I'm trying to do a scene where the main actress checks the voicemail messages on her home phone. I want to know whats the best way to achieve this --I mean do I record the actors voices on a real answering machine or I would prefer using some sort of effect on premiere that would make it sound like its a voice message. I think i would have more control that way.

I would record the audio separately, because you'll have more quality control over the audio when you manipulate it in post to give it the voice-mail sound.

You can try ducttapeing the mic to the phone real tight and rec that way as an ADR and have the two people talk, you can hear a lot that way and the person you see is live and the one you don't sounds, well like on a phone.

i've done two things. i've recorded dialog through a phone into a USB mic for adding later, and i've recorded dialog straight into the mic and applied effects to it later. the odd thing is, the effects version sounds more authentic then the real one. i don't remember what filters to use, just play around with it.