Flawlessly American with Sandra Bell

Today, we are having a chat with my accent coach, Sandra Bell. Sandra is one of Australia's most sought after and experienced American Accent Dialect Coach's with over 30 years of experience in Film, Television, Stage and Voice Over work. Sandra teaches at Universities, Acting Schools and also provides Private tuition. 

With her "hands on" method, Sandra takes each student with the upmost intention on helping them "win" that role with a 100% flawless accent. Specialising in a General West Coast (Hollywood) mid-Atlantic USA Accent, Southern and East Coast Accents. Sandra is based on the Gold Coast and is available online for one on one private lessons as well as regular 2 day intensives that she performs around the country.
 
In this conversation, Sandra discusses her journey to becoming an accent coach in Australia and the challenges of learning and teaching the American accent. She shares insights into the acting industry and the importance of understanding culture in delivering an authentic accent. Sandra also highlights the success of Australian actors in Hollywood and the importance of preparation in the acting industry. Sandra also shares her personal journey and encourages actors to follow their dreams. 

Sandra Bell Accent Coach on Facebook.  Available online or in person. Check-in with her for dates and locations.

Chapters

• 0:00 Background and Journey to Becoming an Accent Coach
• 11:32 Ups and Downs in the Acting Industry
• 13:54 Teaching Methods and Coaching Style
• 25:02 Challenges of Learning Accents
• 36:37 Instilling a Mindset of Following Dreams

Transcript

0:45

Welcome to another episode of the Late Bloomer Actor. Today we're having a chat with my accent coach, Sandra Bell. Sandra is one of Australia's most sought after and experienced American accent dialect coaches with over 30 years of experience in film, television, stage and voiceover work. Sandra teaches at universities, acting schools and also provides private tuition. With her hands on method, Sandra takes each student with the utmost intention on helping them win that role with a hundred percent flawless accent. Specializing in a general West Coast or Hollywood Mid -Atlantic USA accent, or just basically the general American accent, also Southern and East Coast accents. Sandra is based on the Gold Coast and is available online for one -on -one private lessons, as well as regular two -day intensives that she performs around the country. In this conversation, Sandra discusses her journey to becoming an accent. Australia and the challenges of learning and teaching the American accent. She shares insights into the acting industry and the importance of understanding culture in delivering an authentic accent. Sandra also highlights the success of Australian actors in Hollywood, and the importance of preparation in the acting industry. Sandra also shares her personal journey and encourages actors to follow their dreams. So sit back and enjoy this wonderful chat with Sandra. Well, good morning or good afternoon or good evening wherever you're coming from. This is the Late Bloomer Actor and we're here with episode three of season three and we have the wonderful Sandra Bell online today who is my accent coach, particularly the US accent. So good morning Sandra, how are you? Yes, good morning David. Nice to see you and nice to hear your voice. I'm happy to be here and I'm very humble. Thank you so much Thank you. And you were saying that you are very excited with your daughter that you've not done a podcast before. So this is brand new for you. Absolutely, it's never too old to grow, but she was like, you're doing a podcast? What is it gonna be about and what is it gonna be on? So I'm a bit of a dinosaur with podcasts, but apparently she just does all her cooking, her work, you know, work around the house with her earplugs in and headphones in, and she listened to podcasts all day long. I get in the same boat. I'm trying to catch up on all my shows. So Sandra, before we go into the nitty and gritty of things, just for our listeners out there, can you just give us a bit of a background of who you are and where you came from and what led you to become an accent coach here in Australia for, I believe, just hit 30 years? Absolutely, what a milestone. I didn't have any intentions of (a) ever moving to Australia when I was about 12 or 13 years old. I wanted to be a model and an actress in LA and pursued that dream and started working on soap operas back in the 80s, Days Of Our Lives, doing TV commercials, starting to audition for movies, like with Charlie Sheen and things like that. And then my girlfriend did a modeling gig in New Zealand and asked when she came back if I'd like to come back and go with her to Sydney, Australia. Well, that has been one of my dreams forever. So that's what I did. I followed her and worked in Sydney for quite some time and ended up in Queensland. I got married, I married an Aussie. I have