April 24, 2017

Meet Samara Bay, LA Dialect Coach in Hollywood

Local Stories

Today we’d like to introduce you to Samara Bay.

Samara, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
I coach actors for television and film, either working alongside them on set, or preparing them for an audition or role at my home office. I started out coaching off-Broadway theater when I got out of grad school, about ten years ago, and was an adjunct professor of dialects at Pace University in Manhattan. Then I moved to LA during the recession and worked those first few years on a couple of indie projects here and there as well as prepping actors for big-budget blockbusters like X-Men: Days of Future Past. Slowly but surely, I built up a client base out west and started getting requested by actors and producers for their projects. More recently, I coached the leads in Focus Features’ Loving (for which my client Ruth Negga got an Oscar nom!) and did some work on Bright (Edgar Ramirez), Guardians of the Galaxy 2 (Pom Klementieff), Why Him? (Keegan-Michael Key), and am currently in New Orleans for 6 months coaching the cast of AMC’s Preacher, on season 2.

Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
There were many years there where I was working on insanely cool projects but in between I’d be unemployed, or coaching actors one-on-one out of my home office but with enough downtime that I would begin wondering if I was on the right track. Because I’m interested in a lot of different industries, I would use that downtime to pursue work in the publishing world, creating content for blogs and brands, I would work on local projects with friends that were political or artistic. And I would wonder if or when the puzzle pieces would fit together. It was really about three years ago that dialect work started to come fast and furiously and my business took off, and I was finally able to let all of those questions go.

Alright – so let’s talk business. Tell us about Samara Bay or LA Dialect Coach – what should we know?
Dialect coaches, for the most part, don’t specialize. Our job is to teach an actor a dialect, be it Standard American if they’re foreign or a regional or foreign accent if they’re American. This means on any given week I can coach a Brit to sound like he’s from Los Angeles, an Angeleno to sound like she’s from Boston, and a Bostonian to sound like he’s from South London. Sometimes it’s more exotic — last year I coached 1800’s Appalachian Georgian and a specific Burmese dialect, as well as three different African dialects and a made-up dialect that was meant to sound mysterious. A little time with a native speaker (often a sample I grab off the internet if I don’t have a local source) provides the foundation and I teach myself the dialect from that (using the International Phonetic Alphabet, a linguistics tool), and then teach the actor in a way that feels coherent with their acting choices. Each of us coaches (and there aren’t that many of us!) have this skill, and what sets each of us apart is just the manner in which we teach our actors. It’s quite personal, because acting itself is so personal. Each individual I work with has his or her own take on the character we’re working on, and a style of approaching acting, and it’s my job to give them new sounds for their mouth while honoring their instincts, making them feel comfortable and confident, and hopefully helping them find a way that the accent makes them act BETTER, not worse. Because I’m on the younger side compared to a number of the coaches working in TV and film, I often work with younger clients at an earlier stage of their careers, and then we get to grow together as their careers take off. Which has been a delight!

Any shoutouts? Who else deserves credit in this story – who has played a meaningful role?
I’ve lucked out with amazing mentors along the way. I would not have started out working in New York City right away without the help of a stunning coach named Kate Wilson. Not only was she an early inspiration (I spent a summer with her at the Public Theater in Manhattan, learning voice and speech and Shakespeare from her), but once I was out of grad school, she began handing me jobs she wasn’t able to take herself. Stephen Gabis was another coach who graciously did that. And in Los Angeles, I have a wonderful agent thanks to some more-established coaches who referred me. Because there aren’t that many of us, and we each work solo, we all crave interaction with each other I think, and enjoy sharing resources and ideas. Francie Brown has been extremely helpful, as has my voice and speech coach from grad school, Thom Jones. I’m honored to be their colleague. And clients have become advocates as well! I’m working on Preacher because the glorious Ruth Negga, who I worked with on Loving, suggested me for season 2 when they needed a coach. I’m flattered, and also thrilled to get to work with her again. I’ve done four projects with the fantastic Edgar Ramirez at his request, as well as helping him prepare his address to the United Nations last year.

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