10 Actors Who Completely Transformed Their Voices For a Role

Find out what these stars had to say about transforming their voices…

1. Austin Butler

Austin Butler spent nearly three years of his life getting ready to portray Elvis and by the time filming wrapped, the deep, sultry drawl had stuck with him. Even months after the film premiered, Austin continued to sound a lot like Elvis. When his vocal change began to make headlines, Austin admitted he hadn't noticed his voice change and later said he figured he had damaged his vocal chords with all the singing as one song sometimes required 40 takes.

"I often liken it to when somebody lives in another country for a long time. I had three years where [Elvis] was my only focus in life, so I'm sure there's just pieces of my DNA that will always be linked in that way," Austin said.

2. Hugh Jackman

Hugh Jackman not only completely dropped his Australian accent to play Wolverine on the big screen but says he also ended up damaging his voice with all the "growling and yelling." Looking back, Hugh admits he used his voice in a way he probably shouldn’t have.

"I've done some damage to my voice with 'Wolverine.' My falsetto is not as strong as it used to be and that I directly put down to some of the growling and yelling. My voice teacher in drama school would've been horrified by some of the things I did [in 'Wolverine'],” Hugh said during an appearance on BBC Radio 4's "Front Row." 

3. Lupita Nyong'o

While working on "Us," Lupita Nyong'o stayed in character both on and off set -- and used her haunting voice at all times. Lupita says she developed her character's voice after studying a real-life speech condition called spasmodic dysphonia, which stems from trauma.

"It's sometimes emotional, sometimes physical, sometimes inexplicable, where your vocal chords involuntarily spasm and create this irregular flow of air. I built off of that and experienced someone with the condition, and I did more research and met up with people with the condition to talk about their personal experiences with it," Lupita told People.

4. Idris Elba

In "Mandela: Long Walk To Freedom," Idris Elba worked to recreate Nelson Mandela's South African accent. He says shifting from his British accent wasn't as hard as challenging as it could have been, considering he was raised by West African parents.

"[Director] Justin [Chadwick] and I wanted to make sure everything else was absolutely as it was, especially the voice," Idris told NPR. "And my parents are West African .. Which is very different from Southern Africa in terms of the way they speak English. However, that sort of cadence I'm quite used to. So I had a foundation to understand where to start from."

5. Michelle Williams

When Michelle Williams took on the role of Marilyn Monroe in "My Week With Marilyn," she spent an extensive amount of time mastering Marilyn's voice. In her research, she discovered that the voice Marilyn was known to use in public was different from what she used in her private life -- so she perfected Marilyn's real voice too.

"I knew I would need as long as humanly possible to make this transformation…The voice that you come to associate with Marilyn, her voice in the movies, that's not her voice," Michelle shared in a Making Of interview. "From all the reading and all the research that I did, that was a character that she developed. It was something that she put on. That was years of training, vocal coaching, and it was an affectation that she developed. And from my understanding, her real voice was quite normal."

6. Nicole Kidman

As an Australian, Nicole Kidman had to put in a lot of work to master the voice of Lucille Ball for her role in "Being the Ricardos." Nicole says she spent two months transforming her voice and even smoked herbal cigarettes, which Lucille smoked in real life.

"I worked on the dialect with a fantastic dialect coach. Finding her voice was probably one of the key things because there's actually two characters: there's Lucille Ball, who was a heavy smoker and had a much deeper voice, and who speaks very directly and always looks you in the eye, and then there is Lucy Ricardo, who actually is placed way higher, an octave higher," Nicole said on "The Jess Cagle Show."

7. Meryl Streep

When Meryl Streep was cast in "Sophie's Choice," she knew she would have to speak with a Polish accent. Instead of mastering just sounding Polish, she decided to learn the entire language. She later found out that some of the scenes would be in German -- so she worked on learning that language too.

"I thought it would be a piece of cake, like picking up Italian or French or something—but it’s not," Meryl said of learning Polish. "It's a lot like Latin because there are seven cases, I think – my teacher will kill me if I don't get this right -- grammar wasn't my strong point, I can get the accent…Because of that, it was real hard to learn. You have to parse every sentence as you speak it, every word changes its ending according to whether it's the object of a sentence or the subject or the indirect object. It's really wild."

8. Johnny Depp

For his role as Willy Wonka in "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory," Johnny Depp got creative with his voice. When transforming into the character, Johnny says he had some unusual inspiration in mind that was definitely very different from his usual speaking voice.

"The character Willy Wonka for me, I started thinking about children's show hosts, you know, those guys who talk, [like], 'Hi. Good afternoon everyone. Is everyone happy?' That guy ... but then I thought, well, that's an interesting place to start, what's the next layer of the ingredients, you know? And then I thought…What would George W. Bush sound like if he were, not stoned, but incredibly stoned?" Johnny said during an event.

9. Joaquin Phoenix

When Joaquin Phoenix portrayed Johnny Cash in "Walk the Line," he had to master his deep baritone voice. Joaquin worked extensively with a vocal coach and admitted it took a lot of practice. On top of that, he says the vocal exercises made it tough to get into character.

"It's the most humiliating process I've ever endured because you do these exercises, [with] all these vowels…and it's so uncomfortable, I can't tell you…It was very, very difficult,” Joaquin said during an appearance on "Late Night with Conan O'Brien."

10. Kristen Stewart

Kristen Stewart dedicated six months to perfecting her British accent for her role as Princess Diana in "Spencer." During that period, she worked with a dialect coach to make sure that she truly did Diana "justice."

"They make it a very physical thing and they describe what your tongue does, how open your mouth has to be. Like, when I speak, I barely open my mouth. Everything's at the back of my throat…When [Diana] speaks, it's open. I look like a completely different person in trying to make that sound," Kristen said on "The Howard Stern Show."

11. Forest Whitaker

For Forest Whitaker's Oscar-winning role as African dictator Idi Amin in "The Last King of Scotland," he had to learn to speak with a Ugandan accent. Looking back, Forest says the role required more research than any other character he'd ever played before.

"I did a massive amount to prepare for this," Forest said during the Toronto Film Festival. "First of all I started learning Swahili, learning the accent, then I had to study all the recording as well as all the books, tapes, documentaries…When I went to Uganda I met with his brother, sister, his ministers, his generals and even to the Ugandan king. I did more research for this role than any other character I’ve probably ever played."