Home › Forums › Open Discussion › Accent Swapping Actors – Best & Worst
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October 24, 2014 at 6:59 pm #613018
wakefloodParticipantOK, so there has been a truckload of actors/actresses from the UK/Australia playing ‘mericans and visa versa.
In fact, it seems to be something of a fad. I’m beginning to wonder if the casting directors are doing it on a dare or something?
The more recent wave started in the ’90’s/00’s with Paltrow, Zellweger going across the pond and actors like Guy Pearce and Nicole Kidman leading the Aussie pack that ended up including like 2 or 3 actors doing Louisiana drawls on True Blood???
The worst might have been the dead rockstar’s wife in Californication. Wow. Horrific. It might be the case that the Brits/Aussies do us far better than we do them?
So…looking for your favs and most ridiculous.
We’ll have to do a vote since there’s a ton of both.
Whatcha’ got?
October 24, 2014 at 7:02 pm #815361
wakefloodParticipantI’m wondering how long it’s going to take before someone mentions one specific one I have in mind???
Actually there’s two. One doesn’t have the Brit/Aussie accent connection but is infamous on it’s own.
October 24, 2014 at 8:28 pm #815362
LindseyParticipantI thought Kate Winslet did a pretty good job as an American in “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.” And if you haven’t seen it, GO NOW.
Ryan Kwanten did the best job of hiding his native accent in True Blood, probably because his character was pretty one-dimensional.
OOOOH and Hugh Laurie in House, he does a good job too.
October 24, 2014 at 8:46 pm #815363
GinaParticipantDick Van Dyke’s take on a Cockney accent in Mary Poppins. It was so bad he stuck with his own in Chitty, Chitty, Bang, Bang.
October 24, 2014 at 8:48 pm #815364
anonymeParticipantI would definitely agree that Brits & Aussies do better American accents than we do theirs. Examples: Idris Elba (The Wire), Robin McLeavy (Hell on Wheels) – the list is long.
Russell Crowe thinks that his accents are great, but they’re pretty crap. Several journalists have almost been punched out for saying so.
One American who can do any accent brilliantly is Meryl Streep.
The worst accent I’ve ever heard was Renee Zellweger in “Bridget Jone’s Diary”.
October 24, 2014 at 9:06 pm #815365
KimberleyParticipantI agree re: Renee Zellweger’s accent. Andrew Lincoln (Love, Actually, and Walking Dead) does a great American accent. I think the actress who plays Maggie generally speaks with a British accent, so her accent is also okay. Oooh, Jason Statham did a terrible American accent in The Transporter. Damian Lewis’s American isn’t too bad. Not sure if anyone has seen strike back. The bloke who plays the English guy is actually American, and the bloke who plays the American is Australian. The bloke who plays Daniel in the show Revenge is also a brit.
Randomly, years ago when I worked at Starbucks corporate, we had to do a skit. My coworkers thought I did a fantastic British accent…and then they slowly learnt that I’m British (and then were likely impressed by my American accent).
October 24, 2014 at 9:18 pm #815366
wakefloodParticipantAlright Kimberley! Our resident expert. Thanks for chiming in. Your votes count extra. :-) And just so you know, now I’ll hear everything you write with a Brit accent in my head.
Agree on Damian Lewis. I was a bit stunned to find out he wasn’t American when I first watched Band of Brothers. Quite good.
October 24, 2014 at 9:34 pm #815367
wakefloodParticipantStephen Moyer in True Blood wasn’t good. I mean he sorta’ pulled it off here and there but he would hit patches that sounded like a kid in high school drama class trying too hard.
And cuz I can’t resist: Keanu Reeves in Much Ado About Nothing. I mean…seriously? I’m sure Kenneth Branaugh was laughing the whole time behind the camera and only used him for the box office draw but good lord.
October 24, 2014 at 9:45 pm #815368
anonymeParticipantKeanu Reeves and Winona Ryder kinda started the Americans doing British accents thing – and badly. Really badly.
Damien Lewis does do an awesome American.
I saw Elizabeth Moss of “Mad Men” in an Australian (New Zealand) production called “Top of the Lake”. I thought she did a good job, but guess we’ll need a real Aussie to vote on that.
October 24, 2014 at 9:50 pm #815369
squareeyesParticipantI caught five minutes of new show Selfie this week. Karen Gillan’s American accent was okay but she has some work to do to make it a little more natural sounding.
October 24, 2014 at 10:05 pm #815370
wakefloodParticipantThis kinda’ gets to my point. Are these swaps now just being done for kicks? Sure, there’s folks who really pull it off and that’s great.
