Full transcript
0:00Say what, again!
0:01Say what, again!
0:02I dare you!
0:03What do Samuel L. Jackson.
0:05I got enough friends!
0:06Bruce Willis,
0:08James Earl Jones.
0:09I find your lack of faith disturbing!
0:12Emily Blunt.
0:13The memory of his volumes brings a smile.
0:17and I… have in common?
0:18We’re all stutterers.
0:20You probably don’t know
0:22that, because obviously
0:23we earn our living by speaking.
0:26But we are still stutterers.
0:28Are you cured?
0:29Am I cured? Are you?
0:32None of us is cured.
0:33But our stuttering
0:34was much worse
0:35when we were young.
0:36It was emotional because
0:37it was terrifying.
0:38I mean you're just gripped
0:39with terror being a
0:41stutterer most of the time.
0:43Even now she avoids
0:44proposing movie scenes.
0:46If I want to pitch a scene,
0:48I can't do it.
0:49What would that be like?
0:50It would be like:
0:52“Hey John, how about we start it?
0:54But this time he could walk in
0:55and he could be like
0:58he could, he could, he could, say about the lights.
1:03You could change the lights."
1:04And it just doesn't look
1:05convincing suddenly.
1:06Whereas it was a good idea
1:07to change the lights.
1:08I would rather say,
1:09give me the scene and
1:10I'll write it and
1:10then I'll send it to you.
1:13So you still avoid?
1:15Mhm certain things yeah.
1:18If I'm calling someone and
1:19they go, "what's your name?"
1:22It's tough. I can feel myself
1:23talking myself into it
1:25as the phone's ringing.
1:26I'm like, *exhales*
1:30And so you avoid
1:31saying your name?
1:32Sometimes. Yeah, on the phone.
1:34And yet you're this
1:36hugely successful actress.
1:38Tell how it began… as a kid.
1:40You just shut up.
1:41I didn't want to be in any
1:42of the school plays.
1:43I did not want to read out
1:45my poem in class.
1:46I had a teacher when
1:47I was 10 and I needed
1:49to go to the bathroom
1:50and I needed to just say,
1:51I need to go to the bathroom.
1:53And I couldn't say it.
1:54And she goes, "oh, spit it out."
1:57And it just makes it so much worse.
1:59To be ashamed of.
2:00Yeah, you did not talk about it.
2:04So English repressed male tactic,
2:08but it was not talked about at all.
2:11And here we are talking
2:12about it because
2:14we think that'll help?
2:15Well, I think we have to
2:16de-stigmatize this thing.
2:18I mean, it's just,
2:19nobody talks about it.
2:20Even in her family, where her
2:22Grandfather, uncle,
2:23and cousin stuttered too.
2:25Stuttering often runs in families.
2:27And like deafness, autism,
2:29and color blindness,
2:30it is more common among boys.
2:32You're unusual. It's mostly men.
2:34I didn't realize that
2:36one in four stutterers are girls.
2:38We men have a lot of problems you women don't have.
2:40*laughs*
2:42You are literally the last person
2:44on Earth I want to see.
2:46I could slap the
2:46**** out of you.
2:47I really could.
2:47Blunt rarely stutters
2:49when she acts.
2:50Come find me when you wake up!
2:52*EXPLOSION*
2:53because playing a character
2:54often allows stutterers
2:55to be fluent.
2:56Oh I’m sorry, did I
2:57break your concentration?
2:58It’s why we rarely
2:59hear these movie stars stutter.
3:01Come out to the coast,
3:02we’ll get together,
3:03have a few laughs.
3:05When I was on stage
3:06my stutter disappeared.
3:07Likewise, in school,
3:08Blunt discovered she
3:09didn’t stutter when
3:10doing impressions.
3:11Even though you
3:12were afraid to speak,
3:13you were doing funny voices?
3:15I think with my friends,
3:16I could mess around
3:17in the playground and
3:18do silly voices.
3:19When she was 12,
3:20a theater teacher noticed that.
3:22So he'd watched me I guess,
3:24and he said, "I think
3:25you should do the class play
3:26and so why don't you just
3:26do it in a silly voice?"
3:30So I did a really stupid
3:32Northern English accent.
3:33And it did allow
3:34for great fluency.
3:36Did this make you feel,
3:38"oh my god, I can speak."
3:39Was it different?
3:40Yeah, it was emotional.
3:43I wouldn't say,
3:44even though it would
3:44make a great soundbite,
3:45that it became the moment
3:47where I decided
3:47I want to be an actress.
3:48It's not true.
3:49But I have to be grateful to it.
3:52It did free up my speech
3:53in a huge way.
3:54It was the beginning of it.
3:56You can do other
3:57voices as an actor.
3:58As a news person,
3:59I'm supposed to be
4:01a normal person talking.
4:02So you could just try a
4:04Texan accent next time.
4:05Just see if people
4:05would find that strange.
4:08Yeah, it would be strange.
4:09*laughs*
4:12What finally diminished
4:13my stuttering, as I reported
4:15on 20/20 was:
4:16This place.
