Speaker 1: Everybody.
Speaker 2: This is Freddie Rodriguez.
Speaker 3: And Wilmer about the rama. Welcome to those amigos. We're back.
Speaker 1: We're back episode two.
Speaker 2: Baby.
Speaker 4: That's how fascinating she are it required a second episode.
Speaker 2: Samara, she's a coach.
Speaker 3: She's a Coacha is a very very giftedll coach, someone
Speaker 3: that really helped me in the earlier years actually mid
Speaker 3: years of my career. And we were talking about, uh,
Speaker 3: the way you help leaders and actors convey story uh.
Speaker 3: And in the same subject, the simplistic version that I
Speaker 3: tell myself is the more prepared I am, the less
Speaker 3: pit stops I have to make in order to make
Speaker 3: my point.
Speaker 2: The pit stop is the like.
Speaker 3: Uh, these are the pit stops that you're like you
Speaker 3: because you're trying to piece it together. Now, not all
Speaker 3: conversations require you to stop your arms.
Speaker 2: Like right, like you're talking to people. It is what
Speaker 2: it is.
Speaker 3: But what I found myself and I'm curious to see
Speaker 3: you know, for you as a storyteller, as a you're
Speaker 3: one of the smartest people I've ever met in my life.
Speaker 3: You're also like you as one of the best spoken
Speaker 3: people I've ever talked, you know, and you know and
Speaker 3: also You're one of the most brilliant actors I've ever
Speaker 3: seen in my life. This guy has been able to
Speaker 3: to uh, you know, to really and I'm trying to
Speaker 3: really sound smart there you see that, Okay.
Speaker 2: I'm getting.
Speaker 3: What I'm saying is like the idea that you have
Speaker 3: to portray these characters that for the most part, you're
Speaker 3: leading the story, you're driving us forward. And now I
Speaker 3: don't want to say anything, but you're gonna play a
Speaker 3: different ethnicity guy that's absolutely so far removed from who
Speaker 3: you are, that that's going to be the next role
Speaker 3: you're gonna take.
Speaker 2: The people are going to be blown away by.
Speaker 3: And you are going to have to learn the accent
Speaker 3: and in the actual language, yes, to.
Speaker 2: A place in the world that you've probably never been.
Speaker 3: Maybe you haven't, you know, through the years, but like,
Speaker 3: but you've never lived there to understand why those dialects
Speaker 3: and why then you know where they come from. So
Speaker 3: so for me, the thing that I realized the more
Speaker 3: I understood, I used to say, like, and I'm so
Speaker 3: much more back in the day when I was trying
Speaker 3: to fit into so many smart conversations because I.
Speaker 2: Knew I had an opinion about the things that was
Speaker 2: being said.
Speaker 3: But I've never communicated with those rooms before, so I
Speaker 3: thought I had to really take my time in putting
Speaker 3: these sentences together. So like, for example, you know, I
Speaker 3: had to search my words more often than I could.
Speaker 2: If I was just kind of flowing.
Speaker 3: The more confidence I became in what I exposed myself to.
Speaker 2: The Easter was to take those things out right. The
Speaker 2: other thing is like you're.
Speaker 3: Telling you talk about in your subject, but I look
Speaker 3: for you, Freddie, what has it? Does this relate to you?
Speaker 3: Does it trigger any emotion or memory or anything?
Speaker 2: Sure?
Speaker 4: Yeah, I'm from Chicago, right, And my first movie I
Speaker 4: had to have a dialot coach because my Chicago accent,
Speaker 4: which you can probably still hear, I'm told still there.
Speaker 4: So I was nineteen years old. I was on the
Speaker 4: set of a pretty big movie and it was my
Speaker 4: first movie.
Speaker 2: Was the movie.
Speaker 4: It was called The Walk in the Clouds and it
Speaker 4: took place in the nineteen thirties.
Speaker 1: And here I was just like Chicago urban like street kid.
Speaker 4: All of a sudden thrust it into this movie with
Speaker 4: like Anthony Quinn and Caanu Reeves and gian Carlo Janini,
Speaker 4: and I had to sound like a kid who went
Speaker 4: to Stanford in the nineteen thirties, and it was it
Speaker 4: was incredibly difficult, and had I had a dialog coach
Speaker 4: for like three months while I was on that side,
Speaker 4: who was who's doing everything? You just said, you know,
Speaker 4: I do a take and they would come and whisper
Speaker 4: in my ear and her eye was. It was like
Speaker 4: the first time I was ever in front of cameras
Speaker 4: like that or around big actors like that. So it
Speaker 4: was really I want to say it was difficult, but
Speaker 4: it was a lot to process as like a nineteen
Speaker 4: year old kid. And so I've had dialogue coaches. That
Speaker 4: wasn't the first time. You know, my action has always
Speaker 4: been really difficult to overcome.
Speaker 2: I never knew that about you.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, I mean you can hear it right, like
Speaker 4: you know, this is sort of how I sound.
Speaker 5: You know, I'm not here diagnosed.
Speaker 2: Yeah right.
Speaker 4: And so when we was saying I I haven't announced
Speaker 4: it yet, but I'm about to play someone who's who's
Speaker 4: of German descent, and I was like me and they
Speaker 4: were like, yeah you And I was like, okay, give
Speaker 4: me a dialart coach.
Speaker 1: And so I'm.
Speaker 2: Supposed to be starting with one.
Speaker 4: I don't quite know who it is someone who's sitting
Speaker 4: across from me right now, and so it's.
Speaker 2: Gonna be nuts. Nudge.
Speaker 5: Did you want Lucille Ball?
Speaker 1: Can you teach with the Lucille Ball accent?
Speaker 2: Uh?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 4: So so it's I've been struggling with it for a
Speaker 4: long time too. I mean I've gone into rooms. I
Speaker 4: remember in the nineties, I would audition and they would say,
Speaker 4: he sounds a little too urban, you know, man, I
Speaker 4: I had read for something, you know, geez, like like
Speaker 4: eight years ago and then and the guy was from
Speaker 4: Chicago and they were like, oh, he just sounded too urban.
