If you’ve been watching the Netflix show, Inventing Anna, there’s a chance that you were confused by something other than the lies of the protagonist, played by Julia Garner: her accent.
Inventing Anna follows the true story of Anna Delvey, a German heiress who lived the good life: lavish parties, designer clothes, luxury trips, private jets, and more. Delvey was a mega-socialite who surrounded herself with the elite and the elite only. The catch? Anna Delvey doesn’t exist. Behind the facade was Anna Sorokin, a woman from Russia who posed as a socialite in order to con her way through the wealthy elite.
While Inventing Anna topped the Netflix charts, there was one thing viewers (and myself) couldn’t get past: WTF is that annoying accent? Is that what Anna Delvey sounds like in real life? Garner shed some light on it during a recent interview with Jimmy Fallon.
Anna Delvey’s real-life accent is kind of complicated.
Delvey’s manner of speaking, much like her life, was made up. Originally from Russia but posing as a German woman, Delvey’s accent was a mixture of her Russian and German influences in order to help her better play the part.
However, after living in New York City, Delvey developed an “American twang,” according to Marie Claire. Not only did this make Delvey’s accent wildly unique, it gave her a better sense of authenticity when it came to swindling the NYC elite out of hundreds of thousands of dollars because, hey, the girl can hustle.
Julia Garner met with Anna to study her voice.
Many fans were confused about Julia Garner’s portrayal of Anna Delvey, with several claiming her pronunciation to be “terrible” and “baffling.” Fans saw her intonation as especially strange given her fantastic accent work on the Netflix show Ozark. However, if you know what you know about Anna Delvey and her complicated living history, there’s no denying that she pulls off the… interesting cadence.
However, Garner didn’t do it all herself. In fact, as reported in MSN, Garner had actually met with Delvey during her incarceration to learn more about her (and to listen in on that unique accent). Furthermore, Garner actually worked with a dialect coach in order to perfect Delvey’s inflection, she revealed in a February 2022 interview with IndieWire. And during her appearance on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon, Garner said this is the “hardest accent she’s ever done.”
Delvey had some opinions on Garner’s accent, and the show as a whole.
Despite their meeting, Delvey wasn’t totally pleased with Garner’s portrayal, especially her accent.
In a February 11 interview with Insider, Delvey said, “I don’t feel like I sound like that,” and that listening to Garner’s accent was “like when you hear yourself on TV and it’s not really the voice you hear in your head when you speak.”
However, Delvey did reveal that Garner’s accent was, for the most part, accurate. Well, as accurate as a fake accent can be, anyway. “I don’t think it’s off.” Delvey said. “I think she kind of falls in and out of it. Some of it she gets right — but not everything.”
Delvey also wrote a letter, published by Insider on February 2, that revealed her true feelings about the show. And in summary? Doesn’t seem like she’ll be watching the show in its entirety.
“It doesn’t look like I’ll be watching ‘Inventing Anna’ anytime soon,” Delvey writes. “Even if I were to pull some strings and make it happen, nothing about seeing a fictionalized version of myself in this criminal-insane-asylum setting sounds appealing to me.”