Letitia Wright regrets changing accent when she moved to London
Letitia Wright regrets changing her Guyanese accent when she first moved to London as a child.
The Black Panther star's parents moved from Guyana to London when she was only seven years old, and to fit in at her English school, she tried to change the way she spoke.
"I didn't want anybody to make fun of me, so I started to change my accent, and that's where acting started to seep in," she told the Guardian. "When I started to grow up and learn all the accents, you realise, 'Oh, you changed your accent to present yourself to be something different, or for people to believe you belong to a particular place when you don't.' It was to combat the fact that I was different."
Her strategy eventually worked and after a couple of years, people stopped "making fun" of her accent. However, in hindsight, she wishes she didn't try to cover up what made her unique.
"I regret doing that now. As a kid you don't know how special you are. I wish I hadn't done it," she noted.
Elsewhere in the interview, the 29-year-old explained that she might be known as Letitia Wright in public, but she sees herself as "Tish, that girl from Tottenham".
When asked for the difference between her professional and private personas, she replied, “I guess Letitia is professional and on time and masters her schedule... Tish is just trying to think of ways she can fit in time for her family, trying to feed herself on art, and trying to remain grounded, so Letitia can have a good foundation.”