two Australian kids who are in their 20s and 30s. I was doing a gig on a series back in the nineties called Time Tracks. I was a reporter where they needed, actually it was for the HBO. They needed to have, the bit parts had to be a fully flawless American accent. So they hired me because obviously I was an actor and I could, uh, was a real American, but then on one of the episodes, uh, one of the dialect coaches who was working on the show wanted to go home. for Christmas, she'd been working 14 months and they're very long grueling days as you know on set, they're 12 hour days. She wanted to go home to Milwaukee, she was American, didn't want to come back for the last six weeks of shooting. So she asked me if I would be interested in working the last six weeks on the show and I said I wouldn't have a clue how to teach an Australian how to speak with an American accent. She said don't worry about it, I'll teach you. So my first actor was John Orcsik from TAFTA. in um he always plays the bad guy and he had a brilliant uh American accent so he was a breeze and I've worked with Holly Breezeley a lot of other uh people that they would cast who had great acting abilities from Home And Away and just, Neighbours and things like that who could do a really good American accent. Well now what I do is I travel all over Australia teaching not so much correcting on set because those people already had the job, they already got the job. Now just teaching actors how to do an American accent. People think it's easy, as you know, it's not as easy to know your lines, be in character, hit your mark, know your lighting, take direction, then throw in an American accent. And we are quite different in how we speak, and we can go into that a little bit later about inflections and how we sit on our R's. Where Australians everything the R's become A's is like, oh that's much betta instead of better So just a little example. Yeah, so, you know first hand you've been one of my consistent regular clients who is, someone who has grown completely over the years, but it takes practice. It does. And we will certainly talk about that. And my biggest problem with, um, nailing the American accent is that lack of consistent practice. You know, you can't just go and do the weekend course and then say, well, I'm, I can speak American now. Something you have to do every day. The same as our acting, isn't it? We can't just go and do a course and then be a great actor. You've got to keep that muscle going, so to speak. Constant growing and improving your skills, upskilling and acting. I mean, they say a lot of people who just have the Oscars, just won an Oscar, they've been working at it for 10, 15 years. They didn't just get famous overnight, just have a happy break, a lucky break. They've been working at it. Definitely, definitely. And quickly, I think we've talked about this a little bit before, but do you believe that someone can be tone deaf? Because I always say I'm tone deaf and I struggle to understand accents. So in my job, I work at an airport, so I'll have a lot of people from other countries and if they're very, very strong, accented English, I really struggle to understand them to the point that I actually don't understand them. So with that. Is that a thing if you know and would that, does it make it more difficult to learn an accent, which I believe I struggled to learn the American accent or any accent. Definitely. One of the questions I asked at the beginning of a workshop, do any of you play an instrument? Because knowing sounds and tones will greatly help you learn a dialect. But if you're tone deaf and you don't hear it, that is the biggest problem is I can't correct somebody if they can't hear it. Hmm. Yeah, no, I think that's what I've got for my 50th birthday. I got a nice keyboard, which is still sitting right next to me here. And I've got a three month subscription to a piano online course. So I've got to sit down and start to learn to do that because, (a) it's another creative avenue to get that brain flowing. So hopefully that will help. But Sandra, you said you're a little bit of the acting side of things. Do you still get to do some of that here in Australia now? I do get called quite often because as we get older, there's far, far few of us left in the acting community. In fact, this morning, somebody just paid a deposit for a course I'm doing in Adelaide in May. And she said, I'm 70. And I said, so? So what? 70 is the new 50. We never stop growing. Don't ever stop growing. Don't ever think you can't do something. In fact, a lot of people who have been in my workshops are up. in the late 60s or early 70s. And they're killing it, they're smashing it because they need characters, they need older people. We do exist in film, believe it or not. Yeah, definitely. And I like to tell a lot of actors, they say, I haven't had any auditions for a long time. And it comes in waves, I feel, for character types and ages and backgrounds and everything. So