How Roberts, Willis and other stars fought stuttering

Method: Aspirated Speaking

The beginning of a career in cinema for Marilyn almost turned into a complete fiasco. By then, Norma Jeane had been working hard on her speech for years and struggling with stuttering, which manifested itself at the age of five. However, in the foster family where the girl was brought up, few people paid attention to such trifles. But the future star at some point firmly decided to become an actress and began to fight for every word spoken freely and without stopping. And finally, the first small roles, the long-awaited shooting, and she just can’t utter her lines from the first take. He brings the sound “m” at the beginning of words, on which the aspiring actress gets stuck, which is why they begin to call her a humor or “girl mm” behind her eyes.

They say that Marilyn’s career was saved by one of the speech therapists, who suggested an unexpected way: you do not need to try to speak the ill-fated words faster. On the contrary, it is worth trying to slightly stretch the phrase, pronounce it languidly, in a velvet voice with a slight hoarseness and gentle breath. It was this manner of speaking that became the trademark of the actress. Masking the signs of stuttering, she changed the rate of speech, breathed in a special way, opened her mouth, suddenly switched to a whisper … And drove men crazy!

Method: choral singing

Little Elvis’s voice was clear and clear from early childhood. But the real trouble was stuttering, so much so that the boy could hardly speak. If not for my mother, who knows what would have happened to a child who is embarrassed to say even a few words in public. Gladys Presley found her own way to help her son. She took him to the church choir and in every possible way encouraged her son’s desire to sing. The future king of ron and roll was barely five years old, and he was already standing in front of a microphone at a fair in Tupelo, Mississippi, where a vocal competition was held. He did not become a winner then, but he had to start somewhere. Moreover, singing is one of the most effective methods of fighting stuttering.  

Five years later, he still won the competition at the fair! And on my 11th birthday I received a guitar from my parents. Is it worth telling what a dizzying career began with this gift? And choral singing, of course. A few years later, no one remembered that once Elvis stumbled over every word.

Method: participation in school performances

Do you know what nickname the future “die hard” got in school? Tank tank! It’s not hard to guess why. He himself, having become a star, admitted in an interview that he could hardly speak: it took three minutes to complete a sentence! Parents accepted him for who he is, without focusing on the flaw – for them he was not worse than other children. But peers angrily made fun of Bruce. Oddly enough, he did not withdraw into himself. On the contrary, he became a ringleader and himself joked about his manner of speech. However, others also got it. A sharp tongue and a sense of humor became his weapons, and an attack was his best defense.

In the eighth grade, an unexpected event happened – Bruce took the stage in a school play. Contrary to the expectations of the audience, he pronounced his text without hesitation. Everyone was, to put it mildly, dumbfounded, and Willis himself descended from the stage into ordinary life and … began to stutter again. But he already realized that he could cope with his speech impediment. And most importantly, he knew what exactly would help him. So the guy was cured by acting. It also gave him world fame.

Method: change of scenery

The actress had to seriously work on her speech. She had two features at once that could become an obstacle on the way to a stellar career. One of them is a strong southern accent that gives off a provincial. Having moved to New York, the future “Pretty Woman” hired a phonetics teacher for her studies.

As for stuttering, as a child, Julia had no idea that something was wrong with her speech. Everyone in the family stuttered: mom, dad and brother Eric. Oddly enough, the fact that the parents divorced played a positive role. The children stayed with their father, and in the future they were very lucky with their stepmother. She tried her best to help her husband’s children get rid of their stuttering. In addition, the guys soon began to play small roles in the local theater workshop, which was run by their father, and the stage, as you know, works wonders.

Method: memorizing phrases backwards

Yes, the same Eric, Julia’s brother. He did not hide the family trait that he inherited. On the contrary, he said in an interview that as a child he suffered from the worst stuttering in the world. In order not to get stuck on uncomfortable sounds and syllables, he spent a lot of time and effort. Among the most effective exercises were reading poetry aloud in front of a mirror and playing with flips – pronouncing phrases from the last letter to the first. Not an easy task, by the way. And very useful even for those who speak perfectly without any stuttering.