Speaker 1: And I was like, what do you mean from Chicago?
Speaker 4: I sounded like, oh, I sounded And so my accent
Speaker 4: has always been something that's been a little bit.
Speaker 1: Of a thorn on my side throughout my career as well.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I find that a lot of the work I
Speaker 5: do with people, whether it's in the hull onllwoold realm
Speaker 5: or in business, is often unpacking some of those early
Speaker 5: comments or early you know, like judgments that were thrust
Speaker 5: on us. Often it's like people go back to like
Speaker 5: second grade, Oh really their parents there's you know, it's
Speaker 5: like trauma attached to it. There is, and it's like
Speaker 5: it's like subtle enough, like lowercase T trauma that you
Speaker 5: kind of can go like, why am I not over it?
Speaker 5: That's what it is. And then I give people permission
Speaker 5: to be like, let's just honor that not only are
Speaker 5: you not over it, because it's like real and it
Speaker 5: wasn't being able to get processed. But now there's like
Speaker 5: this added level of like self shame of why did
Speaker 5: I let that get to me? Why did I let
Speaker 5: that one guy in second grade who said that my
Speaker 5: voice is annoying get to me? What's wrong with me?
Speaker 5: And so many of us do that, and it's like
Speaker 5: the spiral around our voice. And this is why I
Speaker 5: wrote this book and I sold it in this like
Speaker 5: crazy bidding war at the top of the pandemic because
Speaker 5: I just feel like no one.
Speaker 4: So there's a therapy aspect attached to what you do
Speaker 4: as well.
Speaker 2: I mean, listen, I.
Speaker 5: Mean said therap but here's how I here's how I
Speaker 5: say it. There is inevitably an element of therapeutic as
Speaker 5: to this, which means healing. You know. It's like, yeah,
Speaker 5: ultimately we're just like, oh god, my mom said that
Speaker 5: to me, I really, like, you know, internalized it. I
Speaker 5: forgot it came from that source and she has her
Speaker 5: own stuff, and I just thought it was a truth
Speaker 5: about me. Oh wait, do I need to keep that
Speaker 5: story going? Is that helping me? Is it helping the
Speaker 5: next generation? Is it helping my kid? Me continuing to
Speaker 5: carry that burden of in this case, you know, like
Speaker 5: my voice is annoying or whatever. Who's that helping? Is
Speaker 5: that helping me? Like, like, do my best legacy work
Speaker 5: in the world? If not, what can I like lovingly
Speaker 5: do to release that?
Speaker 4: So how do you how do you hand I mean,
Speaker 4: that's not part of what you signed up for, right,
Speaker 4: So how do you handle sort of you're coaching somebody,
Speaker 4: all of a sudden.
Speaker 2: They break down.
Speaker 4: They're like in the second grade somebody you know, and
Speaker 4: then all of a sudden that they go right, the
Speaker 4: trauma was.
Speaker 5: Released, Say, I love those moments, but I kind of
Speaker 5: loved those, But.
Speaker 1: How do you how do you handle that?
Speaker 5: You were clearly like you know what they say, like
Speaker 5: shamed dies in the light. It's like once they know it,
Speaker 5: I don't need to do anything. Now we're like you
Speaker 5: that's a thing. Hey, that's a thing.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I had to undo a bunch of stuff the
Speaker 3: beginning because when I was, when I became an actor,
Speaker 3: if you had an accident in school, you were seen
Speaker 3: as inferior, as uneducated. If you had an accent, you
Speaker 3: were uneducated, even though I was a straighted student, because
Speaker 3: in Venezuela.
Speaker 2: There was two years ahead, you know.
Speaker 3: When I got here, I had traded to and I
Speaker 3: didn't even have to speak English to me, but thought
Speaker 3: I was cheating. I think we talked about it on
Speaker 3: the show before, and I had an accent. So people
Speaker 3: are like, how is you how you even like acing
Speaker 3: the test?
Speaker 2: I'm like, it's math, like like I mean you know,
Speaker 2: or so on and so on.
Speaker 3: But question for you when it comes to nationalities and
Speaker 3: all that, what is the common thing that Latino speakers
Speaker 3: you don't have to undo in order to embrace an
Speaker 3: American accent?
Speaker 2: And I'm and I'm asking for a friend. I'm asking
Speaker 2: for a friend.
Speaker 5: Okay. The main thing with the main thing with Spanish
Speaker 5: speakers is that y'all have five vowels. And although in
Speaker 5: the written English we look and we say we see ae,
Speaker 5: I ou sure, maybe we have five two if you
Speaker 5: think about it, and like dialect alert here I'm getting,
Speaker 5: I'm gonna get, I'm gonna get technical because you asked it.
Speaker 5: You know, even for the letter A alone in English,
Speaker 5: if you see it in a word, you don't know.
Speaker 5: It has five different pronunciations, the letter A. So it
Speaker 5: can be all like about alc apple, all like father,
Speaker 5: all like awesome, or a like.
Speaker 1: Eight mm hmmm. And so that's confusing.
Speaker 5: That's a lot. And when it comes to some of
Speaker 5: those sounds, they exist or some version of them exists
Speaker 5: in Spanish. Right, the a father is like our closest
Speaker 5: American version to the ah. But then what's what happens
Speaker 5: when you get to a apple? So for a lot
Speaker 5: of Spanish speakers, they're they're, they're there. English is amazing, right,
Speaker 5: this is not about this is no judgment on their
Speaker 5: right acquisition of English. But if they always say apple
Speaker 5: and now they have to go a apple. And now,
Speaker 5: by the way, for American speakers out there, we also
Speaker 5: do an uglier a a in front of an er
Speaker 5: and emorin ng sounds. So we go like ah, like family.
Speaker 5: And if we go at apple family, people think we're
Speaker 5: English British family. That's that's what I mean West. That's
Speaker 5: almost all of the US almost uses that little tiny
Speaker 5: dialect thing, and it's almost to tell if you don't
Speaker 5: use it. So you say a family, family, it's a scandal.
