The first thing you notice about Julia Garner’s performance as Anna Delvey, the conwoman at the heart of the new Netflix series Inventing Anna, is her character’s difficult-to-place, vaguely European accent. (In real life, Delvey was born in Russia and grew up in Germany. Later on, according to writer Chloe Malle, she “mimicked American English by watching shows like Gossip Girl.”) It was a way of speaking that didn’t come easily for Garner. In fact, in an interview for Town & Country‘s February cover story, the actress, who is also known for playing Ruth Langmore in Ozark and Kimberly Breland in The Americans, called it “the hardest accent I’ll ever do.”
“My tongue on Ozark is completely different from my tongue for Delvey. Anna’s tongue is kind of flat. It almost feels heavy and fat. I completely had to change how I moved my tongue in three weeks,” she said.
But that work perfecting Anna’s intonation paid off. Not only was it of critical importance to the real life Anna Delvey, whom Garner visited in prison—“She’s like, ‘Please, let me hear it,’ ”—but Shonda Rhimes, the creator and executive producer of the series also sees it as a critical part of Garner’s embodiment of Anna.
“Julia spent a lot of time perfecting [Anna’s accent],” Rhimes said, “and ultimately I think it was one of the biggest pieces in helping embody this character.”
Inventing Anna is streaming now on Netflix.
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