Accents are very tangible, blessedly, and if you have to do one, it's a way of getting into character. I can read it through a few times and pretend I know what I'm doing!
Lots of people there seemed to be in denial, in absolute denial, of death - everybody's pretending that death doesn't happen in L.A.; if you do enough exercise and take enough wheatgrass and have your pill every day, you might not die.