‘Task’ Dialect Coach on Getting the Cast to Make Those Very Specific Pennsylvania Sounds: ‘It’s Such a Strange Accent’
Throughout “Task,” the seven-episode crime thriller that concluded on HBO on Oct. 19, viewers were re-introduced to the specific Delaware County, Pa. accent that they’d perhaps first heard in HBO’s 2021 hit “Mare of Easttown,” from creator Brad Ingelsby. On “Mare,” southeastern Pennsylvanians were generally pleased with the way that Kate Winslet, Jean Smart and especially Evan Peters bravely tackled the sounds of the region. Ingelsby, who is from the area, returned to Delaware County (or Delco, as it’s known to locals) with “Task,” and a new set of actors mastered the peculiar pronunciations.
Susanne Sulby is the hero here. She’s an actor and dialect coach from Doylestown, Pa., (that’s Bucks County, still a Philly suburb but a slightly different accent than the “Task” crew), and studied acting at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia. She splits her time between Yardley, Pa., and Marina del Rey, and here, spoke with Variety about being the “Task” master.
I ended up teaching when I was at the University of the Arts, and I was very good at speech. I have a good ear. I’m not a linguist, but in acting school, you’re taught a rudimentary understanding of how language works, and how you can switch one sound to another, or how in one accent, the sound lands in a certain part of your mouth. So you begin to distinguish. And then at that time, it was not as sophisticated as it is now, and luckily, I had the time to grow and learn. So basically, I taught myself as, I think many, many dialect coaches do — they start off either in acting or in linguistics, and if you’re going to be a dialect coach, you do have to learn a fair amount about the sounds that we make.
The first time I coached somebody with this, was Jacki Weaver in “Silver Linings Playbook,” and she was like, “Really?” And then, when I was coaching on “Mare of Easttown,” I met with Evan Peters, and he was like, “This is insane.” And I was like, “Just go for it!”
On “Task,” we don’t even go hard. I mean, if you’re from here and you have spent time here; if you’ve ever gone to an Eagles game or a Phillies game, the fans go hard. Come on, it can get really crazy out there.
It’s such a strange accent. It’s the sounds that come from the north, like “coffee” and “talk” and “call,” and then the sounds that sort of come up from the south, like the really strong Rs, like “car” and “hard,” and then it merges. Then there’s also immigration that influences the accent — like, South Philly’s a little different because there are more Italians there. If you notice, Grasso’s accent is a little different than everybody else’s, and it’s because he is from South Philly. I am collecting samples from people from South Philly — I recorded them for Fabien Frankel. And then I have another lovely woman who has helped me over the years. Her name is Eileen Dolly, and she is from Delco, which is even more specific and maybe stronger.
There’s two different things. There are sounds, and then there are words or phrases that are particular. So the sounds, there’s “o,” like “hoagie” or “home” or “don’t,” or “phone.” And then there’s sounds like in “pike” or “night.” That’s a very specific sound. The other sound that I feel is very specific to the area is the short “o,” like “coffee,” “hot dog,” “come on.” [Sulby pronounces these words in a thick Delaware County accent.] I made a little sticker that had all kinds of Delco and Philly phrases on it, like “come on” and “home” and “hoagie,” those kinds of things. The other sound that’s very specific, is the “s” sound, and it’s hard for people to get because it feels too sharp.
Coaching is first about doing research. I’m learning from the writer, the showrunner, from the director, and from the actors about the character they want to create, and I’m also hopefully gathering some information for them about the area that can help them make decisions.
So across the board, the more touches you have outside of your block, the chances are that your accent is going to be changed. Delco is particularly interesting because people people love Delco. If they’re from Delco, it’s Delco green. Delco strong — a very big deal. So Tom Pelphrey’s character Robbie has a very strong accent. He utilized me, and then he found that one of the women on the crew — we had a lot of local crew — had a brother who had a really strong accent, so Tom would talk football with that guy for hours on end to perfect it, to just listen to the cadences and stuff like that.
Mark Ruffalo was a totally different thing, because his character went to seminary, he was in the FBI. He had to do public speaking. So he’s a pretty worldly guy. He had just little pieces of the accent in his speech.
Then it ran the gamut. I mean, we had bikers — the samples that I had for them, they could choose different samples from all over the city, because North Philly sounds a little different than Delco or South Philly. There were different people that I had gathered recordings of. And Sam Keeley [Jayson Wilkes] had a really strong accent. He’s Irish. I don’t know if you know this, but there were probably eight different people who were from Ireland, England and South Africa in the cast.
Let’s talk about Emilia Jones for a second. She was so game. She’s such a talented actress, and she came early so that she could sort of soak up the environment. And that’s something that I love. We went to South Philly, which is not the actual accent that she took on, but you get to hear a lot of it in the area. You get to the feel of the blue collarness, right? And we went out to a couple of places in Delco, and drove around. I would send her clips; I’d send her podcasts. She was just eating it up. And she just loved Delco so much. At wrap, I actually bought her a pendant that said “Delco,” which she wears all the time. Sam Keeley, he really wanted to just dive into it. He kept his Philly accent the entire time. People did not know on set that he was Irish.