Speaker 5: Where's she from? She does not sound like she's from anywhere.
Speaker 5: She sounds she's in like neutral land right anyway?
Speaker 3: So we three hundred teaching teaching what a movie three
Speaker 3: hundred where they're just like, we're from what is that Atlantic?
Speaker 2: What is it?
Speaker 5: Was?
Speaker 3: Mid Atlantic Atlantic, which is like British Buddy's not.
Speaker 5: It's a made up nineteen thirties accent where everybody sounds fancy,
Speaker 5: but not from anywhere the middle of the Atlantic where
Speaker 5: there's no land exactly exactly.
Speaker 3: Oh my god, she's from somewhere like lower of the rings.
Speaker 5: Right exactly exactly fairy sound.
Speaker 2: I've had to audition with that accent before, didn't know it.
Speaker 2: Did you call me?
Speaker 1: You know?
Speaker 2: One of my.
Speaker 3: Dreams is my one of my dreams is to perfect
Speaker 3: a British accent.
Speaker 2: I don't know why. I've always been like.
Speaker 1: Why because the bridge come here and they get the
Speaker 1: American action?
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, because I.
Speaker 3: Feel like it's just as if I go get James Bond,
Speaker 3: you know, the Brits in the Australians get all the
Speaker 3: all American. You know, thank god for Chris Evans because
Speaker 3: he finally was Captain America. But everybody else is Australian
Speaker 3: and British, you know, playing these American comic book heroes.
Speaker 1: You know, you think you can do a British accent.
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 3: I know I can't, And that's why I know I can't.
Speaker 2: I can't.
Speaker 1: I can't.
Speaker 5: Have you considered maybe you have a person, like a
Speaker 5: specific person with a British accent that you could Craig.
Speaker 5: Have you listened to him? Have you like repeated back?
Speaker 2: You know, but he's so.
Speaker 3: But the thing about his accent is he he's so
Speaker 3: settled it almost doesn't sound British anymore. Have you heard
Speaker 3: the last couple of James Bonds, They're like, his accent
Speaker 3: is he's there in a couple of ways, you know,
Speaker 3: where he just kind of, you know, kind of undertones it.
Speaker 3: But you know, but there's other characters that it's heavy.
Speaker 5: So if I were to just like prod a tiny bit,
Speaker 5: you might want to find someone else who also feels
Speaker 5: more like your vibe. I mean, I'm not saying you
Speaker 5: don't give Daniel kredit.
Speaker 2: That's not what I'm asking.
Speaker 5: But I'm just I mean, but I'm but I'm just saying,
Speaker 5: like it is fun, unlocks something.
Speaker 2: But you asked me.
Speaker 5: What I dare you and I would love it. What
Speaker 5: What is the James Bond accent? I mean, Pierce President,
Speaker 5: who have coached is Irish and he did he went
Speaker 5: for like a straight British sound, right, It's not like
Speaker 5: he just brought his natural accent, but.
Speaker 3: He's from there, so he grew up with all those
Speaker 3: influences around him, right, So it's like the British grow
Speaker 3: grows up with all Hollywood movies, so they're therefore they
Speaker 3: they understand.
Speaker 5: And you know many of them use dialect coaches.
Speaker 3: Well for sure, but I will also say that they
Speaker 3: grew up watching these movies, so they can imitate until
Speaker 3: then they coach to kind of perfect. I've never had
Speaker 3: to imitate a British accent because the first half of
Speaker 3: my life I was watching everything that had a different
Speaker 3: accent and English in Spanish, right, so everybody had a
Speaker 3: Latino accent when I was growing up, even James Bond and.
Speaker 4: Even Americans don't grow up watching British materials, so.
Speaker 5: Like, yeah, also, this is a pitch, you know, that's
Speaker 5: the next that's the next bond sound. I think we're ready.
Speaker 4: For for a lot of accent, for a little bonello,
Speaker 4: a little spice.
Speaker 3: Who are you got a mellow bond?
Speaker 1: I think we really welcome to.
Speaker 2: This is a little bond.
Speaker 1: Who is this?
Speaker 2: I don't know, but that you said it's ready for
Speaker 2: a new direction. I'm giving the narrative. So speaking of
Speaker 2: British accents, just bringing it back.
Speaker 3: So the the I A e ou there's They pronounced
Speaker 3: those a lot more closer to what Latino does right
Speaker 3: in a way to way like ah a if.
Speaker 5: That helps you as a bridge, I don't want to
Speaker 5: take it away.
Speaker 1: Bridge, But it's more like.
Speaker 3: You're just saying because they do pronounce the words like
Speaker 3: over here you said you we have those five for
Speaker 3: the A. Yeah, it seems like they're pretty consistent with
Speaker 3: their No.
Speaker 5: They've got the same it's just that they don't do
Speaker 5: that that ugly family. But yeah, it'd be like family.
Speaker 5: The apple sound.
Speaker 2: Is just uh, we say can't.
Speaker 5: We say can't and they say can't. But that's the
Speaker 5: awe sound like father father.
Speaker 1: So is that the key to learning that action is
Speaker 1: learning where the inflections go.
Speaker 5: Oh, there's so many parts. Okay, there's so many parts.
Speaker 5: When we're learning English as a first language from another
Speaker 5: part of the world. So this is Australian and British
Speaker 5: and Irish and Scottish, South African. It's the most complicated
Speaker 5: that the most sounds change constants and vowels. So you know,
Speaker 5: the question is like, what would be some of the
Speaker 5: main ones that you could focus on. I love what
Speaker 5: you're saying with kant. This is technically called the ask list.
Speaker 5: It's literally just a list of words. It's like three
Speaker 5: pages of words that like the word ask. In American
Speaker 5: English we would say apple ask and in British they
Speaker 5: would say, oh, father osk and they don't even know.
Speaker 5: I mean, I don't want to speak for all British people,
Speaker 5: but I've talked to it and they don't realize that.
Speaker 5: They say can and kan't.
Speaker 2: They don't hear it. They don't hear it.
