Speaker 1: Hey, everybody. This is Freddie Rodriguez.
Speaker 2: And I'm Wilmer Valderrama. Welcome to the DOOS podcast. I'm
Speaker 2: Michael Tuda Podcast Network. I heeart our partners and fearless
Speaker 2: leaders and disruption of podcasting.
Speaker 3: But we're nearing, We're near Indiana.
Speaker 1: We're here in the end.
Speaker 4: That's right, that's right. We've had a plethora of wonderful guests. Yes,
Speaker 4: and today our guest is someone very personal to you, right.
Speaker 2: Yes, very very personal. And this is a very vulnerable,
Speaker 2: very vulnerable place for me. Yes, because we know how
Speaker 2: that turned out, by the way I sound explained, by.
Speaker 3: The way it is. But Samara Bay, you know, you.
Speaker 2: See, you know we always explain this to our guests
Speaker 2: when they're here, and that our guests are quite intentional.
Speaker 3: Right, Like we're we don't, we don't.
Speaker 2: This is not one of those shows we're like, oh,
Speaker 2: you know this book so and so, like we have
Speaker 2: to have some type of connection tool or guess whether
Speaker 2: it's in mutual respect or whether it's like a specific
Speaker 2: subject or that so and in this specific subject.
Speaker 3: You were many hats. Best author is one, Yes, and
Speaker 3: you have a book. What is the name of your book?
Speaker 5: I have a book called Permission to Speak.
Speaker 2: That's right, And I asked that many times in time
Speaker 2: you were you likesion, But tell everyone who's listening a
Speaker 2: little bit of uh, you know what your career is,
Speaker 2: what you've done, and I know you're onto other things too,
Speaker 2: and we love to hear that as well.
Speaker 5: Yeah, okay, So two main things. One is how we
Speaker 5: know each other and the other is how it has
Speaker 5: evolved very organically in the many many years since we
Speaker 5: work together. But basically, in a nutshell, I have a
Speaker 5: background as a dialect coach and that is.
Speaker 1: A rare, weird, niche job in.
Speaker 5: Hollywood that no one even thinks about it until they're like, wow,
Speaker 5: that actor sounded really amazing and not like themselves at all,
Speaker 5: and that one didn't.
Speaker 4: I'm sorry, how do you how do you wake up
Speaker 4: one day and say I want to become a dialect coach?
Speaker 4: Because you're right, it is a very niche It is
Speaker 4: a very unique occupation.
Speaker 1: What made you become a dialect coach?
Speaker 5: I'll tell you. I think the absolute heart of it
Speaker 5: is loving actors, like really having like a deep loving
Speaker 5: respect for what the process is of taking words written
Speaker 5: by it usually not you and putting them into your
Speaker 5: mouth and making them a whole ass human. And if
Speaker 5: there's an accent on top of that, because either English
Speaker 5: is your second language and the producers, directors, whatever want
Speaker 5: a different sound coming out of you, or you're playing
Speaker 5: a very specific role that requires like oh, I'm from
Speaker 5: Boston and I'm playing somebody from West Texas, then there
Speaker 5: is a respect also for like, well, what's that culture's
Speaker 5: what are we doing with this? How story are we talent?
Speaker 2: And it's quite and it's quite a collaboration, but really
Speaker 2: a partnership. You know, you you both have to go
Speaker 2: on this journey to discovery what does this guy sound like?
Speaker 2: Like I've had not like coach in Spanish because I
Speaker 2: was like, okay, where in Mexico is my character is
Speaker 2: supposed to be from? What is the Spanish? Because it
Speaker 2: can't just be like any generic Mexican accent. There's like
Speaker 2: there's like twelve different Mexican accents, right, you know. So
Speaker 2: I think that's one of the things, like I think
Speaker 2: it's really important is when you partner I was home
Speaker 2: like Samara, It's like you really are like, Okay, we're
Speaker 2: going to have to figure this guy out.
Speaker 5: And often when I'm pulling like audio tracks from the internet,
Speaker 5: from YouTube to be like, is this what we're going for.
Speaker 5: It's not just like the sounds like vowel sound, consonant sound.
Speaker 5: It's like the it's like the vibe of the person.
Speaker 5: Does this match the vibe of the character you're playing?
Speaker 5: Is this going to help us tell that story of
Speaker 5: this person in this you know, maybe in this emotional
Speaker 5: state or maybe in this like aspirational moment of their
Speaker 5: life where they're getting out from where they were, you know,
Speaker 5: like these are the stories that we tell with our voice.
Speaker 3: So you're talking about your love with actors. Where did
Speaker 3: that start?
Speaker 6: Oh?
Speaker 5: You guys. I was just home this weekend in northern
Speaker 5: California and I went to this Shakespeare festival that is
Speaker 5: some version of the one eighties Santa Cruz. Santa Cruz,
Speaker 5: there's a University of California campus there. My dad started
Speaker 5: as a professor there in the seventies teaching astrophysics, and
Speaker 5: so I grew up there and was brought along with
Speaker 5: them to this Shakespeare stuff.
Speaker 4: When I was like ten, well, your dad used to
Speaker 4: you bring it to this?
Speaker 7: Yeah?
Speaker 5: My parents were like, I think we have a precocious
Speaker 5: kid on our hands.
Speaker 6: Let's see if she can handle this.
Speaker 5: And then it was like these beautiful, very modern imagine
Speaker 5: like you know, like bos Lhrman, Romano, Juliet type of Shakespeare.
Speaker 5: It just made me feel like, Okay, A, I feel
Speaker 5: very alive. Whatever's happening. B. I'm looking around everyone else
Speaker 5: does C. We're like breathing together. D. I don't know.
Speaker 5: Whatever's happening on the stage feels like it's like something
Speaker 5: about the human condition. Right. All that was happening. And
Speaker 5: obviously when I was ten, I wasn't like a bathet,
Speaker 5: but I was It's like this, whatever this is, this
Speaker 5: is what I want to do, and it's I mean,
Speaker 5: it's cracked me up over the you know, intributing at
Speaker 5: thirty whatever years to be like, oh I my definition
Speaker 5: of this has changed a lot. The other half of
Speaker 5: what you were getting at is dialect coach, dialect coach.