this year could be the 20 somethings year and that's all you see. And then next year, it'll be the 50s and the 60 somethings. So you've just got to wait for your wave to roll around. There's definitely been highs and lows over the last 30 years. Right after 911, I couldn't even get a person, an actor to do an American accent because there were no American productions in Australia. The Americans are afraid of flying so far away. They think a 14-hour flight from Brisbane to LA is just you can't be on a plane that long. Well forget about it after 911, nobody wanted to get on a plane. let alone go on a plane to Australia. So there was about, I have to say, seven, eight, nine years where I just wasn't working. I just barely, I would get the odd person who just wanted to come, and maybe I did a lot of work for QUT, Queensland University of Technology, because they did a lot of, the third year drama students did American plays. Nice. It's good to see that the universities have changed a little bit in that styling to bring in more of the contemporary, what is the business in acting today, as in they've introduced, you know, camera work and film work and American or accent work as well. That's good to see, isn't it? Because Connor's just started and you've trained my son Connor as well. So he's just he's in week two of his Flinders University drama course now. Fantastic. Tell him I said hi. Yeah, he was he was brilliant. Those young ones they do they're like sponges They watch so much American TV. They just pick it up so easily. And they just turned it on. And the other day I've got your, sitting on the table here, I've got your American accent sounded, just sitting here. And one of my sons picked it up and he started reading through the words, just going, what's this? And I'm just going, he nailed it. And I'm just going, that's not fair. That's not fair. So talking about your accent training. So I trained with you back in 2017. So that's how long I've been. pushing for it and I'm certainly going to get back into our, I think we need to do the monthly classes and just keep it up and get that ball rolling. So, hmm. it up because it'll take you a good 15 minutes just to get warm up, get your head back into thinking of that American dialect. I always say when you have been taught to ride bike number one, that's what your brain wants to do is get on bike number one. When all of a sudden you have to get on bike number two, your brain is fighting it. It doesn't want to ride that other bike. And sometimes you have to take 15 minutes into a half hour lesson just to tell your brain, it's okay, it's okay, we're going to start saying fast and dance instead of fast and dance. definitely. So curious to know, how is your teaching methods? How do you approach your teaching methods and have they evolved over the years? What principles guide your coaching style? It's very interesting. People do ask me if I talk about this or talk about that. And I have found that my system works. I've been doing the same thing for 30 years. I've never been busier. I work on the parrot methods, which is I say it and you repeat me and we keep going, or you'll read a script and I will stop and correct you. I don't do the technical type of teaching, which a lot of accent coaches do, where they use a mirror. and you put a cork in your mouth and you hold your tongue up to the roof of your mouth. That's a stock standard way of learning, which people say to me, oh, I don't need to do your course because I do an online American class. And I've learned off that. And I said, but how do you know you're speaking it correctly? There's no one there to correct you. And it's so much more than just learning on an online course. Yes, that might help get you started. But there are things like intonation and inflections, which you may not know anything about because you're not around Americans every day. How would you know how fast we talk or what words to punch? So this is where individually I can help you and correct you as we go. And yes, a lot of my material might be over 20 years old, but I know within five seconds what your little issue might be. That's interesting. And everyone has them more difficult areas of learning, don't they? Where they nail one thing, but... tell you the O R sound, the A R sound, the uh sound, like some, your brain says like on the word what, your brain wants to see, because it sees an A, wants to say whaat, and that's how you phonetically would say it, what, instead of what. But how would you know that if you're doing an online course if no one's there to correct you? Exactly, exactly. And I think one of the biggest things I took away from training with you is the discussion points on being American or knowing the culture so you can bring that into the accent. How important is it to grasp the concept and how do actors overcome the complexities of having to maintain that accent? You can't just learn the language, but you need to act differently as