ABSTRACT
It’s in every voice-over actor’s best interest to be familiar with as many dialects as possible. Dialects are another way to differentiate everyone's characters. One approach to learning dialects is to master the basic symbols of the International Phonetic Alphabet (I.P.A.). Ethnic actors in Hollywood have been fighting to get roles in films and television for many years. For some time the role of one nationality would go to another nationality or even to someone who looked like they were born in the United States. More recently, television and film executives, and the casting directors who were doing the casting, have tried harder to cast actors according to ethnicity. Ethnic actors need to have an accent that is easily understood. It helps if they are able to adjust their accent to make it sound either heavier or lighter, as well.
