French Tease

By Mollie Coyne

Expat Portrait:  Vernice Klier.

This week’s French Tease is the portrait of Vernice Klier, an American living in Paris. 

Who is Vernice Klier? 

You probably don’t know the name Vernice Klier.  But I guarantee you know her work.  If you’ve heard Carla Bruni sing in English or if you’ve seen The English Patient or Shrek, then you know Vernice Klier. 

Vernice is a soft-spoken, yet gregarious and energetic American who is the definition of a renaissance woman.  I wish I could articulate in one sentence all that she has accomplished, but that’s just not possible.  Mainly, Vernice is an acting coach for French actors.  More specifically, she is a voice and language coach teaching European actors how to speak English and execute lines in English-language scripts.

Fabienne Babe at Vernice's Master Class

She coached Juliette Binoche for her Oscar-winning role as Hana in The English Patient.  She did the same for Christian Clavier in the English-language remake of Les Visiteurs.  She also taught Vincent Cassel how to work in English—you may remember him and his hilarious ditty as the voice of Monsieur Hood in Shrek.

Vernice coaches on about two films per year.  She has done almost 40 films and her favorite experiences were working with Juliette Binoche in The English Patient and Mia Frye in The Dancer, with whom she did a lot of mime work for Mia’s role as a mute dancer.  Being an acting coach is clearly Vernice’s calling.  She tells me, “I really love it.  It’s like being a sculptor, modeling with the actor.” 

When I sat down to have tea with Vernice a few weeks ago, she had recently returned from a three-month stint in Hong Kong working on I Come With the Rain, the first English-language film by Franco-Vietnamese director Hung Anh Tran.  If you are familiar with Tran’s previous movies (l’Oduer de la Papaye Verte and A la Verticale de l’Ete), then you may also be familiar with Tran Nu Yen Khe, his leading lady—both on and off the set.  For three months of filming in Hong Kong, Vernice was Yen Khe’s voice coach, teaching her how to speak English in her first English-language role.  Her co-star on the project?  Josh Hartnett.  Look for the movie’s release this year.

But acting coach is just Vernice’s main hat.  She is also an accomplished photographer and artist and has had her artwork displayed in museums around Paris, including on exhibition at the Musée du Luxembourg. 

How did Vernice get to France? 

Vernice mimed her way to Paris.  She was the first woman to graduate from the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Clown College.  This school, up until its closure a decade ago, accepted only around 1% of its applicants.  I told you she was gregarious.  After officially becoming a clown, she came to Paris and studied mime under both Marcel Marceau and Étienne Decroux.  Like many people who come to Paris, she fell in love and has been here ever since.

Vernice’s uses her degrees in art and mime to coach actors, taking a holistic approach that the right brain can learn from the left brain.  Thus, she feels that picking up paint and brush can help actors develop language and acting skills that a normal master class wouldn’t draw out.  When she coaches actors, she has them work through different activities such as using their non-dominant hand to sketch a picture of their dominant hand.  I tried this myself and was surprised to learn that as simple as this sounds, you actually do end up drawing the hand that you are using.  She forces her actors to use a different perspective. 

Yen Khe talks about her experience working with Vernice

What is Vernice’s current project? 

Vernice has her feet firmly planted—one in Paris and the other in Hollywood.  She has worked in both the French and the American film industries for decades doing everything from helping American casting directors get in touch with French agents and training both American and French actors on how to audition for a role to helping film animators properly convey movement in their characters and writing song lyrics.

Vernice told me about some of the differences between Hollywood and the French film industry.  In the U.S., she tells me, industry folks are always studying, trying to learn the next new thing.  Even casting agents have continuing education.  In France, once a writer or actor has completed his university studies, the education is over.  She knows a lot of French actors who go to London in search of further study, regardless of their age. 

For someone who can easily navigate both the American and French film industries, it’s only natural that Vernice’s most recent project uses the term bridge.  Vernice (along with partners Pat Zraidi and Amy Werba) has just launched Bridge Media Network, a multilingual group to bring people in French media circles together.  Vernice wants to create a bridge between the talent and the industry and between France and Hollywood so that all these people can find each other and create projects.

The Bridge Media Network will be primarily web-based.  The site, which will officially launch soon, will provide a platform for actors, casting agents, directors, writers, musicians, and other industry professionals to post their CVs, photos, and video clips.  Once a month, the group will hold master classes, lectures and networking events. 

I attended the Bridge Media Network’s inaugural master class at World Place (yes, the former Man Ray), just off the Champs Elysées.  Set in the spacious and shabby/funky disco room downstairs, Vernice set the stage for what her new group will be doing.  Yen Khe and Fabienne Babe, as well as a slew of other Anglo and French actors, participated in a master class entitled The International Actor.  It was a mixture of traditional master class activities, lectures about what it’s like to be an international actor, tips on how to break into the acting scene here in Paris, and drinking and socializing at the bar upstairs.

Bridge Media Network’s next master class is on February 20 at Le Pavé d'Orsay (in the 7th) at 3 p.m.  The topic will be casting and the guest speaker will be Stéphane Foenkinos, the secretary general for ARDA, the casting director’s organization in Paris.  This class is free to attend, so if you’ve ever wanted a casting director to discover you, visit the Bridge Media Network for more information.

And Finally, a Sweet Tip.

How does Vernice get her French actors to properly pronounce the “th” consonant blend, I asked, hoping for some guidance in getting my kids to sound like native English speakers.  She said she goes through a lot of honey.  She makes her pupils stick their tongues out far enough for a little dab of the sweet stuff.