well, don't you? As a great actor, you do your character analysis. So whether you are going to do British accent or period piece, but maybe you're an American who lived back in the 30s, they had a slight British accent to their American accent. So you watch the old Cary Grant movies and Audrey Hepburn, they had a slight British accent. mixed with an American and that wore off over time. So you need to know who you are, where, what state are you from? Because as you know in America, we have something like 700 different dialects. And you know firsthand, because you've been lately to America twice, you can tell the difference of a country that's the same size of Australia. There's 326 million people. In America, in Australia, we have 26 million. So we are shoved to stand up and look, be noticed where you come from the British background, which is blend. Don't bring attention to yourself. They don't, Australians don't like tall poppies where Americans are so full of themselves. So you have to learn to be that culture and you have to study the character. What time of year is it? What era is it? What age group are you playing? How fast do you speak? Are you in Oklahoma where there's not a lot going on? Or are you in Chicago where there's lots going on and you talk really fast because you have so much to talk about? So yes. and then staying on top of that. So, you know, the complexity of being an actor is you're trying to remember your lines, you're trying to remember the scene, uh, to develop your character in your head, and then at the same time, you're trying to make sure you stay on, on point for your American accent. So do you have, do you see that in when actors do their self-tapes at the end of your course, uh, and do you instill in them methods to, to bring all three things together so that it all works? I will definitely when we pick a piece to do, say for your show real, we walk, we talk, walk through it, then we talk about building up the energy like in a pressure cooker. Like if you're gonna get angry, it doesn't mean you just shout loud and talk fast. You can actually get very angry and be very subtle, but you just can use that subtlety, to show your anger. It doesn't always have to be shouting but you know firsthand and I want to ask you a few questions about what was the biggest thing you noticed about Americans when you were over there. Oh, that they talk a lot. But you're right. Uh, yeah, they, they do. They talk a lot and they've got, um, they've got a lot to say, but they certainly, they seem to talk over each other when they're in a conversation, but it seems to work. They're still hearing the other person. I think that's a big thing there that they're still hearing, still listening. Um, I had a friend over for, we just had a champagne celebrating the sale of my home. And, um, I was talking about, um, he, but the husband was American, but he was from Tennessee, from the South and we were talking about, oh, you know, we could do a speed date because I just keep going and then, and he goes, yeah, I know, Sandy, you do, you could talk the leg off a chair. That's just Americans. and I think that would change the way that you, if you can sort of gather that culture. Now I wanted to run something past you, so I'm going to bring this up because I was, I surprised myself. I was trying to explain to Kellie the other day, um, that I was listening to a podcast and the guy opens his podcast and he's, he's very loud and very radio announcer, uh, very, um, you know, United States, um, you know, the the wrestling guy that stands in there in the middle of the cage and yells, welcome ladies and gentlemen. So, and I tried to explain it to her by just repeating what he said. And I surprised myself. She said, you actually sounded really American. Now he's actually Texan, but my tone deafness. So I come out and I went, welcome to podcasting 2.0. The podcast that is all about the podcast. I'm talking about the past, the current and the present of all podcasting. That's right. This is the board meeting and we are the board room that meets every week. Come rain or shine. Now I reckon I got a lot more stronger when I said it to Kellie cause it was just off the cuff. And thanks to, podcasting 2.0, the podcast there with Adam Curry. So Adam Curry's the, uh, announcer that I'm trying to copy. So that brings a lot of the, being able to throw that culture into your delivery, doesn't it? Yes, definitely could tell you were doing that very American presenting thing and probably Australians would feel funny doing it that way. And I was going to say, one of the things I just did a Les Chantery course in Sydney, and he was saying that one of the things I might need to do is a bit of voice training. So how do you see the need for voice training alongside of accent coaching? Is it something that goes hand in hand or you'd need to do beforehand or after or? You could probably do voice training at any time. Obviously, if you're a mature or late