Who Is Cynthia Blaise? 6 Things To Know About The Dialect Coach

Who Is Cynthia Blaise? 6 Things To Know About The Dialect Coach

Talk about entertainment speech therapy. Do you know the excitement that comes upon you when you hear your favorite actor or actress slot seamlessly into the role of a foreign character, mannerism, accent, and all? That’s the kind of work Cynthia Blaise is known for.

Blaise has been working as an actress, speech trainer, and dialect coach for a long time in the industry and has gone on to train actors on popular movies like Timequest (2000); 8 Mile (2002); Miami Vice (2006); and The Tiger Hunter (2016). As an actress, her credits include Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (1989); Key & Peele (2012 – 2015), and a few others.

Although Blaise, who was born in 1958, is both an actress and a dialect coach, she has had much more experience in the latter. Here are a few things you must know about Cynthia Blaise.

6 Things To Know About The Dialect Coach

1. She has Always Loved the Arts

A quick look at her early life and history and it shouldn’t be surprising that Cynthia Blaise has generally stuck to the entertainment industry and academics. The actress cum speech trainer who has always had a flair for the arts earned her Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Oregon where she studied Theatre. For her Master of Fine Arts degree, she moved on to the University of California, Irvine where she bagged an MFA in Acting.

Looking beyond her education, Blaise was at one time a member of the Detroit Acting Community. She has also handled speech and acting classes at various universities such as Wayne State University, Temple University, and the University of Illinois. Blaise has also acted in an academic directing capacity for projects which include Crimes of the Heart, The Cripple of Inishman, and Equus among others.

2. Blaise First Came on the Scene as an Actress

When you lump her credits as an actress and a dialect coach together, Cynthia has worked on over 25 projects in either capacity. She is more known and has racked up more experience as a speech trainer, however, she first tried to cut her teeth as an actress on the big screen.

Her first effort came in the 1989 movie Star Trek V: The Final Frontier. In the movie, Cynthia Blaise played the character Amanda and worked with big names like William Shatner as Kirk and George Takei as Sulu. Her next acting assignment would come 11 years later on Time quest. Her character in the movie was a teacher and she was also a dialect coach during the movie’s shoot.

In the years that followed, she would work as a dialect coach and speech organizer for the movies The Spitfire Grill (1996); Bad Apple (2004); Miami Vice (2006); Justice (2006, 7 episodes); Faster (2010); and Hardcore Henry (2015) among others. In her career, she has also worked on and with the likes of Kim Basinger, Eminem, Penelope Cruz, Dwayne Johnson, Billy Bob Thornton, Colin Farrell, Jamie Foxx, Chris Hemsworth, Keegan-Michael Key, and a host of other entertainment A-listers.

3. She Married Keegan-Michael Key in 1998

It is not clear when Cynthia Blaise met comedian and actor Keegan-Michael. However, they met while she was a member of the Detroit Acting Community. Both Blaise and Key were working at the Detroit Repertory Theatre at the time of their meeting.

Their relationship soon turned into a love story that saw them tie the knot on December 27, 1998. Blaise who is 14 years older than Keegan was said to have supported him financially in the early stages of his career before his name finally became bigger than hers.

The couple worked together on one of Keegan-Michaels’s popular projects Key and Peele. Cynthia Blaise played the character, Mrs. Carruthers, in 5 episodes of the show from 2012 to 2015 when it was canceled.

4. Cynthia Blaise Road to Divorce was a Messy One

Cynthia’s love story would finally begin to unravel in 2015 when they separated and Key filed for divorce. The union was officially ended on November 16, 2017.

Although Key stated the reason for divorce as “irreconcilable differences”, it turns out that part of the reason for the breakdown of the marriage was his relationship with Boy Meets Girl producer Elisa Pugliese who he was reportedly already seeing while he was still with Blaise.

During the divorce settlement, it was agreed that Key would pay Blaise monthly spousal support to the tune of $34,000 and also 21 percent of gross earnings from all his endeavors. She also got part of a time-sharing formula for their vacation home in Mexico and their 2016 Subaru Crosstrek. The couple had no children together.

5. Cynthia Blaise Suffered Health Problems from the Divorce

Maybe it’s because she put so much into the relationship but whatever the reason, Blaise took the divorce really hard. She was reported to be on five different medications treating different health issues at the time Keegan filed for divorce.

According to a TMZ publication, some of the health issues Cynthia suffered in the aftermath of the divorce included severe anxiety, depression, and PTSD. She also lost weight and experienced hair loss as well, all of which caused her to quit working.

6. Cynthia Blaise Ex Keegan-Michael has Remarried

Although Cynthia Blaise is most likely still single, her ex-husband has moved on with his new beau Elisa Pugliese. They have never hidden their affection for each other and have been going out to public events together since 2017.

Keegan proposed to Elisa in the weeks following the finalizing of his divorce from Cynthia Blaise. On June 8, 2018, he walked down the aisle with the producer and they started their life together.

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