Method: music therapy

Depardieu was a talented and ambitious guy when he came to conquer Paris in the mid-60s. External data, type, charm – it would seem, a complete set of qualities for success and fame. The only but – a strong stuttering. What main roles can we talk about when a person cannot finish even one sentence? In addition, he does not hear well with his right ear. Gerard went to the famous otolaryngologist Alfred Tomatis. He examined the patient and came to a paradoxical conclusion: physiologically, everything is in order. Both stuttering and hearing problems are most likely psychosomatics. The treatment was also unexpected: Gerard was prescribed … Mozart! He had to listen to the harmonious music of the Viennese classic for 2 hours every day. Plus, do exercises in speech technique. A few months later, it turned out that not only hearing, but also memory improved. As well as sleep and appetite. The stuttering also began to lose ground, and gradually disappeared altogether.

Method: uttering text with funny voices

“Why does everyone speak with ease, but is it so difficult for me?” – worried 12-year-old Emily, who by this age began to stutter so much that she almost stopped talking. But until the age of 7, this “stupid problem” did not exist. Perhaps the girl would have withdrawn into herself and never became an actress, if not for the school teacher. He unexpectedly invited Emily Blunt to play a role in the play. And in the process of learning the text, he asked to read it in different funny voices, then to parody the accent. It was fun and interesting. And most importantly, when the girl was fond of such a game, she stopped stuttering.

Method: expressive mat in front of a mirror

The future star of “Pulp Fiction” got a difficult childhood. When mom was taken to a psychiatric hospital, little Samuel stayed with his grandparents, and they did not really care that his grandson was too withdrawn and stuttered terribly. But lucky with my aunt! She was a theater class teacher, when she was a little she took her nephew in her productions. She also took the boy to psychologists and worked hard with him as a home speech therapist. Jackson himself unexpectedly invented his own method of therapy: he threw out a grudge against those who teased him at school in front of the mirror – loudly, expressively and many times in a row shouted out the most offensive and obscene words to his reflection. Now this expression in particularly harsh remarks is a feature of the actor. And he practically stopped stuttering. It is recognized that sometimes difficulties arise with some phrases, but then he simply replaces the difficult word with any other.

Method: punk rock and clowning

First, the film “Attraction”, then the series “Ekaterina”, the continuation of the blockbuster by Fyodor Bondarchuk … Rinal quickly became a star. But even now, when he is very worried, he starts to stutter slightly. As a child, this was a real disaster. The actor’s stuttering is hereditary, passed down through his father and grandfather. He was taken to the doctors, he did a lot at home, but he could not cope with the peculiarity of speech. Of course, the guy was complex. But even as a child, which passed in the small village of Alekseevskoye in Tatarstan, he was lucky to be in the music studio “Sad”, the head of which showed children clips, videotapes of concerts of the world’s best performers. A convinced rocker and drummer of his own punk-rock group, created in the 9th grade, grew up on this quality material. After school, Mukhametov entered a circus school, he wanted to work in the genre of dramatic clownery. Accidentally found out about audition at the Moscow Art Theater, decided to try … and ended up on the course of Kirill Serebrennikov. The fact is that, speaking on stage, Rinal found that he stopped stuttering on the drive. Therefore, I began to use this to defeat stuttering and gradually make it almost invisible.

Method: family support and your own stubbornness

The case when stuttering started after a specific event. Mom went to the hospital to give birth to her youngest son Valery, and two-year-old Kostya was taken by a nanny to her apartment, located in the same entrance. Her daughter and her husband lived with her. And now, before the eyes of the child, a wild scene unfolds – a family showdown of this couple with terrible screams and throwing knives. One of the knives nearly hit the boy. He was so scared that he stopped speaking altogether. After a while, the speech recovered, but became intermittent. Later, Konstantin admitted: a strong stutter changed his life. He became withdrawn, spent a lot of time alone, developing and listening to his inner world. Perhaps he would not have become a composer otherwise. Now a slight stuttering does not bother him, and when Meladze Sr. sings, it goes away altogether.