bloomer, get it in straight away because you're making up for lost time. I work with a very good voice coach. So a lot of people think I am a voice coach. I am not a voice coach, I'm a dialect, an American accent dialogue. They call me up for British accents, I can't help you there. So... I had a girl who came to me who was 15, very, very talented. The accent was almost spot on, but she was shouting through the whole script. And so I suggested to her mom that she go see Diane Eden, who is an exceptional voice coach, who was for 25 years the head of drama at QUT. And she teaches how to deepen your voice if you need to, how to make it more crystal clear. How to speed it up. She can't do dialects. I don't do voice coaching, but yes, they do go hand in hand. And I now need to work with this 15 year old girl to get her to stop yelling and shouting. But the accents there. Ain't that yelling and shouting, is that a stage thing you think? Could be, could also just be adrenaline, could just be how she talks. But it sounded too monotone all the time. Well, there's no depth. It might sound loud, but there was no depth in the voice because she wasn't going in and out, ebb and flow. So when I'm talking to you just now, I'm saying, oh, well, you know, she was talking so fast and she was shouting. So I sped up without even knowing. So we need to work on the voice, very important part of acting, having that richness. Okay. And one of the things they do say when you're learning an accent or delivering a character an accent is to not lose yourself. So how do we change our accent but still be me, still be my voice without someone, if someone heard it, they would know it was me. They'd need to know that it's still me as a character or me as the person delivering. Does that make sense? Yes, I can't really, I don't know that I can really answer that question. Being in character, will you look at Meryl Streep who's done so many different dialects. Yeah, I mean, but she even attempted the Australian accent is really, really hard to do. Not even Michael Caine could do it in Dirty Rotten Scoundrels. He sounded ridiculous. But as Shrimp on the Barby or, you know, he just sounded like an Englishman trying to do an Australian accent. And it, Meryl Streep did, you know, out of Africa. She's had so many amazing, dialects, but she couldn't, when she did, Lindy Chamberlain, she just couldn't quite get it. And if she can't get it, I don't know who can. And I mean, I've lived here 35 years. My kids are Australian. My husband was Australian. So I try to say to my students, don't say, or I shouldn't say don't say, but try not to say betta say better, and they laugh at me. I just can't even sound Australian. I love it. And we hear a lot of, we've got a lot of American sports players that come over here and play and some of them will, they'll nail a word that's completely natural and they'll just sound Australian and then bang, they're straight back to their American dialect or on everything else. So just one word seems to resonate with their brain, I think. It comes naturally. Like I know when I hear Americans come over here, they say Melbourne or Brisbane or Cairns or they'll say Aussie, you Aussies because there's two S's instead of Aussies. I was just listening to a podcast for some boys that went over to Las Vegas for the NRL that was held over there. And apparently, so they used American commentators to commentate the game, which was great, but someone worded them up and they had the pronunciation of people's names and places down pat. So that was really clever. I felt so they've said, this is how you say this guy's name or it's Melbourne. Melbourne, not Melbourne. So it was really interesting that they've. And apparently they did a great job. So they still spoke their normal, but they pronounce the names of places correctly, which was good. So yeah, there are a lot of things that we have to take into when I teach a workshop. So many people think they can just... have a lesson with me online for half an hour and then that'll be enough and they can tell their agent they did a course with me or they did a lesson. But you know how many times people call me and say my son's got an audition on Sunday and this is Thursday night can you can you do can you work Friday night or you know they don't think that maybe I have weekend workshops in another state or you know I can just work Friday night. So please I say to people don't wait until you get that casting. Please do your homework ahead of time. Don't think that you can nail an accent when then you do the lesson and they didn't realize how bad it really was. You've got to have it nailed down beforehand, don't you? And then, and then maybe you might need someone just to tweak your audition, but you need to be able to walk in the room and be American. And I think most accent coaches say it. And I think you've said it too, that you need to be able to walk into a cafe and order a coffee using your American accent. And