4:17The Communications Research Institute.
4:19They re-taught us stutterers
4:21how to make each sound.
4:23To do that
4:24they slowed us down
4:25to two seconds per syllable.
4:27*slowed speech practice*
4:32Then for 8 hours a day,
4:34everyone sits in
4:35little rooms talking to this box.
4:38It was so boring,
4:40but I was motivated.
4:41I was willing to do
4:42all the practice
4:43and we were like
4:44cows mooing at each other.
4:45*laughs*
4:46But actually as you
4:47were doing it to me
4:48as a stutterer,
4:49it made me feel really relaxed.
4:52It really did.
4:53Just hearing you do it,
4:54I was like, oh, that would work.
4:56That treatment helped many,
4:57and afterward:
4:59I just wanted to talk and talk
5:00and talk and not stop.
5:03Because when you can
5:04say what you want,
5:06it’s the greatest feeling in the world.
5:08For me this was a cure.
5:11I was like a cork had been
5:12taken out of a bottle.
5:13Suddenly I can talk to people,
5:16including 20/20’s anchors.
5:18I stuttered pretty badly.
5:19I would talk like this
5:23a lot of the time.
5:24That stutter became real
5:25once I started.
5:26If you stuttered badly,
5:27why did you go into television?
5:29I didn’t intend to go on the air.
5:30I came into television as a researcher.
5:32And when I first went on the air
5:34I had lots of trouble and
5:35was about to quit, and
5:36that’s when I found
5:36that clinic in Virginia
5:38that helped me.
5:38This clinic has since closed.
5:40And now I understand that
5:42their treatment didn’t
5:42work for everyone.
5:44I got letters saying, no,
5:46this didn't work for me.
5:48I don't know if one method
5:49will work for everyone.
5:50I think you have to keep trying different approaches.
5:53Before I was finally helped, I tried lots of dubious approaches.
5:58I’m struck by how confident
6:00some therapists are.
6:01Say, oh, I can cure that.
6:03The hypnotist says, oh,
6:04I can cure stuttering.
6:05So I did that... nothing. No effect
6:08Transcendental meditation.
6:10I still do it, but...
6:13Not for stuttering?
6:14No, I never did it for stuttering,
6:15but I just do it so
6:16I can have a nap.
6:18*laughs*
6:19What else did you do?
6:20Acupuncture. Okay.
6:21Biofeedback. Scream therapy.
6:23Scream therapy? Into like a pillow?
6:26They all work briefly
6:27because they're a distraction.
6:29Ladies and gentleman
6:30of the the J-J-J-
6:31This lawyer in “My Cousin Vinny”
6:33demonstrates some.
6:35On on on, January f-f-f-f-f-f-f-f...
6:38He slaps the table
6:39and rubs his eye.
6:40But once a distraction
6:42becomes automatic,
6:43it no longer works.
6:44So you have to add
6:45more movements.
6:46You've seen people,
6:47they contort their
6:48whole bodies to get
6:49a syllable out.
6:51One time it worked
6:51to go like this.
6:53Just to hit something
6:53as you're trying to say it.
6:54But then the
6:54next time that didn't
6:55work and so they...
6:56Yeah. No, you see a lot
6:57of the tics in the head.
6:58I used to turn my head away
7:00like that to try and
7:01get a word out.
7:01Just to force it out.
7:02A better approach is to do
7:04what former CEO of General Electric did.
7:07Tell me about... *begins stuttering*
7:08How could you run this
7:09big company with this stutter?
7:11I asked him.
7:11What did he say?
7:12And he said,
7:13I just didn't give a shit.
7:15Wow.
7:17But I always did and I still do.
7:19It's embarrassing in front of...
7:20For sure. I understand.
7:21I would love not to
7:22give a shit.
7:23I think it would be great.
7:24That seems to be
7:25what Elon Musk does.
7:27Third... *Stutters*
7:29*audience laughs*
7:33And stuttering away is what the
7:35American Institute for Stuttering teaches.
7:38Both Blunt and I are on the Board.
7:40Stutter openly.
7:41Stutter free!
7:42But neither I, nor Blunt
7:44want to stutter in front of people
7:46It really misrepresents you.
7:48You know what you want to say.
7:50You know who you are as a person,
7:52but you can't convey it and
7:54it's just imprisoning in that way.
7:57Imprisoning is a good word.
7:59It felt like I was imprisoned.
8:01Yeah, there's a sort of imposter
8:02in you that you're like,
8:03this isn't me, it's not who I am.
8:06So I think it's just getting past that
8:09and I think that's the hardest thing
8:11to get past is the shame.
8:13It's the hardest part of it.
8:16We shouldn't be ashamed.
8:17Don't be ashamed
8:17Everyone's got something.
8:18That's just our thing.
8:20Thank you, Emily Blunt.
8:21Thank you so much.
8:23*whoosh* *whoosh*
8:24Glad I can speak more freely now.
8:26If you’d like more information about
8:28stuttering we list several resources
8:30in the description below this video.