Dialect coaching is about finding out what the actors want then helping them craft the person they’re creating.
This interview has been edited and condensed.
Susanne Sulby is the hero here. She’s an actor and dialect coach from Doylestown, Pa., (that’s Bucks County, still a Philly suburb but a slightly different accent than the “Task” crew), and studied acting at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia. She splits her time between Yardley, Pa., and Marina del Rey, and here, spoke with Variety about being the “Task” master.
I ended up teaching when I was at the University of the Arts, and I was very good at speech. I have a good ear. I’m not a linguist, but in acting school, you’re taught a rudimentary understanding of how language works, and how you can switch one sound to another, or how in one accent, the sound lands in a certain part of your mouth. So you begin to distinguish. And then at that time, it was not as sophisticated as it is now, and luckily, I had the time to grow and learn. So basically, I taught myself as, I think many, many dialect coaches do — they start off either in acting or in linguistics, and if you’re going to be a dialect coach, you do have to learn a fair amount about the sounds that we make.
The first time I coached somebody with this, was Jacki Weaver in “Silver Linings Playbook,” and she was like, “Really?” And then, when I was coaching on “Mare of Easttown,” I met with Evan Peters, and he was like, “This is insane.” And I was like, “Just go for it!”
On “Task,” we don’t even go hard. I mean, if you’re from here and you have spent time here; if you’ve ever gone to an Eagles game or a Phillies game, the fans go hard. Come on, it can get really crazy out there.
It’s such a strange accent. It’s the sounds that come from the north, like “coffee” and “talk” and “call,” and then the sounds that sort of come up from the south, like the really strong Rs, like “car” and “hard,” and then it merges. Then there’s also immigration that influences the accent — like, South Philly’s a little different because there are more Italians there. If you notice, Grasso’s accent is a little different than everybody else’s, and it’s because he is from South Philly. I am collecting samples from people from South Philly — I recorded them for Fabien Frankel. And then I have another lovely woman who has helped me over the years. Her name is Eileen Dolly, and she is from Delco, which is even more specific and maybe stronger.
There’s two different things. There are sounds, and then there are words or phrases that are particular. So the sounds, there’s “o,” like “hoagie” or “home” or “don’t,” or “phone.” And then there’s sounds like in “pike” or “night.” That’s a very specific sound. The other sound that I feel is very specific to the area is the short “o,” like “coffee,” “hot dog,” “come on.” [Sulby pronounces these words in a thick Delaware County accent.] I made a little sticker that had all kinds of Delco and Philly phrases on it, like “come on” and “home” and “hoagie,” those kinds of things. The other sound that’s very specific, is the “s” sound, and it’s hard for people to get because it feels too sharp.
Coaching is first about doing research. I’m learning from the writer, the showrunner, from the director, and from the actors about the character they want to create, and I’m also hopefully gathering some information for them about the area that can help them make decisions.
So across the board, the more touches you have outside of your block, the chances are that your accent is going to be changed. Delco is particularly interesting because people people love Delco. If they’re from Delco, it’s Delco green. Delco strong — a very big deal. So Tom Pelphrey’s character Robbie has a very strong accent. He utilized me, and then he found that one of the women on the crew — we had a lot of local crew — had a brother who had a really strong accent, so Tom would talk football with that guy for hours on end to perfect it, to just listen to the cadences and stuff like that.
Mark Ruffalo was a totally different thing, because his character went to seminary, he was in the FBI. He had to do public speaking. So he’s a pretty worldly guy. He had just little pieces of the accent in his speech.
Then it ran the gamut. I mean, we had bikers — the samples that I had for them, they could choose different samples from all over the city, because North Philly sounds a little different than Delco or South Philly. There were different people that I had gathered recordings of. And Sam Keeley [Jayson Wilkes] had a really strong accent. He’s Irish. I don’t know if you know this, but there were probably eight different people who were from Ireland, England and South Africa in the cast.
Let’s talk about Emilia Jones for a second. She was so game. She’s such a talented actress, and she came early so that she could sort of soak up the environment. And that’s something that I love. We went to South Philly, which is not the actual accent that she took on, but you get to hear a lot of it in the area. You get to the feel of the blue collarness, right? And we went out to a couple of places in Delco, and drove around. I would send her clips; I’d send her podcasts. She was just eating it up. And she just loved Delco so much. At wrap, I actually bought her a pendant that said “Delco,” which she wears all the time. Sam Keeley, he really wanted to just dive into it. He kept his Philly accent the entire time. People did not know on set that he was Irish.
Dialect coaching is about finding out what the actors want then helping them craft the person they’re creating.
This interview has been edited and condensed.