Colin Firth is just as mystified by Michael Peterson as true-crime fans.
In the HBO Max series The Staircase, Firth plays the novelist, who was accused of murdering his wife, Kathleen Peterson, in December 2001 (he entered an Alford plea to manslaughter in 2017). The British actor speaks and moves with impeccable similarity to the Southerner, a task that the actor told E! News was the easy part of the role.
To Firth, the real challenge was understanding who he was playing. "It wasn't so much, can I imitate him?" he told E! News. "It was whether the cadences, the sounds, the vocal foibles, and all these nuances could tell me something... I found it rather unfathomable."
Firth explained that he wanted to understand why Peterson spoke the way he did, as he hoped it would "take me through how he thinks or how he presents himself." But answers eluded him, despite having documentary footage and more resources.
The only way to move forward was by accepting that Peterson is an enigma. "I realized that I didn't want to depend on how I sounded, you know?" he continued. "I had to be freer than that, so very early on I said, 'Forget the voice, just deal with these extraordinary actors."
His co-star, Toni Collette, was amused by Colin's humility, saying, "You nailed it! You sound exactly like him."
Challenging as it was, Firth enjoyed it. "It was an interesting exercise," he admitted, "since I think he is quite idiosyncratic and there's an awful lot of material there."
Keep reading to learn about other stars who, like Firth, mastered the art of the accent.
In the HBO Max series The Staircase, Firth masters Michael Peterson's distinct way of speaking. His co-star, Toni Collette, was even impressed, telling him in an interview with E! News, "You nailed it! You sound exactly like him."
It's no surprise that Julia was able to expertly mimic Anna Delvey's unique way of speaking in the Netflix series Inventing Anna. The Emmy Award winning actress has been praised for her portrayal of Appalachian native Ruth Langmore in Ozark, an accent that is equally challenging, if not more.
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The actress combined her Australian accent with a Russian one to portray Masha in Nine Perfect Strangers.
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