Speaker 5: And then this sort of pivot happened when I got
Speaker 5: brought into coach women who are running for office in
Speaker 5: the twenty eighteen midterms just totally pro bonoun right, and
Speaker 5: it made me realize that so many other times I
Speaker 5: hadn't really totally put it together. But like my actors
Speaker 5: would ask me to help them with like a speech
Speaker 5: at the United Nations or a speech for an awards
Speaker 5: ceremony or something where they're playing the character of themselves.
Speaker 1: But that's different than dialect.
Speaker 5: This is different, but it would bring up the ways
Speaker 5: in which, like dialect work was always and I don't know,
Speaker 5: like you know, you get to tell me from the inside,
Speaker 5: But for me, as as I worked with all these
Speaker 5: different clients, was always about half like sounds and let's
Speaker 5: get this right and let's get it in your body
Speaker 5: and whatever, and half let's create an environment where you
Speaker 5: can like play and get and be bad at something
Speaker 5: before you're good, which I think is like not enough
Speaker 5: of us have that safe space in our lives ever,
Speaker 5: And like what is it to breathe as someone else?
Speaker 5: Or what is it to breathe while doing something new
Speaker 5: that is making us get all activated? But like stay
Speaker 5: in it anyway, And that's public speaking as much as
Speaker 5: it's dialectoral.
Speaker 2: You know, it's I love you trigger something that I've
Speaker 2: done a bunch of keynote stuff. And what's really helped
Speaker 2: me is comedy.
Speaker 3: Because being funny in it and not just being funny.
Speaker 2: And it's like when you do comedy, you understand the setup,
Speaker 2: you understand the build.
Speaker 3: Up, you understand the punchline, the execution.
Speaker 2: But in real life that's not how you tell stories.
Speaker 2: You don't tell stories to the massage. You to a
Speaker 2: story to your friends. So you're not really thinking about
Speaker 2: which is the operative word, which is the you know
Speaker 2: that's what.
Speaker 5: So love you just an operative word.
Speaker 1: You're using correct terminology and uh, you.
Speaker 3: Know, well I was coached by.
Speaker 5: That was trademarks.
Speaker 2: It's resonated, something stuck around. But but I think it's
Speaker 2: a very very fascinating thing when you think about, Okay,
Speaker 2: an actor has to speak of the U N. He
Speaker 2: has to do a couple of things, and that sound
Speaker 2: like an actor who's just faking it, right, But most importantly,
Speaker 2: if you you know, if you're the United Nations, you
Speaker 2: have a certain passion for what you're about to speak about,
Speaker 2: and the right pronunciations of the technical terms and most
Speaker 2: importantly the operator words is probably going to be really
Speaker 2: important when you say that, Like in storytelling, the level
Speaker 2: of urgency, the level of I don't want to say theatrical,
Speaker 2: because nothing about that speech is fake. But but there
Speaker 2: is there is a performance in order for it to
Speaker 2: transcend beyond the ping of that.
Speaker 5: I made up this term in my book because I
Speaker 5: just didn't it didn't exist for what you're talking talking
Speaker 5: about called carrying out loud. And the idea is not
Speaker 5: just that we care about shit. We do often when
Speaker 5: we're speaking on a stage or in any kind of
Speaker 5: a metaphorical stage. This it's because we care, but many
Speaker 5: of us, all of us, are socialized to hide when
Speaker 5: we care because it's terrifying to me, Like I care
Speaker 5: about this, right, this is the vulnerability that actors are
Speaker 5: like used to doing.
Speaker 4: Yep.
Speaker 5: But so the idea with carrying out loud is just
Speaker 5: to offer like some language for what this process is
Speaker 5: that any of us can engage in where we're like, Okay,
Speaker 5: I care about this thing. I'm not gonna have to
Speaker 5: talk about it like I care about it?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 5: How do I do that without like either pushing too
Speaker 5: hard overcarrying acting like we care and then it feels theatrical.
Speaker 2: Over carrying over carrying. Yes, So there's two things. Right,
Speaker 2: you're very passionate about the subject. When you're too overly
Speaker 2: passion you lose people because people are like you're preaching
Speaker 2: to me.
Speaker 5: Now, Yes, I like to think of it as a spectrum.
Speaker 5: So on the one hand, over here, you're like, I
Speaker 5: care about this a lot. We lovingly call this pushings
Speaker 5: poa I mean metaphor. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I care about it.
Speaker 5: But you know, we can tell when someone's pushing and
Speaker 5: it's it's not that they don't even it's not it's
Speaker 5: not that they don't care. Maybe it's that we can't
Speaker 5: read anymore because there's so much messy going on in
Speaker 5: front of them. And then on the other end of
Speaker 5: the spectrum is I care a lot, but I'm going
Speaker 5: to pretend like I don't because and often this is
Speaker 5: like going into our throat and just being like, yeah,
Speaker 5: I mean it's cool whatever, like this is kind of
Speaker 5: my my life's work. But like if you don't like it,
Speaker 5: it's fine, right.
Speaker 4: So it's like it's like overacting in a scene almost right,
Speaker 4: put it out there.
Speaker 3: If you're in, you're in. If you're not, it's cool.
Speaker 5: I mean, it's such an obvious like defense mechanism. It's
Speaker 5: so it's so like survival based. It's in a way,
Speaker 5: I just want to like love on anybody listening who's like, oh,
Speaker 5: should I do that?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 5: Of course we do that. It's an incredibly valuable learned
Speaker 5: skill to be like I care, but like not really
Speaker 5: if that's inconvenient for anybody here. But if there's a
Speaker 5: spectrum and over here is over and overhears under, then
Speaker 5: what is the sweet spot in the middle. If we're
Speaker 5: getting up on a stage and we're time, what matters
Speaker 5: to us? How do we access consistently so we can
Speaker 5: trust ourselves that level of care so that that that
Speaker 5: word passion you used right comes out and it isn't
Speaker 5: like this thing that pushes people away because it's too much,
Speaker 5: or this thing that makes people not totally seem interesting.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so you're almost like a good director is what
Speaker 4: I'm what I'm going massaging the Yeah.