Speaker 5: I'm like, is the word castle on the ask list?
Speaker 5: And they're like, castle, Yeah, what's the list?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 5: It's like, oh, okay, right, right right. But the main
Speaker 5: thing is the RS. So I don't This is like
Speaker 5: way technical. But the rs at the ends of words
Speaker 5: in English, in American English and in British English are
Speaker 5: actually vowels. They're not the same our our mouth doesn't
Speaker 5: do the same thing as a beginning are. So like
Speaker 5: the word red, do the word red, river field, what's
Speaker 5: happening your mouth redd?
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 5: Like what's happening? There's like a coming together everything red.
Speaker 5: If we did that at the end of the word father,
Speaker 5: we would end up with father. It's like a it
Speaker 5: would be a it's a dialect father. So what are
Speaker 5: we really doing?
Speaker 2: Father?
Speaker 5: Or our mouth stays open? The definition of a vowel.
Speaker 5: Can't believe IM talking about this, you guys, This is
Speaker 5: like no, Yes, definition of a vowel is that your
Speaker 5: mouth stays open and sound keeps coming out. This is
Speaker 5: why we can sing on vowels. So if your mouth
Speaker 5: is staying open on they are on the end of father,
Speaker 5: it's a vowel father, or just has some what we
Speaker 5: call our color father, unless our color would get you father,
Speaker 5: that's British.
Speaker 4: What would be some initial exercises that you do with
Speaker 4: with with actors when you first start working.
Speaker 5: With I mean, I kind of build the exercises based
Speaker 5: on what they need, because often certain sounds are just
Speaker 5: like oh I got that, and I'm like, we don't
Speaker 5: need to be a dead.
Speaker 1: Like do you remember do you remember the exercises? What
Speaker 1: did we do the pencil?
Speaker 5: Did you do the pencil?
Speaker 2: Yeah, so it's just like you put.
Speaker 3: The pencil here and make sure that your mouth is
Speaker 3: so wet in between your teeth.
Speaker 5: Just activated, It activates, you know. The main thing that
Speaker 5: happens is that we're all used to how we sound,
Speaker 5: like right, but we're all used to how we sound.
Speaker 5: So certain muscles get used and the other muscles are like, no,
Speaker 5: I'm good.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I've never.
Speaker 5: Been activated in the last twenty years. And then here
Speaker 5: we are being like, let's activate those muscles, and so
Speaker 5: doing a pencil or a cork like.
Speaker 4: From okay, so what does that do if you put
Speaker 4: a pencil in between your teeth?
Speaker 1: What's to just work a little harder?
Speaker 5: Now I have to like really do it. You're not
Speaker 5: gonna you're not gonna have a.
Speaker 1: Pen because because you're exercising certain.
Speaker 5: Most yeah, yeah, it's just part of a warm up.
Speaker 3: Also, honestly, I also phone, especially when I do a
Speaker 3: lot of the procedural stuff. I just got to warm
Speaker 3: up my vocals. You can't come in and just you know,
Speaker 3: do it cold. So I you know a lot of
Speaker 3: the jaw exercises.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know.
Speaker 5: I like to joke that I have a long history
Speaker 5: of telling movie stars what to do with their tongues,
Speaker 5: and it's true, although it's not the whole job.
Speaker 2: Is that in your book?
Speaker 5: I think I came up with that during the rest.
Speaker 2: After the book.
Speaker 1: And see.
Speaker 4: That somebody quote she tells the levers what to do
Speaker 4: with they're tengue in the book?
Speaker 3: Do you find that when actors have to play a
Speaker 3: Latin character, it's nobody cares as much because they're just like,
Speaker 3: oh they're have like some weird acting, we'll buy it.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 5: I don't want to throw under the bus what I
Speaker 5: was about to say, but yes, I have worked on
Speaker 5: projects that take place in very specific in a very
Speaker 5: specific place and have been like, hey, but there's like
Speaker 5: ten actors who you cast, and ones from Spain and
Speaker 5: ones from Colombia and ones from you know, Venezuela, and
Speaker 5: one's from Mexico. Shall we try to make them sound
Speaker 5: the same.
Speaker 2: If they're speaking English? Yeah?
Speaker 3: Yeah, And I'm like because if they're speaking Spanish, I
Speaker 3: would hope that an actor does.
Speaker 4: Is it, because the perception is that they all sound
Speaker 4: the same from whoever the.
Speaker 3: Yes, correct, Yeah, if you speak Spanish as your first language,
Speaker 3: when you speak English, you're all going to sound similar,
Speaker 3: which you.
Speaker 5: Don't know when I hear from so many I mean
Speaker 5: friends as well as clients who are like offended, who
Speaker 5: are like light offended, right, Like, of course, if you're
Speaker 5: seeing something that's like a Cuban show and they didn't
Speaker 5: put any work into making them sound Cuban, you're like, cool,
Speaker 5: thanks for putting millions of dollars into that show, but
Speaker 5: not that part of it, right.
Speaker 3: No, And by the way, I mean there was a
Speaker 3: lot of criticians that have you ever done God for
Speaker 3: playing the cr nest, you know in the LBC aerosorcin movie,
Speaker 3: because you know, there was not that emphasis of like, oh,
Speaker 3: when I speak English, I'm going to sound I'm going
Speaker 3: to also have the undertone.
Speaker 2: Of a Cuban man, you know. So people just bought it.
Speaker 3: They're like, he has an accent, so right, so he
Speaker 3: sounds like Ricardo, I guess, you know, but that yes,
Speaker 3: it goes it's just about also the actors should probably
Speaker 3: be a little bit more hungry for that part, you know,
Speaker 3: but look, how you ever done as one of the
Speaker 3: best actors of our entire generation, So he can do
Speaker 3: no wrong.
Speaker 2: In my eyes, I love that man.
Speaker 3: I think in general as a rule of thumb, for
Speaker 3: most actors and for all young actors who are listening
Speaker 3: to this thing is you know, it's what separates you
Speaker 3: from you know, from the rest of going for the
Speaker 3: same thing. It's like that little extra layer you put
Speaker 3: in there. It's what keeps you on a set.
