Many people are surprised when they hear actress Clare Bowen, who plays Scarlett O’Connor on Nashville, speak because she has an Australian accent in real life, but on the show her accent is strictly Southern.  Clare reveals that she developed her character’s Southern accent by watching some well-known American movies.  “My dad used to bring home videos when I was little, from Los Angeles.  He was a flight attendant.  And my favorite ones were Southern and they were the ones that you couldn’t get in Australia, like Steel Magnolias and Fried Green Tomatoes and Song of the South.  So I got Scarlett’s accent by listening, because it was my favorite accent, always.”  She took a chance when she tried out for the role of Scarlett and walked into the casting using her movie-inspired accent.  She says, “[I] thought, ‘There’s no way I’m gonna get this so I just have to go in head first’, so I kind of shaped her before I went in there and they liked her.”

[soundcloud url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/114642516%3Fsecret_token%3Ds-DsZP9″ params=”” width=” 100%” height=”166″ iframe=”true” /]

Clare Bowen – changing her accent  :32

“Transforming the way I speak is probably more fun than anything else, really.  My dad used to bring home videos when I was little, from Los Angeles.  He was a flight attendant.  And my favorite ones were Southern and they were the ones that you couldn’t get in Australia, like Steel Magnolias and Fried Green Tomatoes and Song of the South.  So I got Scarlett’s accent by listening, because it was my favorite accent, always.  And I actually walked into the casting with her like that and thought, ‘There’s no way I’m gonna get this so I just have to go in head first’, so I kind of shaped her before I went in there and they liked her.”