Speaker 5: That's a lot of it because I'm now I'm almost
Speaker 5: entirely now doing public speaking coaching, and often it's for
Speaker 5: business leaders. It's right, it's not Hollywood anymore. And you know,
Speaker 5: it's a huge mm applies because.
Speaker 3: It's just you or like, wow, these are the crazy question.
Speaker 2: Yeah, when you get to that level of coaching, Yeah,
Speaker 2: to coach individuals that are at that sea level, do
Speaker 2: you feel two questions one is are they more introverted
Speaker 2: and they're not good with their words because they're just
Speaker 2: geniuses what they have in front, so they can operate,
Speaker 2: but they just don't publicly speak, or they're just credible
Speaker 2: communicators that they're just like they know how to delegate
Speaker 2: in an interesting way because they're that leadership, or like,
Speaker 2: you know, you don't what I'm trying to ask. If
Speaker 2: there's two there's two different powers and there are two
Speaker 2: different people you're gonna get at that.
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, I think it's I Yes, I think those
Speaker 5: are the two categories too. For me, it's like either
Speaker 5: folks who were thrust into the CEO role and the
Speaker 5: public side of it, or even just the like all
Speaker 5: hands like meetings with their.
Speaker 3: Or like they are gray CEO but they never thought
Speaker 3: there was.
Speaker 5: Hot and they and they self identify as an introvert,
Speaker 5: or they self identify as I hate public speaking, which
Speaker 5: of course does like so much allbody. I hate speaking
Speaker 5: is a job and then and then it's a story
Speaker 5: we tell ourselves, and then we look for evidence and
Speaker 5: right like this is a brain's word beautiful, but you
Speaker 5: need somebody to like disrupt that, or yeah, they just
Speaker 5: want to be like absolutely, like Olympic level pig performance
Speaker 5: and I love that too, right where they're like there's
Speaker 5: more to learn, or I'm continuing to challenge myself and
Speaker 5: speak on bigger stage. Maybe like I'm used to speaking
Speaker 5: at the conferences for my industry, but now I want
Speaker 5: to speak to the press. Now, I want to speak
Speaker 5: to the public. Now I want to be a thought
Speaker 5: leader and like really claim my thought leadership and that
Speaker 5: kind of up level.
Speaker 6: You know.
Speaker 5: Again, it's story, like the stories we tell ourselves and
Speaker 5: how we can change them.
Speaker 2: To make They're just fascinating when you see like attorneys
Speaker 2: or you know, the head of the sheriff's department or
Speaker 2: whatever and they have to you know, talk a by
Speaker 2: the gravity of a situation at a press how do
Speaker 2: you convey to the public, you know, public urgency or
Speaker 2: emergency or just a regular update on an ongoing case.
Speaker 3: Like what are your thoughts? You're saying you have so
Speaker 3: many thoughts.
Speaker 5: My main thought is it's not what anybody prioritizes when
Speaker 5: they're when they're becoming that position. And then you see
Speaker 5: in those moments of public crisis where the audience is
Speaker 5: just like watching I'm thinking, for example, of the fires
Speaker 5: here in La right when the audience is like watching
Speaker 5: being like I need some thing, like I need to
Speaker 5: be cared.
Speaker 4: For like.
Speaker 7: Microphone than you, you know, but like either one, it's
Speaker 7: either I want to flight attendant who makes me feel
Speaker 7: really comfortable or I want just like no bullshit, like
Speaker 7: just literally.
Speaker 4: And everyone's relying on this cop or this whatever to
Speaker 4: like comfort them right, to like convey that emotion this right,
Speaker 4: and so like all of a sudden, they're thrust it
Speaker 4: in that position, is what you're saying.
Speaker 5: And do you think in their throat at those moments
Speaker 5: and they're like, I mean blast but if and they're like,
Speaker 5: we're all on the case and we really got your back.
Speaker 5: We're all in the audience being like there's I don't
Speaker 5: I can't name it, but that's not enough.
Speaker 2: Right, bringing us back a little bit to the beginning,
Speaker 2: and so of at all, I want to just drop
Speaker 2: a few names that you've worked with, because I saw
Speaker 2: this list here and I saw my name there, and
Speaker 2: I'm just gonna go impressive, Yeah, Galgadot, right, Pierce Prossman,
Speaker 2: an Olympic Cruz, Ricky Martin, Terry Crews, Terry Crews.
Speaker 5: I thought he was just on here.
Speaker 2: He has so many questions. Rachel mccadams, Wilmer Valdorama, that.
Speaker 1: Guy, that guy.
Speaker 2: Guy o'donno and Angelica Houston Wilmer abod Orama.
Speaker 3: Was that like the low in your career you did
Speaker 3: not get that.
Speaker 1: Have you listened to that guy lately?
Speaker 3: Not the guy? Yeah, that's the one that got away.
Speaker 5: I mean the production Like what if that had gone
Speaker 5: we would have like been together for years.
Speaker 1: I don't know if he sounds like he went through
Speaker 1: a dialing coach.
Speaker 2: At some point in the game, was like, look, you
Speaker 2: either either you want wilmermo Dorama or you want you
Speaker 2: don't want Wilmerdama, you know, and then eventually it worked.
Speaker 3: But I have so many questions. So you were saying
Speaker 3: two thousand in seventeen, is that no? No, I'm like that.
Speaker 3: You guys are.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so really really far away in the landland far away.
Speaker 2: Yeahre Hollywood was a little different, right, So if you
Speaker 2: were of any dissent somehow, if you're on network TV,
Speaker 2: you need to sound American because people thought if you
Speaker 2: had an accent on primetime television, no one was going
Speaker 2: to understand.