Speaker 5: And to circle back to your German right Like, yes,
Speaker 5: of course understandably you can. You anybody can get stuck
Speaker 5: in like that's so different from me. But ultimately, what
Speaker 5: you're going to be inside of, inside of a creative
Speaker 5: process is like the curiosity and the wonder and the
Speaker 5: beauty of like.
Speaker 2: Who's this guy?
Speaker 5: How do I this guy?
Speaker 2: And that?
Speaker 5: And that is such a more generative and creative space.
Speaker 5: Then shit, I'm not this guy, you know.
Speaker 2: So we're both by lingual.
Speaker 3: We speak Spanish and English, right, well I kind of
Speaker 3: speak English, but he doesn't want But so the so
Speaker 3: for for people like Freddie and me who are bilingual
Speaker 3: and quite quite bi lingual, and I'm.
Speaker 2: Both English and Spanish.
Speaker 3: What are the accents that are probably the low hanging
Speaker 3: fruit for us? What do you think, like will be
Speaker 3: the accents that we'd be like very good at because
Speaker 3: you have the understanding of how to pronounce stuff in
Speaker 3: Spanish and.
Speaker 5: How to pronounce okay, you tell me, what do you think.
Speaker 2: A British accent like James Bond?
Speaker 1: Is that.
Speaker 2: There for you?
Speaker 1: I guess other other Latin actions. Have you ever had
Speaker 1: to do anything other than an American accent for.
Speaker 2: For a project?
Speaker 3: A lot, like for different Mexican accents, Yeah, like northern,
Speaker 3: the fa you know, you know, like have you have
Speaker 3: you gotten very specific about the mean? Yeah, in Mexico
Speaker 3: you think, okay, this manta, this man, I think this
Speaker 3: manata way right. And if you're in Colombia and there's
Speaker 3: like three different Columbian accents, rights see, and you know
Speaker 3: I'm an, I can butcher a Puerto Rican. I can
Speaker 3: butcher the Dominican, right, I can also like Argentina.
Speaker 2: It's like you know, you know, was a key landed
Speaker 2: their nose and.
Speaker 3: So everybody has like this little singer and I'm gifted
Speaker 3: on all those South American accents because I grew up
Speaker 3: with them, and I grew up imitating them, right, just
Speaker 3: like the British grew up imitating all different American accents,
Speaker 3: the American, the New Yorker accent or the Boston accent,
Speaker 3: you know, like.
Speaker 2: All those guys. So I knew how to do those.
Speaker 2: But yeah, that lot.
Speaker 3: But and so if I were to speak in English
Speaker 3: as one of these nationalities, I could write, it's a Cowana.
Speaker 3: I mean, you know, when I speak to Amelia seven
Speaker 3: after I hang up the phone.
Speaker 2: So I'm speaking Cuban.
Speaker 3: Really were, But that's that's the thing. But yeah, I
Speaker 3: mean I don't know, but commonly, you.
Speaker 5: Know, for you is the only other one I would
Speaker 5: add to that. I mean maybe Portuguese, right, maybe maybe
Speaker 5: maybe Brazilian or Portuguese like.
Speaker 2: Some of the.
Speaker 5: And the other one, although it's like, you know, there's
Speaker 5: a little bit of a dance over to it.
Speaker 3: But Italian, oh yeah, Italian, I think I could probably.
Speaker 5: And I you might have caught this on on that
Speaker 5: list of names that you said earlier, but I got
Speaker 5: to coach American crime story versace, and that's Edgar Ramirez,
Speaker 5: your countryman. Yeah, yeah, I love them, Penelope Cruz and
Speaker 5: a little bit of Ricky Martin.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, and were completely different places.
Speaker 5: And none of them Italian.
Speaker 4: Yeah, right, yeah, And Ricky's from the island. That that's
Speaker 4: a whole other different sort of rhythm, you know, the
Speaker 4: Puerto Ricans from the Eye Island in the Puerto Ricans
Speaker 4: from like New York or Chicago. And my experience has
Speaker 4: been different. And sometimes I'll go to Puerto Rico and
Speaker 4: I listen to people in the island, I'll be like, what,
Speaker 4: you know, I don't know if it's the speed or
Speaker 4: or or there's something in the dialect and the and
Speaker 4: the rhythm of it that that sometimes and Puerto Rico, yeah,
Speaker 4: I mean it's the island where my family is from.
Speaker 1: There's sometimes I have to kind of slow down.
Speaker 4: And just.
Speaker 2: Money swallow other words.
Speaker 1: Right, it's a different it's a different rhythms.
Speaker 2: In the world.
Speaker 5: In order to make people feel like they haven't us,
Speaker 5: which also means then that there's them, like there's this
Speaker 5: there's this amazing quote from a from a woman I
Speaker 5: quote in the book talking about how like put put
Speaker 5: the same group of people on two sides of a
Speaker 5: mountain range and within like months, they'll start to sound
Speaker 5: different within generations. Obviously they're like fully drenched other languages,
Speaker 5: like we do this, it's a human thing.
Speaker 2: We do.
Speaker 3: You talk about the Italian accident for that specific movie,
Speaker 3: did you feel that the fact that they spoke Spanish
Speaker 3: was in advantage for their Italian accents or everyone had
Speaker 3: to have.
Speaker 5: To ask them, You have to ask them. Yeah, I
Speaker 5: think yes, But also like, okay, what's the what's this?
Speaker 6: This is?
Speaker 5: This is just like fun geeky, but like, what's the
Speaker 5: biggest difference between the Spanish and Italian when speaking in English?