But man a bunch of these choices are known to be marginal at best and yet they still plug them in?? Is there some new shortage of actors/actresses now? I’m not getting the reasoning behind it.
October 24, 2014 at 11:10 pm #815371
annaeileenParticipantCharlie Hunnman is a Brit and plays a California biker on Sons of Anarchy. I think he is one of the best looking men on TV but he hasn’t quite mastered the American accent. Last week was painfully obvious. From my previous post, Justin Chambers on The Wedding Planner, bad movie, bad accent. yes to Idris Elba! Excellent actor.
October 25, 2014 at 1:17 am #815372
cjboffoliParticipantI’ve heard that apparently it is linguistically easier for an Aussie or a Brit to do an American accent than vice versa.
On a related subject, I was just speaking with some fellow native Bostonians recently about certain actors are masters of the Boston dialect. Of course this list was heavy in native speakers (Ben Affleck, Matt Damon, Mark Wahlberg). But there are also some non-natives that have done a very good job, like Bebe Neuwirth in Malice (1995) and Leo DiCaprio in films like the Departed (2006) and Shutter Island (2010). Those who have done a passable job, like Robin Williams in Good Will Hunting (1997). And those who have absolutely mangled it by mixing it with a New York accent: Alec Baldwin and Martin Sheen.
October 25, 2014 at 1:36 am #815373
AdmiralJanewayParticipantChristian Bale’s American accent was so convincing in Batman that I thought he was American.
I have been told that the American accent is easy to imitate because of the popularity of American songs.
October 25, 2014 at 2:57 am #815374
Monosyllabic GirlMemberDinklage. Game of Thrones. I don’t even think he bothers trying anymore and it’s gone off into some new made-up fantasy dialect. Nikolaj’s is quite awful as well.
October 25, 2014 at 6:33 am #815375
pigeonmomParticipantMichael Sheen in Masters of Sex does a good American accent, he’s from Wales.
Speaking of Wales and Mr. Sheen, this is excellent:
October 25, 2014 at 3:26 pm #815376
JTBParticipantI thought Dominic West, who I first noticed in The Wire, did a pretty forced British accent in The Hour. I was surprised to see an American working in a small BBC tv production. I recently discovered he grew up in Yorkshire.
October 25, 2014 at 8:44 pm #815377
cwitParticipantAgree on Idris Elba on the Wire and I was surprised to hear a British accent when I saw Dominic West in an interview. Lauren Cohan, who is Maggie on the Walking Dead, has a fairly convincing Southern accent. She’s British but was born in America and left in her early teens.
Kevin Costner in Robinhood is my favorite accent, though. ;)
October 25, 2014 at 10:59 pm #815378
wakefloodParticipantBingo. One winner!!
October 25, 2014 at 11:02 pm #815379
miwsParticipantOne that I just thought of, and wake, in rereading your OP, and especially your comment #2, I’m almost wondering if mine is one of the two that you are thinking of;
“Aye, mah Scottish accent was fake!“
Mike
October 26, 2014 at 12:02 am #815380
maplesyrupParticipantJTB, I thought of Dominic West too, but because he’s British and you’d never know it from watching The Wire.
Yvonne Strahovsky is an Aussie who does a great American accent.
Any time someone mentions worst accent, Keanu Reeves immediately comes to mind.
October 26, 2014 at 1:22 am #815381
dhgParticipantI think Colin Farrell does play an excellent American..
But, Robinhood…. omg, my favorite line was Costner’s, “Did I offend you in a previous life?”. It was Robinhood with a surfboard, dude.
October 26, 2014 at 1:31 am #815382
metrognomeParticipantfor those of you who like Damien Lewis, you might want to check out his short-lived NBC series ‘Life’ (it fell victim to the writer’s strike.) It took me a long time to figure out he was the guy from ‘Band of Brothers’.
Kudos to pigeonmom for mentioning Wales and Dylan Thomas. And who can forget the greatest Welsh actor of modern times, Richard Burton.
Should we include Canadian actors, eh? Michael J. Fox comes to mind.
*start rant* my pet peeve is Brits and Aussies on TV who don’t bother to try to disguise their accents. I particularly dislike the Aussie guy who screams at you during commercials to buy some mop or other. I think I’m getting old enough that my brain is tired of translating their accent into American. *end rant*
October 26, 2014 at 2:01 am #815383
wakefloodParticipantMike, his Scottish accent was CRRRAP! ;-)
Nope, that’s not the second one. It’s a film from the 90’s that had Matt Damon in it. That narrows it down a bunch.
October 26, 2014 at 4:29 am #815384
miwsParticipant -
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