Speaker 5: You, right, I mean, I joke although obviously it is haha,
Speaker 5: not funny that half of my work was actually just
Speaker 5: soothing the nervous system of producers like they were just like,
Speaker 5: oh no, Middle America will be turned off by X
Speaker 5: y Z. And I'll be like, we got you.
Speaker 3: And I wanted what was the you want to share?
Speaker 3: What project was that we did?
Speaker 5: Well, it was a pilot that never went so no
Speaker 5: one will ever know. But here's this is the specific
Speaker 5: part about what's the pilot.
Speaker 3: I would know about the pilot. Ye, I mean it's
Speaker 3: so annoying because no annoying. They didn't get picked up
Speaker 3: because it was it was lovely.
Speaker 5: But I will say here was the challenge on that one.
Speaker 5: Tell me if this is your memory, you were it
Speaker 5: was a family drama to families.
Speaker 2: Military is a military show called four Stars, and he
Speaker 2: was about two four star general families, right, So it's
Speaker 2: like a four star general and a four star general.
Speaker 2: They you know, they they went to war together and
Speaker 2: all that stuff whatever, and now their families are in
Speaker 2: the family and business there in the military. And one
Speaker 2: is a reporter you know, and in Washington and all
Speaker 2: that stuff, and the other one is a young colonel
Speaker 2: played by the always Greade will and uh and you
Speaker 2: have Stephen Bauer played my dad and Bruce Greenwood played
Speaker 2: I mean, it was like the cast was just phenomenal
Speaker 2: and it's a beautiful I just saw the pilot again.
Speaker 3: Because I was thinking of that idea. It was so good.
Speaker 5: And we filmed in deep in like Seami Valley for Iraq,
Speaker 5: which was fascinating.
Speaker 3: Which was amazing. That scene was crazy.
Speaker 2: So it was so the It was a beautiful family
Speaker 2: drama that also had international turmoil type of.
Speaker 3: You know, a compliment to the story.
Speaker 2: You know, there was also there was also like an
Speaker 2: action you know aspect to it, but it was also
Speaker 2: about the core of the families and all that and
Speaker 2: it fell into the whole. Around this time, CBS would
Speaker 2: on cancer shows. There was no slots, so it was like,
Speaker 2: no matter how great your pilots were, if things were performing,
Speaker 2: you might not only get one slot a year, two
Speaker 2: slots a year to put in something new. They still
Speaker 2: were making pilots though, so but I was supposed to
Speaker 2: be someone who had just kind of you know, grown
Speaker 2: up service, you know, whether universe.
Speaker 5: It was cast with a brother and maybe a sister
Speaker 5: and a mom and a dad who all had American accents.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Right, so then.
Speaker 5: So the question is, would be the story of this
Speaker 5: guy who just has this little bit of a leftover
Speaker 5: right venezuelan sound like, no problem except if it confuses
Speaker 5: the audience, which in this case it might actually have.
Speaker 3: And so hard he cooked it up. He's like, you
Speaker 3: know what did you know this? Like at some point
Speaker 3: did you want to write write in the line?
Speaker 2: He just decided, you know what, I'm gonna have a
Speaker 2: little bit of a slight accent.
Speaker 1: Oh he did that for you?
Speaker 3: Oh wow, Yeah, because because.
Speaker 2: The truth is like the performance, like they'd be like,
Speaker 2: the performance is great, but that one word, so I
Speaker 2: would end up doing like you can.
Speaker 5: Talk about the process of a guy like coach on
Speaker 5: set is like like creating, how do I have no
Speaker 5: idea how to put this? Creating a this like a
Speaker 5: protective this for my actor where I am completely honest
Speaker 5: with them, but I'm also not prioritizing a tiny bit
Speaker 5: of sound over the like emotional truth of the scene.
Speaker 5: Like we're on the same team. But if they're hearing
Speaker 5: sounds and they're telling me to go in and give
Speaker 5: him this note, he knows and I know that we're
Speaker 5: playing this game and it's a dance.
Speaker 4: But you were involved, and even though she was involved,
Speaker 4: Steven still felt like he had.
Speaker 2: The Well, I just I was ruggling with very specific words,
Speaker 2: a lot of military formal stuff that I just have
Speaker 2: never said out there.
Speaker 5: And literally they wanted to miss sound American overnight and
Speaker 5: like you sound you know you are the most American's
Speaker 5: very excited, but like you know what I'm saying. My
Speaker 5: agent would call this a dialect emergency and it always
Speaker 5: cracked me up.
Speaker 6: But the idea of a dialect.
Speaker 5: Emergency is like the night before, the producers are like
Speaker 5: Ohan over there.
Speaker 3: Wa, but heres what was really interesting?
Speaker 2: So kind of going back and I want to explain
Speaker 2: to audiences a little bit more of how this works,
Speaker 2: right because I think everyone's like, wait, somebody teaches you
Speaker 2: how to talk like an American accing like you know,
Speaker 2: so I just want to, you know, so specifically, what
Speaker 2: happens is when they're they're actors that are not either
Speaker 2: born and raised here or they have a crazy New
Speaker 2: York accent, but they need to sound like they're from
Speaker 2: La or you know, or they have a Puerto Rican accent,
Speaker 2: but they got to sound Mexican can like, there are
Speaker 2: certain tools that you have to kind of acquired, but
Speaker 2: beyond those tools, you have to have some kind of
Speaker 2: coaching because if you've never been exposed to that type
Speaker 2: of communication, I mean that that type of uh you
Speaker 2: know of dialect, then you know it's going to take
Speaker 2: a second.
Speaker 3: It's going to take a lot of repetition, it's going
Speaker 3: to talk a lot of rehearsal.
Speaker 2: But sometimes they don't realize this thing until like you're
Speaker 2: in rehearsals and you're shooting next week.
Speaker 3: And they're like, would you be open? This is how
Speaker 3: they come to you. Would you be open like maybe
Speaker 3: having someone bring.