Speaker 5: There's this, right, There's something about the musicality, and there's
Speaker 5: also that I can't say this is not sounding like
Speaker 5: being me and to Italian speakers, I am not. This
Speaker 5: is just how sounds work. Spanish speakers know how to
Speaker 5: stop a word on a consonant. Italians have literally never
Speaker 5: done this in their life, so they will always add
Speaker 5: a vowel on the end. So often we were like
Speaker 5: artificially adding in a vowel. So if it was like
Speaker 5: the word stop, you know, like stopped on a tell
Speaker 5: or something, it'd be like stop, you need like the
Speaker 5: little oh yeah, right, And so giving them the permission
Speaker 5: to find like how to have more of a through
Speaker 5: energy instead of a you know.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I remember reading Marlon Brando when he played Sabada
Speaker 4: and he was saying, I wasn't really trying to learn
Speaker 4: an accent, but I was. I was just trying to
Speaker 4: learn the rhythm. And so when he did that movie,
Speaker 4: it was more about the rhythm that made it believable
Speaker 4: to him.
Speaker 1: Is there a difference?
Speaker 4: So like I was like, oh, that's an interesting thing
Speaker 4: to say, you know, Like, is.
Speaker 5: There also once we're doing English as a second language,
Speaker 5: we're speaking in English, right, We're not doing language work,
Speaker 5: that's its own thing. But we're speaking English as somebody
Speaker 5: who grew up speaking Spanish or you know, Italian or
Speaker 5: whatever whatever. There's range no, no, two people who were
Speaker 5: in that scenario speak English the same. Because when did
Speaker 5: you learn it? How what was your like interest in
Speaker 5: learning it? What was your inner resistance? What is your
Speaker 5: like vibe around? How dare I have to speak this
Speaker 5: language versus I want to soak.
Speaker 2: It all up? Right?
Speaker 5: This is all super personal. So that does actually give
Speaker 5: us freedom also as as you.
Speaker 3: Know, flipping in a little bit on your leadership work
Speaker 3: and with those individuals that have to you know, talk
Speaker 3: to whole company or do a key, don't speak, or
Speaker 3: they're just in politics.
Speaker 2: It's an interesting thing to ask for me because.
Speaker 3: We know multiple cultures that are listening to our to
Speaker 3: our to our show and very different you know, origins
Speaker 3: of latinos as well when it comes to leadership, being noticed,
Speaker 3: being you know, being listened to with a with a
Speaker 3: sense of respect and authority. What what advice do you
Speaker 3: give those who are embarking into like I want to
Speaker 3: unlock a different world for me, And that doesn't mean
Speaker 3: that I'm pretending to be someone else, because it's not
Speaker 3: that you're changing who you are how you're talking. You're
Speaker 3: just tapping into a different form of expression that allows
Speaker 3: you to really you know, submers yourself in a different world.
Speaker 5: I mean, you get it.
Speaker 2: That's it.
Speaker 5: That's it. There's so much of the work is like, Okay,
Speaker 5: we'll have in front of us, say a speech or
Speaker 5: a panel that we're prepping for or whatever, like, and
Speaker 5: that's the deliverable, that's the thing, And we know we're
Speaker 5: kind of doing the thing. We need the thing to
Speaker 5: be good by that date, but we also know that
Speaker 5: we're kind of using that as maybe a trojan horse
Speaker 5: to work on the other stuff, which is like, how
Speaker 5: do I show up? What is this like thing? What
Speaker 5: happen like spiritually?
Speaker 4: Right?
Speaker 5: Like, how does the spirit of me show up in
Speaker 5: these spaces, regardless of accent, regardless of my old stories
Speaker 5: of my voice is annoying or film the blank? Right,
Speaker 5: what does it take for me to like really really
Speaker 5: show up in these spaces? And for each person it's
Speaker 5: a little different obviously, right, It's like it would not
Speaker 5: work in any way to be like, here's my framework,
Speaker 5: you have to do this to do that, right, Like
Speaker 5: this this is not this is not it, although there
Speaker 5: are universal themes that do that do come up a lot,
Speaker 5: but ultimately this is about visibility. This is about what
Speaker 5: does it feel like to be seen? What does it
Speaker 5: feel like to be seen? And also claim how I
Speaker 5: mean I lovingly use the word weird, but it just
Speaker 5: how how unique we are, who we actually are, what
Speaker 5: we actually care about while being seen and continue to like,
Speaker 5: continue to see, continue to make it about who we're
Speaker 5: talking to and not about us. Right, So some of
Speaker 5: this is practice, some of it is new perspective, right,
Speaker 5: like how do I switch up my approach so that
Speaker 5: I stop being like in the moments before I go on,
Speaker 5: all I'm thinking about is I hope they don't notice
Speaker 5: that I dot that dot and into something like I
Speaker 5: can't believe I get to talk about my favorite thing.
Speaker 5: My goal is that by the end, here's the new
Speaker 5: thought that they will have, right, Like, there's just healthier mindset.
Speaker 2: What is your intentions right before you even speak?
Speaker 5: And then when we talk about accent, it's like, yeah,
Speaker 5: of course there is sounds right if you've never made
Speaker 5: a teach sound in your life, Like, this is the
Speaker 5: thing we can work on. And maybe the teach maybe
Speaker 5: getting the tongue outside of your mouth, which is what
Speaker 5: has to happen, only tiny bit, but it has to
Speaker 5: happen to make a teach happen. Maybe that will unlock
Speaker 5: a sense of confidence. But maybe that's not it, or
Speaker 5: maybe that in concert with and what's the with and
Speaker 5: it's like different for everyone, but the spirit of it is,
Speaker 5: what if I'm exactly right? What if I am the
Speaker 5: right person to be on that stage talking the way
Speaker 5: I talk with a little bit of my own personal mischief,
Speaker 5: like the twinkle in my eye because I'm up to something, right.
Speaker 4: What made you transition from dialect coaching to public speaking, Like, like,
Speaker 4: what inspired it to talk to me about the what
Speaker 4: that journey?
Speaker 5: I'll tell you. It was the twenty eighteen midterms and
Speaker 5: I was coaching gal Gado on Wonder Woman Too. I
Speaker 5: got to do the US portion in DC before they
Speaker 5: shot most of it in London, and I had downtime
Speaker 5: because there was a lot of stunt sequences and she
Speaker 5: wasn't even like like hooked up to a microphone, and
Speaker 5: so I was like in DC for a month, we
Speaker 5: had like washed, not washing what's it called Pennsylvania Avenue,
Speaker 5: like shut down for stunt sequences. And I was just wandering,
Speaker 5: being like I'm not needed, no one needs me.
