The Impression Everyone Can Do

If you are like me, and I assume you are, you do weird things when alone. Perhaps you do funny little dances or make up little games to pass your solitary time, but a lot of these are activities are kept to yourself, unless, say, a night of drinking draws out these private moments for show-and-tell. Me? I talk to myself. Not just ordinary hypothetical conversations or talking to inanimate objects. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve received much guidance from the sub-living in my time, but it doesn’t stop there. I delve into my secret vault of voices and accents.

My primary use of these is when I’m driving alone, usually on a long trip to keep myself awake. I only now thought of what I must look like to passing motorists, but that’s beside the point. The voices come shooting out and I sometimes don’t even know how to recreate the sound. However, I fully understand what actors mean by being in character. Depending on the voice, my whole mentality changes to suit the new sounds spewing from my mouth (this is how I came up with my new way of saying, “they’re from two different worlds”… “they’re just moles from different holes”).

Anyway, in my arsenal of bad accents and bizarre characters, I made a discovery and a realization. The discovery is that I do a pretty good Peter Lorre impression. The realization is that I’ve never heard a BAD Peter Lorre impression. I’m fairly certain that everyone on earth can do a passable Lorre imitation. In fact, I’d wager that there are many people who do one without even knowing it’s Peter Lorre because his voice has become so prevalent in pop culture. Looney Tunes’ cartoons frequently used the voice. There it is in The Brave Little Toaster. Even The Corpse Bride has a little creature running around speaking in that breathy, nervous, nasally voice.
In a way, it’s kind of remarkable that this little, foreign, character actor (as awesome as he may be) has had this sort of impact on pop culture. And that he’s so easy to mimic.