Speaker 2: And they ask your agent because they don't ask the
Speaker 2: producers never want to be the bad guys. They ask
Speaker 2: your agents and they'll call your agent and they're like, hey,
Speaker 2: so has a little bit of an accent. Is it
Speaker 2: is it? Does he can he lose his accent and
Speaker 2: make it more American? And my agent calls me and
Speaker 2: says like, hey, they really want.
Speaker 3: You to lose your action a right? Cool?
Speaker 2: And for a lot of times what happens is I
Speaker 2: can do it to the script, but the moment mean
Speaker 2: that I'm flowing and I have to add live something.
Speaker 3: That's why I start drawing outside the lions.
Speaker 2: That's what my accident, absolutely, because you've worked on those specifics,
Speaker 2: so those things that you know, and then all of
Speaker 2: a sudden, I'm feeling and I'm vibing and I'm flowing,
Speaker 2: and all of a sudden, I'm making something a little
Speaker 2: saucy aired And.
Speaker 5: Then we start with your the magical moments that we
Speaker 5: in the audience want to see. So now we're cross
Speaker 5: purposes because because he's like, shit, don't do those. Oh wait,
Speaker 5: but no, do those.
Speaker 2: And that's one of the reasons why I said this
Speaker 2: is such a it's very fun for me. This is
Speaker 2: also one of these very vulnerable moments for actors where
Speaker 2: they have to kind of take the ego aside.
Speaker 3: And this is not like it has nothing to do
Speaker 3: with you.
Speaker 2: It has everything to do with the vision and the
Speaker 2: structure of what a filmmaker or a writer or a
Speaker 2: producer wants for their project, right, right, And they know
Speaker 2: you're the guy for the job, right, they know you're
Speaker 2: the guy for the role.
Speaker 5: By the way you got the job.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and by the way, like they there were you know,
Speaker 2: they were very excited, and I think you know, and
Speaker 2: CBS excited to work with me, and it's the first
Speaker 2: time I worked with CBS, and you know.
Speaker 3: So we're like, let's go, you know.
Speaker 2: And they wanted this family to be to have a
Speaker 2: Latin descent, you know, they wanted to but you know,
Speaker 2: they wanted to be American Latinos, which means like they
Speaker 2: don't have an accent, you know.
Speaker 3: That'd being said. We started thinking like what if it
Speaker 3: was I know, he.
Speaker 2: Was on a base you know, in South America for
Speaker 2: like the first his infant years. We started like, you're
Speaker 2: coming up with all these storylines in the background that
Speaker 2: that gave him kind of the ability to say, hey,
Speaker 2: you know, he has an accent because he was kind
Speaker 2: of raised on the base with locals from a different
Speaker 2: Latin writing country or something.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 2: But the point I'm making is that eventually they'll make
Speaker 2: a phone call and they say like, hey, would you
Speaker 2: be open and working with the coach, And the answer
Speaker 2: is always yes, right, because let's let's go, let's do it.
Speaker 3: And that's how we met, and we had a you
Speaker 3: know a lot of these great.
Speaker 2: Conversations, Like I it was funny, it is like my
Speaker 2: vocaulary for English is really good, but my my pronunciations.
Speaker 3: Just like that, like who I am? You know, it's
Speaker 3: just like what you.
Speaker 2: Know how it sounds like now I now I have
Speaker 2: any easier time because I've been working for a lot
Speaker 2: longer and like you know, I've been speaking English for
Speaker 2: a lot longer, you know. But at those times when
Speaker 2: I when I had to do something that was not
Speaker 2: necessarily calling for someone like me, someone to be something
Speaker 2: like you know, like a military guy or something, we
Speaker 2: would have to do the coaching and then we started
Speaker 2: the exercise. But like, but you can talk a little
Speaker 2: bit more about the process. So then you arrive on
Speaker 2: stead and here's the actor.
Speaker 3: Were you, Here's here's your here's your actor, and okay,
Speaker 3: let us know when it when it's fixed.
Speaker 4: Were you part of Like were you like on CBS's
Speaker 4: list of dialog Like how did you.
Speaker 1: To you tell me?
Speaker 5: We never know? I mean I had an agent and
Speaker 5: and I had a reputation frankly right, like it's often
Speaker 5: word of mouth, and I know I was I think
Speaker 5: still am. It's just I'm saying it in past tense
Speaker 5: because I'm not doing this work as much anymore. But
Speaker 5: like I think I was on the top of the
Speaker 5: list for CIA, the big agency. You know, it's like
Speaker 5: it's like they would just be like, go to her,
Speaker 5: she you know literally with I think that they think
Speaker 5: is she doesn't fuck up her actors, because so much
Speaker 5: of the work is not just the vowels and consonants.
Speaker 5: It's making sure that you don't lose your your confidence
Speaker 5: and your sense of play.
Speaker 3: And compliment to you.
Speaker 2: Like a lot of acting coaches that are brought as
Speaker 2: an emergency to said because someone is having a tough
Speaker 2: time getting there.
Speaker 3: You know, also is a really that you.
Speaker 2: Kind of share a very similar kind of structure. You know,
Speaker 2: you kind of have to really. I always this is analogya.
Speaker 2: I've used it a few times, probably on the show too,
Speaker 2: but in life in general, it's it's like a picture
Speaker 2: and a catcher.
Speaker 3: The catcher is a psychologist. He's a therapist to the picture.
Speaker 2: He's got to come in massage the pitches out of
Speaker 2: your picture. Because in baseball, if that picture is the
Speaker 2: stress or he gets in his head, can get out
Speaker 2: of it.
Speaker 3: There goes the game. Right, He's like he's gonna blow
Speaker 3: it at the mount right.
Speaker 2: So the catcher comes up with a smile when he's like, hey, good, good, good,
Speaker 2: that's really good. Good speed on that ninth curve on that. Now,
Speaker 2: let's give me a straight because in this one we're
Speaker 2: gonna do blah blahah you know, or like, hey, you're
Speaker 2: coming in a little low on this, don't be afraid
Speaker 2: to go through it a little harder.
Speaker 3: Let's go, baby, let's go.
