Speech therapy is incredibly important for those struggling with stutters or speech impairments, which can affect some people from early childhood – with the service providing essential help for those who need it. While it might be hard to imagine, a host of A list stars had childhood stutters that were helped. So who has undergone speech therapy over the years? The folks at Preply have put together some of Hollywood's biggest stars who overcame their childhood stutter…
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Samuel L Jackson
Samuel previously opened up about his stutter, telling GQ: "I stuttered really, really, really bad for a long time...to the point that I stopped speaking for, like, almost a year in school."
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He revealed that his aunt took him to speech therapy which helped him out, but he will still occasionally have bad days with his stutter. And what else helps? His signature expletive! He explained: "It just does. It clicks a switch that stops the d-d-d-d, b-b-b-b."
James Earl Jones
Darth Vader himself had a stutter at a younger age and had to undergo speech therapy. He said that poetry and acting were key factors in helping him overcome his stutter. Speaking about how his life changed from becoming "non-verbal" as a child over his stutter while on the Dick Cavett Show, he said: "I had an English teacher in high school who discovered that when I read my own poetry I didn't stutter, because I wasn't in confrontation with other peoples' feelings or thoughts, but my own.
"And it came out better so I practised reading poetry for a while and I think that's what got me into a feeling for reading dramatic interpretations."
Bruce Willis
The Die Hard star struggled in school due to being teased about his stuttering, which led him to taking drama classes in an attempt to overcome the stuttering. He eventually went to Montclair State College to study drama, where his drama teacher arranged to him to see a speech therapist.
Speaking at the American Institute for Stuttering's annual gala in 2016, Bruce said: "The hardest thing I remember was being a kid stuttering. My advice to the people in this room is to never let anyone make you feel like an outcast, because you will never be an outcast."
Emily Blunt
Emily saw many specialists for her childhood stutter, but found success after her teacher suggested she try speaking in different accents to say her lines, which worked! She told W magazine: "I did have a bad stuttering problem as a child. I'd try to push the words out, but it was frustrating. My parents took me to speech coaches and relaxation coaches. It didn't work.
"Then one of my teachers at school had a brilliant idea and said, 'Why don't you speak in an accent in our school play?' I distanced myself from me through this character, and it was so freeing that my stuttering stopped when I was onstage. It was really a miracle."
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Marilyn Monroe
The movie icon had a stutter that troubled her periodically throughout her life. In fact, her breathy voice that was to become an iconic trademark was a result of her speech therapist teaching her to deliberately breathe prior to speaking in order to counter her stutter!
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