they turn around and ask you where you're from, how long you've been in Australia. Exactly. And when I used to teach for TAFTA for John, I used to take, it was over an eight-week course. He had me in his 40-week course when I did the American for eight weeks. One of the exercises, we went up to a big shopping center, we went into Athlete's Foot and I asked them to, if they could try on some Adidas and some Nikes and some Pumas. So they and then we went and ordered a cappuccino and a latte and really do it in the American accent, and test the waters test it out, but then I gave them a backstory said you're going you're from Long Beach California State University you're visiting here with your college. So in case they asked you questions back you better know who you're supposed to be. I love it. And Connor does that quite often. He goes out and throws the accent out there just to see if he could trick people. And he smashes it, of course. So with your accents, so you primarily teach the, they call it the general American, isn't it? So that's what we need for most TV shows, unless you're specifically playing a New Yorker or someone from Chicago. So how do you change your, can you teach the other accents? I know you said you cut... couldn't teach the British accent, for example, but are you able to train the other American accents and what's the difference in those? well, especially in the South, there's so many different, like the Texans speak differently than people from Tennessee or Georgia. And the Midwest, like they'll say, Jack, I wanted to meet your mother. So that's kind of like a Wisconsin or Minnesota or Chicago accent. They flatten out their vowels. Southern states speak very slow and with a real drawl. So you need to know y'all where you're from, first of all. You gotta find out where your character's from. And then if you're from Texas, then you kinda go up a pitch and you say, oh my daddy, he loves to buy me jewelry for Christmas. And then if you have someone like Ellen DeGeneres, she's from New Orleans. So she says y'all a lot, y'all, how y'all going? So her accent being California has softened quite a bit. But it's very important. I just, when I was at QUT teaching for Diane, we did August, Osage County. That was a three hour play. The 14 actors had to learn how to do their accent. And then I just taught another group from a theater group called Growl Theater, a Southern accent. One was from Alabama. The audience wouldn't really know the difference. We do, but they had me come in and work with all their actors. The three lead ladies had three different Southern accents. So I can do that. And of course, New York, no problem, is different than New Jersey. And parts of New York, even parts of New York, you have the Italians, they say, what are you doing? Hey, I'm talking to you, you know what I'm saying? You've got to have that kind of real rough Bronx Brooklyn accent. Hmm. And does it, do you encourage that we should know our general American accent down pat and then learn those side ones? Yes, I used to teach a master class. You had to do the eight week course first at TAFTA and then we went into a four week master class where we mastered other dialects, especially New York, which is actually easier for Aussies to do the New York accent than the Hollywood accent. And then we touched on some Southern accents. So that actor was really well rounded and able to do all the accents. Now, with your background and working in the film industry and helping actors on set as well, things have changed a lot now. It's more of a globalized environment and we were coming out of the strike. So the productions are now coming back to Australia. How important do you think it is for, (a) Australian actors to nail down their American accent, but also could we go to America without an accent and try to get into acting as an Australian, so to speak? I think they love the Australians at the moment because their work ethic is so much better than the Americans and I hate to say that, but this is why the Australians are getting so much work in Hollywood because they don't show up hungover. They don't go, it's all about me, me. They're grounded, they're humble, but they can put on their American hat and be in an American character like Margot Robbie, Cate Blanchett, Naomi Watts, Chris Hemsworth. But all of those guys, look at the guy, that gorgeous guy who did the mentalist, Simon Baker. He was hugely successful over there. Nicole Kidman. Like, it's so funny when you hear her talking, she comes out with this Australian accent because it's their work ethic. You know, so many people get caught up in the fame over there, like Charlie Sheen, and was doing rounds of Cocaine in his trailer. Or he could still work, but they don't want to take a chance. They want to know when they hire someone, they're going to have their craft, they know their craft, they've been on stage, they go work in the off-season and do theater. They are committed to the