Speaker 2: We got this right, So that gets the picture. Okay, cool,
Speaker 2: it's me and him playing catch.
Speaker 3: Right, right, but catch. But pictures are like actors.
Speaker 2: There is I don't the word is not delicate, but
Speaker 2: there is sensive. There is a sensitivity to the to
Speaker 2: the finesse.
Speaker 3: Yeah you know.
Speaker 2: And that's why when we had our episode about directors, yeah,
Speaker 2: uh huh, the sensitivity of how you address your actors. Yeah,
Speaker 2: it's very very important.
Speaker 3: Yeah you know. But the point is you have to
Speaker 3: have like the picture catcher mentality.
Speaker 5: But often it happens in these tiny, little like ninja
Speaker 5: moments where you know, in between takes, like cut, we're
Speaker 5: going again, hair and makeup, come in and do like
Speaker 5: a little whatever, dab dab, and I whisper in your
Speaker 5: ear and then we all go together. If I'm whisper,
Speaker 5: if I wisp like a good whisper. Maybe is like
Speaker 5: it's the just that you know, you know, you're you're
Speaker 5: almost there, You've.
Speaker 1: Got this, You've got this.
Speaker 5: A bad one is why do you keep messing that up?
Speaker 5: Or like eighty billion other right, we could go with
Speaker 5: eighty billion other game?
Speaker 3: You were you've nailed it ten times. I don't know
Speaker 3: what's happening?
Speaker 5: Yeah, what the fuck are you doing?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 5: And literally like I I often you know, have like
Speaker 5: have like the number one on the call sheet, like
Speaker 5: in a way I hold there. I have so much power, right,
Speaker 5: like it's important not to use that. It's really really
Speaker 5: what that moment is.
Speaker 2: That we're trying to She's like a yeah, so the
Speaker 2: director comes to give you a thought and then oh
Speaker 2: yeah she has a mad thing to do. So like
Speaker 2: you have two Now you have two people and sometimes
Speaker 2: a writer coming at you.
Speaker 3: So now you have your dialary coach, Now you have your.
Speaker 2: Director, and now you have the writer that just wants
Speaker 2: to tell you why it's important to leave it as written.
Speaker 5: And the director just gave a note of like try
Speaker 5: a different ways. So now you're really you know, processing,
Speaker 5: and then I'm there. Often what happens actually for a
Speaker 5: good dialect coach who like reads the room. Is that
Speaker 5: I'm holding back, right, You got to let obviously, you
Speaker 5: got to let them give their note first, and then
Speaker 5: I decide a if my note is worth going in
Speaker 5: after that be if my note is going to help
Speaker 5: what the director just said or heard it?
Speaker 1: So are you are you listening to what the director?
Speaker 5: If I can? Right, Yeah, it matters right because I
Speaker 5: am there for them, like I really am. Not as
Speaker 5: much as my job is to protect the sound, get
Speaker 5: those zunes right, My real job is tell a good story.
Speaker 5: My real job is like make the director's vision. Make
Speaker 5: your heartbeat to the speed of the audience, you know,
Speaker 5: like we're here to make arts.
Speaker 2: I'll tell you something some an actor probably has never
Speaker 2: told you, but maybe it has, and you tell me
Speaker 2: if it did. There's a time where your nerves get
Speaker 2: so you're I've been doing this for twenty years quite
Speaker 2: by the time that you know, then I've done it
Speaker 2: for almost seventeen years or something in my career.
Speaker 3: Right, So I trust my instinct as an actor.
Speaker 2: I know that I'm about to kill it like I
Speaker 2: come in as a killer. I'm coming in on the
Speaker 2: set and I'm prepared and I'm ready, let's go, you know,
Speaker 2: and then you have this other layer. She's like, Okay,
Speaker 2: I got what I need to do for the character.
Speaker 2: I know who the character is. Now he has to
Speaker 2: sound this way, which is not who I sound like, right,
Speaker 2: And so you end up doing a take and immediately
Speaker 2: you look over to video village and the actor stuging
Speaker 2: to producer is fine. The actor is talking to SCRIPTI
Speaker 2: that's fine because I know I know those two things.
Speaker 2: But the moment the actor the director talks to the
Speaker 2: dally coach, he.
Speaker 1: Has a problem.
Speaker 3: I know.
Speaker 2: That's when I know, here comes the fucking note. And
Speaker 2: I'm sititting there like I see the lean over or whatever.
Speaker 2: And sometimes what happens is the directors like did they
Speaker 2: nail it or not know it because he's not looking.
Speaker 2: He's not here in the accent right. And by the way,
Speaker 2: sometimes the directors don't even hear it.
Speaker 5: Or sometimes what we're actually working on is like a
Speaker 5: really specific like I said West Texas earlier. You know,
Speaker 5: it's like the director doesn't know I'm the keeper.
Speaker 3: Of the sound, yes exactly.
Speaker 5: And the actor and I are like in our own
Speaker 5: little dance because we're the ones who've been listening NonStop
Speaker 5: to clip that tells us how these people sound, you
Speaker 5: know whatever, and the director, Yeah, it is just looking.
Speaker 4: Do you ever just let do you ever just go
Speaker 4: Well that wasn't one hundred, but it'll but it'll fly.
Speaker 3: You ever do that?
Speaker 4: And so like the action is maybe eighty percent?
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean I joke that. Like, as with any
Speaker 5: crew member, by the way, the dialect coach's job is
Speaker 5: to be super obsessed with the one thing I'm there
Speaker 5: to do and also simultaneously deprioritize it the instant it
Speaker 5: doesn't matter. Yeah, and so I like, my makes my
Speaker 5: heart be like my job wait, no, chill, no, my job,
Speaker 5: but chill and like that. But that is the thing, right,
Speaker 5: We have to be able to deprioritize it when it's
Speaker 5: just not what the moment's about.
Speaker 4: Have you ever done that and then watched the thing
Speaker 4: that you were coaching on and then and then like
Speaker 4: the thing that you were like, it's like eighty percent,
Speaker 4: it's okay, and then you see it on TV and
Speaker 4: you're like.
