Sam Riley Talks Beatnik Bootcamp and Accents

What was the Beatnick bootcamp you had to attend in lieu of shooting On the Road?

Walter Salles wanted the main actors to get together and hang out with a lot of experts and biographers from the Beatnick generation, who came in to talk to us. We would watch films from that time and listen to Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie while doing push-ups and picking our fingers. I learned to type and I learned to speak French Canadian with a Quebecois accent. It was a full schedule.

How’s your American accent?

I think it’s better then passable. I just did the ADR and voice overs. The English have so many different dialects so we have to learn all of them, mainly to tease each other. Speaking like an American isn’t that difficult. Plus, there are a lot of recordings of Jack Kerouac to work off of. But you be the judge. Take someone who doesn’t know I’m English.

How was the shoot?

It’s a tough book to adapt into a film and a lot of people have tried and failed in the past. Well, it was a five or six month shoot. It was hard going. The therapy is going fine, by the way. I should be rid of all of it before too long.

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