craft. I love it. And that's just a lot about how you should approach things as an actor, regardless of what industry or what area you're in, whether you're in America or Australia or London, et cetera. Sandra, I also read somewhere that you are the voice for the Zova Fit app, which is an Apple app, I believe. Is that correct? congratulations on your journey with your fitness. You're doing so well. Yeah, so someone said to me the other day, I said, Oh, you're looking great. I said, I reckon I'm looking hungry. So it's a long, it's a long journey. So. taking on something no matter if it's acting or your weights and that's going to help you have stamina on those long days. Each one helps each other. Like I say to a lot of my younger people, learn martial arts, learn to do your own stunts, learn a dialect, learn how to do cold reads, do whatever you can that's going to help your performance. But in your overall health. Like you said, I wanted to lose the weight for my kids as well and my wife. So it's a lifestyle change. Definitely, definitely. And the camera puts on 10 kilos. So if I can lose 20 kilos, then I've got more chance. And I think they were saying, I was told one time that, uh, I struggled to get rolls because I'm so tall, um, whether some people go, oh, that's crap. But I've been told, yeah, if you're too tall, you're going to overpower the actors, the primary actors, and you can't get that 20 worder so, but I can't do anything about my height, but if I can, if I can lose a little bit of weight, look a bit better on screen and don't have the dad bod, so then so be it. So that's what we're doing there. Yeah, well, you just have to follow your dreams. If you're tall or short, you know, this is a lot of reason why they don't use female models because so many of the lead men are only five foot eight. So unfortunately, you know, you better make sure your acting is down pat, your skills are there and just follow your passion. Look, David James Elliott from JAG he's super tall. Didn't stop him having a successful series for years. So I wanted to ask a quick question in relation to doing this Overfit app. Is there a difference with coaching for voiceover as opposed to on-screen performances? Is there a difference that we need? is a slight difference. You would know from doing podcasts. When I used to read a lot of pages for say muscular dystrophy, we would do a video on how to teach your child how to swim because of the disability. So you do tend to read that with a different kind of a voice. So now you put your arm here. Make sure you don't push it too hard so it's uncomfortable. So do you see the difference in the sound? It's almost a tutorial sound, a tutorial voice, as opposed to just a casual conversation. Interesting. And across those different mediums, voiceover, TV, film, and maybe even stage, do you have a favourite that you like to teach? I would say I don't teach much voiceover a lot of those people just go on and do it like if they're going to do a voiceover for a product that's invented in Australia and they're doing a video a corporate video to send over to America because they can't understand the Australians at all so if it's an Aussie product they need an American voiceover so I like to just mainly focus in on the acting part. It's 10 o'clock. Oops sorry. I like to practice in on the acting part. Awesome, I love it. Now I wanna just quickly bring it back to you for a question. In March of 2023, for the International Women's Day, Porsche Centre in the Gold Coast invited a selection of female customers to a private photo shoot to celebrate women with drive. And you were one of those women with drive. You're mentioned in the feature. And you mentioned that you believe in the power of following your dreams and challenging the status quo. How do you instill this mindset in your students, especially considering the competitive nature of the acting industry? And congratulations on getting that. It was a great article. was really a lovely, lovely write up. I was not expecting at all. I would say that you have, and I totally believe more and more each year I get older in manifestation. You need to manifest from the time you're young in anything you do and totally believe it in your gut that it is going to happen. Whether it's, you know, I sold my house after 29, 30 years. I don't know where I'm going. Because I had to get the money first to go buy the place where I'm going to go to. I have, I'm just sometimes having a little bit of a panic attack, but I'm kind of just trusting the universe and I'm manifesting the place that I want to spend the next trimester of my life in. I'm trying to manifest that and I think that's with acting. You have to see it, believe it, do whatever it takes to get it, to get you there and taste it, smell it. Um, if, if it means learning an American accent, cause you're dying to go to LA or you want to work in an, on an American production, do it, bite the bullet and do it. Yep. Yes. Definitely. And