Speaker 5: Ah, here's the inside.
Speaker 1: I hear it.
Speaker 5: Third way, There is a third way, which.
Speaker 2: Is ABR alright, Also, then is it an ADR that's right.
Speaker 1: So then is it your call to go, hey, he
Speaker 1: has to eight rs?
Speaker 5: I mean with my dream producers, yes it is. They're like,
Speaker 5: let me send you the rough cut and you give
Speaker 5: us notes, right, or like tell us what scenes we're
Speaker 5: gonna need to go in on. Usually I'm thrown in
Speaker 5: at the last second for d R. But yeah, I
Speaker 5: mean that's so that's happened. I mean I got my
Speaker 5: start doing ad R.
Speaker 1: That's happened.
Speaker 4: Where you see the actors performance and you're like, you gotta,
Speaker 4: you gotta.
Speaker 5: Okay, the actress performance is a dramatic way of putting Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 5: a few waywards sounds.
Speaker 3: Performing the sound the only perform this network.
Speaker 5: You're exactly right. Well, also, wait, since you said that,
Speaker 5: I just feel like it's it's important to say that
Speaker 5: so much of the job when you're when I am
Speaker 5: on a set is like, yes, these are the guardrails,
Speaker 5: let's stay within that. This is the sound we need
Speaker 5: to do for the story. We're talking so much of
Speaker 5: real life and accent work is messier than that. And like,
Speaker 5: I don't even accent work. I should just say accents, right,
Speaker 5: And you know, and we know that so much of
Speaker 5: what is beautiful about how each of us sounds and
Speaker 5: how literally every one of us sounds different from everyone else.
Speaker 5: Is that the sounds coming out of our mouth reflect
Speaker 5: the life we've actually lived, the places we've lived, the
Speaker 5: people we've spent the most time with, the people we admire,
Speaker 5: the people we want never to sound like like that's
Speaker 5: our life coming out of our mouth. So you know, yeah,
Speaker 5: my job on set is like, this is the right
Speaker 5: sound and this is the less right sound, But in
Speaker 5: real life that's not that's not the thing, right. And actually,
Speaker 5: part of my job has been my job that I
Speaker 5: made up, the part where I'm like, actually just coaching
Speaker 5: and consulting folks is often to help them see their
Speaker 5: own inner biases around sounds and be like, can we
Speaker 5: what if we backed off on that? What if we
Speaker 5: check that bias and we're like, you sound exactly right
Speaker 5: for the message you're going to give on that stage.
Speaker 3: It's you.
Speaker 5: And that's why literally gain. The book is called Permission
Speaker 5: to Speak, and the cover has the word permission six
Speaker 5: times on it. It's like, that's because the permission matters
Speaker 5: more than the.
Speaker 3: Speaking, right, right.
Speaker 4: I know you fell in love with actors when you
Speaker 4: were ten watch Shakespeare.
Speaker 1: But what was this specifically.
Speaker 4: About accents that made you go into into dialect codes?
Speaker 5: Okay, I have two quick answers. One is I got
Speaker 5: an MFA in acting, so I really was trying to
Speaker 5: pursue acting. Oh cool, if you ever like have I
Speaker 5: or whatever like like I'm available.
Speaker 6: You sound like likely sealball. That is the most random question.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I see it.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean, let me do some preser.
Speaker 2: What's a little video, we'll circle back, let's we'll talk
Speaker 2: about that after the episode.
Speaker 5: But the other answer is, if I'm being like a
Speaker 5: totally honest dork about this, I loved impressions when I
Speaker 5: was little. I love Marilyn Monroe and I would do
Speaker 5: her voice. I would do British voice right, like there
Speaker 5: was I wasn't getting them right. But I was so
Speaker 5: curious even then about the relationship between how we sound
Speaker 5: and how we get treated in life. Oh, that's interesting,
Speaker 5: and the idea that we could change how we sound.
Speaker 5: I mean, my fair lady. This classic musical is literally
Speaker 5: about somebody with a lower class, like a coded for
Speaker 5: class lower class British accent, who, because of a like
Speaker 5: social experiment by a mean dialect coach learns how to
Speaker 5: sound fancy and her life opens up. And I watched
Speaker 5: that as like a ten year old being like I
Speaker 5: am learning something about the world from this. Wow, not
Speaker 5: necessarily something that I want to emulate, right, I'm not like,
Speaker 5: let me please be that asshole dialect coach. It came one,
Speaker 5: but that idea that when we change how we sound,
Speaker 5: our world changes for better and for worse, like really
Speaker 5: really like.
Speaker 2: Feels like it feels like an interesting code, like a
Speaker 2: key to different different.
Speaker 5: Under And now I've done you know, I did a
Speaker 5: lot of research on like social linguistics, which is like
Speaker 5: literally how the sounds that come out of our mouth
Speaker 5: happened because of the society we're because of the room
Speaker 5: we're in, because right, like we all know we sound
Speaker 5: different when we talk to like a three year old
Speaker 5: then we talked to a grandmother than we did when
Speaker 5: we talk to a lawyer who's mad. Then we like,
Speaker 5: is one version real and the other ones are fake?
Speaker 5: Or are humans made to have these different versions of
Speaker 5: ourselves that come out in different rooms? And you know
Speaker 5: that's complicated and there's you know, aspects of that like
Speaker 5: code switching that feel really heavy. But also like we
Speaker 5: can celebrate it because obviously this is like an evolutionary
Speaker 5: trait in.
Speaker 1: Humans, right, And what was that? The most interesting thing
Speaker 1: you found when you when you when you took up
Speaker 1: social linguistics was was that.