Speaker 2: What am I doing?
Speaker 5: I'm I'm not great with like not feeling needed, you know.
Speaker 5: And in the midst of that, I got this call
Speaker 5: from move on dot org, which is one of these
Speaker 5: organizations that finds good candidates and then is like, we'll
Speaker 5: give you resources. Maybe that means money, but maybe that
Speaker 5: means training. And that was the year that became the
Speaker 5: Blue Wave, a huge amount of first time candidates, a
Speaker 5: huge amount of women candidates. One but we didn't know
Speaker 5: that the summer before all we knew that was that
Speaker 5: there was a lot of first time candidates, which is
Speaker 5: another word for members of the community who were like,
Speaker 5: oh god, is it me? Should it be me?
Speaker 6: Oh God?
Speaker 1: But why did you get a call if you're a
Speaker 1: dialect coach?
Speaker 5: A friend recommended me, interesting, but she'd be good for this.
Speaker 5: But an activist like I care about the world a lot,
Speaker 5: so he knew that. And but the call came out
Speaker 5: of the blue, and they literally were like, we have
Speaker 5: no money. This is not that, that's not that's all
Speaker 5: this is.
Speaker 2: That's all this is.
Speaker 5: But there's all these candidates. Could you do a zoom
Speaker 5: call here and there?
Speaker 4: And I was like, but why did they feel you
Speaker 4: were qualified to do public speaking if if all you
Speaker 4: had done before that was dialect coaching.
Speaker 1: They were right, no, no, absolutely, such a sense.
Speaker 2: To no, no, No.
Speaker 5: It is because I mean, I think it's because I
Speaker 5: was doing activism work and I had been coaching my
Speaker 5: clients who were doing public speak, and like, I think
Speaker 5: my friend, his name is Joel, My friend put it
Speaker 5: together before I did, and I told him this. He
Speaker 5: came to one on book signings and he fully cried
Speaker 5: because I was like, it's that dude.
Speaker 1: Oh so he's the one.
Speaker 5: There were a lot of touch points. There were a
Speaker 5: lot of touch points, but that that moment when I
Speaker 5: got that call from move On, how easy was that? Right?
Speaker 5: They came to me and they were And it wasn't
Speaker 5: like they were like, we're gonna throw you a bunch
Speaker 5: of first time candidates for office and then we assume
Speaker 5: that you're going to probably leave your career behind and
Speaker 5: make a big pivot and then write a best selling book.
Speaker 5: They didn't say that, right. They were just like, try
Speaker 5: this thing. It's free, maybe you can help. And I
Speaker 5: was like, sign me up. And then while I was
Speaker 5: coaching those women, I was.
Speaker 6: Like, oh, the whole history of the world of public
Speaker 6: speaking is so mean. So it's so fear based, it's
Speaker 6: so mean.
Speaker 5: You're doing this wrong. You're doing this wrong. You're doing
Speaker 5: this wrong. You're doing this wrong. You better get this right,
Speaker 5: don't fuck it up. Do this with your hands or
Speaker 5: everyone will laugh at you. Like right, like some version
Speaker 5: of that we've all gotten m And I was like,
Speaker 5: especially maybe for women, but also especially for people of color,
Speaker 5: especially for queer folks, especially for English as a second language,
Speaker 5: Like anybody who feels internally marked as different in how
Speaker 5: we sound or how we seem. Right, I said early on,
Speaker 5: like we get treated differently based on how he'd write.
Speaker 5: This is where I was like, oh, we need a
Speaker 5: different rule book for public speaking. That is like, I mean,
Speaker 5: you know, the opposite of fear, they say, is life.
Speaker 5: What is a love based approach to public speaking? How
Speaker 5: do we talk about what we care about so the
Speaker 5: care spreads? How does that change the world? How does
Speaker 5: that change whose voices get heard?
Speaker 3: From your perspective? What makes a good leader when it
Speaker 3: comes to public speaking?
Speaker 2: Like? What is that? What is that trade? What is that?
Speaker 2: I don't want to call it character trait? But wait,
Speaker 2: what is that? What is the aleming?
Speaker 3: What is the thing that makes a good leader when
Speaker 3: it comes to public speaking?
Speaker 5: I feel like we could all answer this so many
Speaker 5: different ways, sure, but what came to mind instantly when
Speaker 5: you said that is like a real commitment to showing
Speaker 5: up human.
Speaker 1: For it not to feel forced or over our over.
Speaker 5: And like the vulnerability laced with strength, right, vulnerability doesn't
Speaker 5: doesn't have to be in weak weakness, but saying when
Speaker 5: we don't know something, but saying you know, like we
Speaker 5: all know there's a way to say, I don't know.
Speaker 5: That makes us feel instantly powerless. I'm tiny. Why should
Speaker 5: I be here versus the I don't know. That's just like,
Speaker 5: that's just such a good question, let's find out, right,
Speaker 5: And this comes from like being in our spine, being
Speaker 5: in our chest and really having the compassion for ourselves
Speaker 5: and for others. That makes us be like I am
Speaker 5: going to take up the amount of space in the
Speaker 5: world that is like that is that is going to
Speaker 5: offer humanity and like, you know, humanness, I mean like
Speaker 5: our animal body, like the truth of oh my god words, right,
Speaker 5: I don't know, but like this thing that feels very human,
Speaker 5: I'm going to take up enough space that everybody else
Speaker 5: also feels like they're allowed to be human, and then
Speaker 5: we make rooms better.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 5: And I often say to my clients, like, think about
Speaker 5: the the type of leader you wish there was more
Speaker 5: of in the world, and then just show up that way,
Speaker 5: like do it today. We're not we're not gonna be perfect,
Speaker 5: but like do it today.
