me to speak with an American accent.
We have three things in common: Irish wives, the ability to speak for 17 minutes without a verb, and the fact that we both speak with an accent.
When I go to Colombia or Mexico, I speak Spanish. When I go to Italy, I speak Italian. When I'm in Germany, I speak German. Would I expect them to speak English in these countries? No. I mean, great if they do, but no. Would I be offended if in Spain they say we speak Spanish? No. If I was an immigrant there, no.
When I speak, I don't speak for myself; I don't have the luxury of a Caucasian to be able to speak for myself. I speak for a whole community, and I represent so many different communities that that felt like a lot of pressure.