with you celebrating 30 years of accent training in January of this year, what reflections or key lessons have you gained throughout your remarkable journey as an accent coach? Never, don't be surprised at where you end up. I never would have thought a million years I would be teaching Australians how to speak an American accent. I always knew I would find a niche in something that I did because when I was modeling, that's what got me to Australia. Then I got older, I didn't continue on with modeling. Then I got into acting and my whole thing, I was working on a children's series for six months with Peter Mockery called Cyber Girl. That then spurred onto some other things. So you just have to trust that you will end up where you're meant to end up, but you've got to put the work in. What's not, it's super competitive. You've got to put the work in acting. It's got to have that passion. And you've got to love it, don't you? So the day you stop loving it is the day you probably should give it up. So, and so Sandra Bell's not going to give up accent training, you're not retiring on us on any time soon. not why would I? I love it. I love it. So, Sandra, just to wind up, it's been a wonderful discussion. It's been great to have you on here. And I just wanted to reach out to everyone that listens to my podcast. There's so many aspects of acting that we need to learn and do. And unfortunately, it means classes, regular classes, and accent training is one of them. So, Where can people find you? You said you travel around Australia, so you're obviously available in person and online. So what's the best way for people to reach out to Sandra and find out? if you could just go to the Facebook page, my business page is Sandra Bell, American Dialect and Accent Coach. Believe it or not, I've never set up a website, I've never had to, but I am also available. You can Google me, I will give you my email address, my phone number, you've got if somebody would like to have it, but definitely attend a two-day workshop. That's 12 hours of intensive training. And don't be afraid. I know being a little bit of fear helps you to grow. Growing is, if you're not growing, you're going backwards. You need to have a reason to get up in the morning. You need to have a purpose and you need to have something to love or someone to love, whether it's your dog, your cat, your acting, whatever it might be. Those are only three things you need in life to be happy. So if it means sacrificing a weekend to learn this, you will come out completely different than when you stepped in on that Saturday morning and you're gonna make friends and you're gonna improve yourself, improve your skills, know where you need to work, if you need to do more online classes afterwards, you're not happy with where you're at, but I can guarantee you I have not had, maybe one, maybe one in all the years I've been teaching a woman who was so frustrated because she just couldn't get it and she walked out and she was in tears. She was frustrated at herself. Yeah, and I understand that because you've, you've worked with me both in twice now in, in person and then online. And I get that frustration because it's just so much. I don't want to say so much work, but it is a lot of work and some people get it easier and some, and like me, it's, it's really, really hard and I need to find a, a regime of waking up in the morning. And even if it's throwing a couple of words out and practicing and keeping that up. So I think there's something in that for everyone is that you've just got to make sure that you're doing it. Is that correct? Yes, that's correct. And the other thing I'd like to reiterate is I try to keep the environment safe. So you don't feel scared. You don't feel embarrassed. I mean, it's hard to just go into a weekend workshop with people you don't even know. And you don't wanna look stupid or you don't wanna feel inadequate, so-and-so much better. There's always gonna be someone younger, skinnier, better, smarter. So just get in there and improve yourself and don't be a... Thank you very much. Well, thank you, Sandra. This has been wonderful to have you on the podcast and your first. So I've had a couple of firsts. And you were mentioning before that you've worked with John Orcsik both on set and working through TAFTA as an accent coach. So I had him on in January. So that was, this is what I like, our little connections that come through, the six degrees of separation. It's wonderful. and thank you so much for making it seem so easy. 40 minutes went just like that. And we've got the tech working, so you're switched on with that. So thank you very much. It's been wonderful chatting to you, Sandra. you so much and please pass on my details if you need to. Will do, I'll put them in the show notes everyone, so you can find Sandra and find out what courses she's running around the country. See her in person for a weekend or see her online. So thank you very much. Thank you. Bye.