Speaker 3: And if you're in the business more yeah, And if
Speaker 3: you're in the business of leadership, I mean that's one
Speaker 3: thing you have to really believe to your court that
Speaker 3: you're standing on that podium for a specific purpose, and
Speaker 3: you intentionally have to move to actually get to where
Speaker 3: you're you're preaching.
Speaker 2: H you heard it. You have to you have to
Speaker 2: earn it, you know.
Speaker 3: Obviously this is there's like a Brazilian categories that we'd
Speaker 3: love to talk.
Speaker 2: To you about.
Speaker 3: I mean we this might be in this might be
Speaker 3: a two episode, you know, a two episode.
Speaker 5: This is very h yeah, vast yeah.
Speaker 3: And we didn't even open a little can of worms
Speaker 3: of like what were my biggest problems? When you can
Speaker 3: speaking about it like an American accent. I think for me,
Speaker 3: I couldn't get out of my own way. There's the
Speaker 3: mold story. Like I think that as soon as I
Speaker 3: knew that there was a word that I had a
Speaker 3: problem with, I could flow.
Speaker 2: Through the first three sentences.
Speaker 3: And as soon as that word wasn't you know team
Speaker 3: minus five seconds for me pronouncing it, I started falling apart.
Speaker 3: And I think it's because I didn't want to let
Speaker 3: people down around me as supposed to just like, let
Speaker 3: me just tell the story.
Speaker 2: Okay, I need that tool, Okay, let me do that.
Speaker 2: I'm you said here boom, you.
Speaker 3: Know, I'm a little more matter of fact now, but
Speaker 3: you know back then, you know, I was giving roles
Speaker 3: nobody's ever given me before. You know, So when you
Speaker 3: talk about leadership, when you talk about community, delegation, right
Speaker 3: doing specifically when it comes to communicating, whether it's change, inspiration,
Speaker 3: you know, unity, all these things. You know, you have
Speaker 3: to kind of find that those tools that allowed you
Speaker 3: to unlock these destinations.
Speaker 2: Do you have any other thoughts or questions?
Speaker 4: I just think it's great that you pointed out that
Speaker 4: there was a particular friend who saw something in you,
Speaker 4: uh that that other people also started to see, and
Speaker 4: how that eventually led you to where you're at now.
Speaker 4: You know, sometimes life just kind of takes you in
Speaker 4: different directions, right and.
Speaker 1: Like here you are and that you're you're an author
Speaker 1: now and you're you're.
Speaker 4: Doing something completely different than what you initially intended to do.
Speaker 1: And I think that's great.
Speaker 4: You know, sometimes we all have these talents that it
Speaker 4: takes other people to see within us.
Speaker 1: But I think it's wonderful.
Speaker 2: With what you do.
Speaker 4: I've worked with dialect coaches in the past and it's
Speaker 4: helped me so immensely, and I can just imagine how
Speaker 4: what a profound impact you've had on other people, especially
Speaker 4: like Wilmer, right, which is one of the reasons why
Speaker 4: you're here now.
Speaker 2: So thank yeah.
Speaker 3: And also a big, big shout out to your book
Speaker 3: Permission to Speak.
Speaker 1: Permission to Speak, you do it by now.
Speaker 5: So did I do the audio?
Speaker 2: I'm I'm very, very.
Speaker 5: Proud of my audio books. Yeah, and I've I've been
Speaker 5: told here's my favorite compliment I've ever received. This is
Speaker 5: not true, but it feels like it. I have been
Speaker 5: told that I've ruined all other audios.
Speaker 1: You ruined because yours is so good?
Speaker 2: Is that why?
Speaker 5: Implication?
Speaker 1: Because you're like, you.
Speaker 5: Know, look, some nonfiction that gets read by the not
Speaker 5: author but bless you know, has this kind of detached vibe.
Speaker 5: I'm going to try to sound serious by saying these
Speaker 5: sentences in this certain way. And I was like, I'm
Speaker 5: going to, you know, I mean, perform, right, but not
Speaker 5: perform like fake you fake perform like make come alive.
Speaker 5: We have this the word in in the you know,
Speaker 5: acting world of lifting, right, We're lifting the words from
Speaker 5: the page. It's like we're lifting these ideas.
Speaker 1: And so you were a tad more animated than I mean,
Speaker 1: probably the average.
Speaker 5: Listen y'all listen and report back. I don't.
Speaker 2: That book anyway.
Speaker 3: You get your books or audio books, and thank you
Speaker 3: so much and thank you so much for being part
Speaker 3: of my journey and uh and being so instrumental to
Speaker 3: how I'm speaking on a podcast.
Speaker 1: Now she's going to give you notes once we're done
Speaker 1: with this.
Speaker 2: Wilmer, You're welcome.
Speaker 5: It's a podcast part well that would be a bit
Speaker 5: more English, Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yes, yes it would.
Speaker 1: This is Freddie Rodriguez and.
Speaker 2: I'm Wilmer about the rama.
Speaker 3: Thank you for watching this, uh, two part episode in Venezuela.
Speaker 2: Chauma Samara, Yes.
Speaker 5: Okay, I'm seeing.
Speaker 4: Is a production from the V Sound and iHeartMedia's Michael
Speaker 4: through That podcast Network, hosted by Me, Freddie Rodriguez, and
Speaker 4: Wilmer Valdorama.
Speaker 3: Those Amigos is produced by Aaron Burleson and Sophie Spencer zabos.
Speaker 4: Our executive producers are Wilmri Valdorama, Freddie Rodriguez, Aaron Burlson,
Speaker 4: and Leo Klem at WV Sound.
Speaker 3: This episode was shot and edited it by Ryan Posts
Speaker 3: and mixed by Sean Tracy, and features original music by
Speaker 3: Madison Devenport and Helo boy.
Speaker 4: Our cover art photography is by David Avalos and designed
Speaker 4: by Deny Holtz.
Speaker 3: Claw And thank you for being at Third Amigo today.
Speaker 3: I appreciate you guys always listening to those amigos.
Speaker 4: More podcasts from My Heart, visit the R Heart Radio app,
Speaker 4: Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Speaker 2: See you next week.