Joan Washington

Joan Washington (née Geddie; 21 December 1946 – 2 September 2021) was a British dialect coach, who trained many high-profile actors across film, television, and theatre.

Personal life Joan Geddie was born in Aberdeen, Scotland, on 21 December 1946, to John Geddie and Maggie Cook, a doctor and nurse respectively. In 2023, Grant published a memoir titled A Pocketful of Happiness, based on his diaries and named after the instruction to find a "pocketful of happiness in each day", which Washington had given him during her illness. He described her attitude following diagnosis eight months before her death as "accepting, clear sighted, sanguine and totally without self pity".

Career Washington was an acclaimed dialect coach, who worked with actors including Penélope Cruz, Thandiwe Newton, and Jessica Chastain. In 1992, Frances Barber told The Times that she could not have managed her varied roles at the National Theatre without the training of Washington, then the theatre's accent coach.

Washington's skill in coaching came as a result of thorough research, and early experience. While teaching standard English pronunciation at the Royal College of Nursing (where students came from across Britain and the Commonwealth), she made recordings of their accents. These later formed the basis of a library of reference tapes accumulated by Washington. To ensure the accuracy of accents from past decades, she conducted recorded interviews with older Britons, as well as making use of historic recordings — such as those made of British prisoners by Germans during World War I.

Selected filmography

Yentl (1983) 101 Dalmatians (1996) 102 Dalmatians (2000) The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou (2004) Notes on a Scandal (2006) Into the Storm (2009) Green Zone (2010) Cinderella (2015) Safe House (2012) The Hustle (2019) The Witches (2020)