Speaker 5: You know, I'll tell you one other thing. Thank you
Speaker 5: for giving me like permission to be like a nerd
Speaker 5: about social But here's here's the heart of it. And
Speaker 5: it's in a way, it's kind of what I just said,
Speaker 5: but I'm saying it differently because I love this. I
Speaker 5: love this. It's like a gift for me. Maybe all
Speaker 5: of us social linguists will say that every habit any
Speaker 5: of us have ever picked up our arms and us,
Speaker 5: the acts and stuff, the ways in which we sound more,
Speaker 5: you know, like our hometown and we've just talked to
Speaker 5: our mom and we don't when we haven't. Every habit
Speaker 5: any of us have ever picked up in how we sound,
Speaker 5: we've picked up for a reason. It has served us
Speaker 5: in some way.
Speaker 1: In a bad or a good way.
Speaker 5: It has served us. It has like helped you know,
Speaker 5: somebody will say, oh, I can't I hate that, I
Speaker 5: say like so much. Make me stop saying like, and
Speaker 5: I'll be like, we can get a little more bit
Speaker 5: more conscious about your likes and what those are, what
Speaker 5: those like hedging terms are doing. But also can we
Speaker 5: just love on that? Like where did we pick it up?
Speaker 5: Who do you love that? Sounds like that? Who are
Speaker 5: you reflecting back? How has that helped you to connect
Speaker 5: with people in those other rooms, in those other relationships,
Speaker 5: in those moments before this one?
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 5: And like if there's shame wrapped up in that, can
Speaker 5: we deshame that?
Speaker 7: Right?
Speaker 5: Right?
Speaker 4: But they're obviously raising that question because although it may
Speaker 4: have helped them, they feel that it's actually hurting them
Speaker 4: as well.
Speaker 5: Right.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 5: Often it's like I'm trying to up level. I'm now
Speaker 5: you know, in this more professional context.
Speaker 2: And they're watching themselves give the speech or they get
Speaker 2: really self conscious. Yeah, and they're just like, oh my god,
Speaker 2: I said like like a million times. Yeah, I think
Speaker 2: but the old our producers do that, does.
Speaker 3: That a lot?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 5: I mean, are you calling someone out?
Speaker 3: Ye's he says, my lot.
Speaker 2: But he's just because he's so smart, he's just like
Speaker 2: he thinks about so many different ideas.
Speaker 3: He has had a tough time. Hello, I was talking
Speaker 3: about a producer that we work with.
Speaker 2: Yes, you know, you're just so smart.
Speaker 5: I'm as a great example. I'm as a great example.
Speaker 3: I am the king of But you know what an is?
Speaker 5: I mean, linguistically speaking, it's just a little like you're
Speaker 5: dropping a little sign post that says a not quite
Speaker 5: donely processed, and often it allows your audience to process too.
Speaker 3: Can I tell you what I think in like his?
Speaker 2: Because I have the same issues myself when I do
Speaker 2: when I speak in the uh I'm saying, So what
Speaker 2: I'm doing is I'm buying myself time to piece together
Speaker 2: a sentence that I want to sound smart.
Speaker 5: So do you mean that you don't do it when
Speaker 5: you're feeling more loose?
Speaker 2: When I feel more confident and I'm running with my stuff,
Speaker 2: I rarely used to like or.
Speaker 5: So this is thank you for that example, because this
Speaker 5: is like the old timey and I'm like insert irol.
Speaker 5: The old timy approach to public speaking is count your
Speaker 5: ums in us. Stop doing that, like police yourself, stop it.
Speaker 5: And my approach is like, what's going on in the
Speaker 5: inside psychologically that's making you feel like you have to
Speaker 5: prove yourself right because all of us have a version
Speaker 5: of ourselves. That's like, how do I prove myself well,
Speaker 5: I should, I should like shave off all the parts
Speaker 5: of me that.
Speaker 6: Are super weird, but you should bring that.
Speaker 5: I should say that my biggest words that I have.
Speaker 5: And then there's the other version of ourself that's with
Speaker 5: our favorite people, and how do we bring that version
Speaker 5: of us?
Speaker 4: But you may be right, but like the perception that
Speaker 4: the overall perception is that if you do too many
Speaker 4: elms or too many likes, that it's there's a negative
Speaker 4: perception behind that, right, But you're saying, although there's a
Speaker 4: negative perception behind that, you should embrace it anyway.
Speaker 1: Is that?
Speaker 4: Is that?
Speaker 5: What? No, I'm actually saying, Yes, And you know what
Speaker 5: I'm really saying is what Wilmer said, which is which
Speaker 5: is brilliant, just reflecting your brilliance, which which is what
Speaker 5: you said, which is what actually happens in the human body,
Speaker 5: is that when we are feeling more relaxed, more confident,
Speaker 5: like we have less to prove, like we're around our
Speaker 5: favorite people and they get us even if we're not.
Speaker 5: If we give ourselves permission to show up that way, yeah,
Speaker 5: we am the end a less.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's incredibly fascinating. But before we continue on, we
Speaker 4: are going to take a pause.
Speaker 2: This is the end of episode one of two. Because
Speaker 2: you're giving us so much time. That's so thank you
Speaker 2: for listening and watching. Uh those some egos and wim
Speaker 2: with I'm Freddi Rodriguez. See you on the next one.
Speaker 4: Dose Amigos is a production from WV Sound and iHeartMedia's
Speaker 4: Michael through That podcast network, hosted by Me, Freddie Rodriguez,
Speaker 4: and Wilmer Valdorama.
Speaker 2: Those Amigos is produced by Aaron Burlson and Sophie Spencer Zabos.
Speaker 4: Our executive producers are Wilmer Valdorama, Freddie Rodriguez, Aaron Burlson,
Speaker 4: and Leo Klem at WV Sound.
Speaker 2: This episode was shot and edited it by Ryan Posts
Speaker 2: and mixed by Sean Tracy and features original music by
Speaker 2: Madison Devenport and Halo Boy.
Speaker 4: Our cover art photography is by David Avalos and designed
Speaker 4: by Deny Holtz Clau and.
Speaker 2: Thank you for being at Third Amigo today. I appreciate
Speaker 2: you guys always listening to Those Amigos.
Speaker 4: More podcasts from my heart, visit the ir heart Radio app,
Speaker 4: Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Speaker 3: See you next week.