An actress has gone viral for a series of impressions using “mouth acting”.
Mary Elizabeth Kelly, from Los Angeles, captured social media when she impersonated Keira Knightley, Fiona Shaw, and Phoebe Waller-Bridge using only their distinctive mouth movements.
The video, which was called “amazing” by a reposter, shows Ms Kelly morphing her mouth into 11 different characters.
She told the PA news agency that she has been making TikTok content “between auditions”, also creating several accent videos.
“Mouth acting”. This is amazing pic.twitter.com/VdbyWHLE8k
— Declan Cashin (@Tweet_Dec) January 8, 2021
The actress, aged 30, said she began noticing actors’ mouth movements after watching Pirates Of The Caribbean.
“I’m a huge film and TV watcher and am always drawn to the mouth movements and idiosyncrasies of actors for my own study and for fun,” she told PA.
“I think I was watching Pirates Of The Caribbean and noticed Johnny Depp’s mouth movements were so much a part of his performance and after that I started noticing it in other actors and made a list.
“I love impersonating other actors and doing accents and such, so I thought it’d be fun to show all the actors who act with their mouths!”
She told PA: “I was thrilled to see it had made its way to Twitter.
“Then once it took off, I was overwhelmed and very thankful that people were into it and that I could help bring people joy in this tumultuous period.
“I’m very lucky to have had some auditions and a little work during the pandemic but auditions and bookings, especially in LA, have slowed down tremendously.
“I know many of my fellow actors are experiencing the same!”
