Home › Forums › Open Discussion › Accent Swapping Actors – Best & Worst
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October 26, 2014 at 4:31 am #815385
Ali KParticipantHow about Matt Damon in Invictus, I thought his South African accent was great!
There have been a number of Americans doing British accents that have made me cringe but I can’t bring any more to mind than the ones mentioned already!
October 26, 2014 at 7:28 am #815386
HMC RichParticipantSince my wife is from England, she is quite critical of bad British accents and notices Brits playing American roles. I have had some success learning some of the differences but only a bit. I was shocked how good Andrew Lincoln is in the Walking Dead. I had forgotten about his Love Actually role. I thought Hugh Laurie was one of the best in HOUSE. Invictus was a spectacularly good movie BTW. Loved it. I think Americans can tell the difference a bit between a Liverpool and some London accents but the rest they would not be able to tell. Kind of like the difference between a Texan and a Tennessee native. Close but different.
October 26, 2014 at 3:37 pm #815387
JTBParticipantBest non-accent accent: Brad Pitt’s in “Snatch.” The story behind it was director Guy Ritchie received a lot of criticism for the characters’ accents in “Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels” and although Pitt wanted to work with Ritchie, he couldn’t handle a London accent. So they created the unintelligible, indecipherable garble that even the other characters in the movie couldn’t understand. I thought it was a bit strange at first but then came to feel it was perfect for the roll.
October 26, 2014 at 7:01 pm #815388
pigeonmomParticipantI thought Pitt’s accent in Snatch was heavy Irish.
I love languages and accents.
I recently found this:
http://www.bbc.com/travel/feature/20140619-one-woman-17-british-accents?ocid=fbtvl
October 27, 2014 at 12:40 am #815389
JTBParticipantPigeonmom,
I suppose Brad managed to effect a fair semblance of Pikey slang as enunciated through a maimed vocal apparatus as one might expect from a fighter. In any case, it was a job well done.
October 27, 2014 at 2:39 am #815390
KimberleyParticipantRich – am I correctly recalling that your wife is a Manc or manc fan?
Christopher – I spent a lot of time in New England, and was once told that my crap american accent was that of a New York Bostonian.
Catherine Zeta Jones is another sheep shagger who doesn’t do a bad American accent. Elizabeth Moss wasn’t half bad, but I think it was also a sheep shagger (different) accent as opposed to aussie. Sheep shagger is slang for both people from Wales and New Zealand.
October 27, 2014 at 3:23 pm #815391
wakefloodParticipantdhg, I generally agree that Colin Farrell does a pretty solid American accent but I can’t suspend disbelief with him after all his earlier work with his normal accent. His persona is locked in for me.
And Cj, The Departed was quite the smorgasbord of Bostonian, wasn’t it? I think it’s really hard for folks to pick up the difference between a thick “southie” and the more gentrified Brookline/Kennedy version. When in doubt, they hit the southie pedal hard – or should I say, “hahd” – and it usually makes me cringe.
October 27, 2014 at 3:38 pm #815392
wakefloodParticipantAnd if anyone remembers, there was a character actor, turned dialect coach in the 1950’s -90’s named Robert Easton – you’d probably recognize him if you saw a picture from that period. He often played hicks, which is ironic since he was a “Quiz Kid” with a very high IQ.
When actor Robert Duvall signed on to play Confederate commander Robert E. Lee in the movie “Gods and Generals” several years ago, he wanted Mr. Easton to help him sound authentically Virginian. The affable coach quickly became popular with the rest of the cast.
“They said, ‘We want Virginia accents,’ ” Duvall recalled in an interview Wednesday. “Bob said, ‘Which one? There are 12 distinct accents, from the Piedmont to the ocean.’ He knew them all.”
And he went to University College in London to study dialects. His wife was from the UK. He picked up European accents and came back to teach those to US actors as well.
I don’t know if he penned a biography but he should have. I think he was too nice to offend any of his pupils. I do remember one snippet from an interview where he basically implied that several big named actors/actresses he was hired to work with were just plain uncoachable. I’m sure it was like the proverbial piano teacher cringing at the misplayed notes, or nails on a chalkboard.
October 27, 2014 at 4:02 pm #815393
savoirfaireParticipantAccording to my partner, who’s spent time in and around Baltimore, Dominic West gets extra credit for getting Ballmer right. “The Wire” is full of people you’d never know were from across the pond, including Aidan Gillen (Tommy Carcetti), who’s Irish.
We just finished watching the first season of “Fargo,” and while Martin Freeman makes a pretty credible American, his Minnesota definitely waxes and wanes! To be fair, regional accents are a challenge even for natives, and for the upper Midwest there definitely aren’t as many popular culture reference points to draw on :)
October 27, 2014 at 4:28 pm #815394
wakefloodParticipantAgreed. My issues with Martin Freeman in Fargo are twofold and aren’t necessarily of his doing .
One, I had just gotten done bingewatching the Sherlock Holmes series with him as Watson, locking in his persona for me. And secondly…”ah geez”…the movie, while having some over the top accents, was just so good.
October 27, 2014 at 5:10 pm #815395
anonymeParticipantIdris Elba was criticized for his “Wire” accent sounding more NY than Baltimore. There are some funny clips on YouTube when Dominic West lapsed into his native accent. In one episode, he ‘faked’ a British accent to go undercover, which cracked up his colleagues.
And British productions are always interesting due to the varying and divergent accents of the native speakers – even when they are supposed to be family members, as in “Downton Abbey”.
October 30, 2014 at 3:01 pm #815396
HollyWMemberWakefield – I love this thread!! It has been a peeve of mine that non-USactors are playing US roles with a staged accent even though their character could have easily been from their native country without it affecting the role – I’m curious why in such a cosmopolitan culture, the directors choose to have their actors adopt an affect? I digress, I have to ask – does anyone watch American Horror Story?? What is the accent Kathy Bates is going for?? I can’t decide if she’s mangling it or brilliant in it? Is it fading scottish/Irish with a heavy NE US accent on top?? Here’s one: Al Pacino in The Merchant of Venice….
October 30, 2014 at 4:55 pm #815397
wakefloodParticipantHollyW, you weren’t digressing at all. I’m still puzzling that question out! Stumped.
And while I’ve been tempted to watch AHS, I haven’t gotten to it yet. Still plan to.
Pacino should never be considered for any role that isn’t/couldn’t be from where he’s from.
And if anyone ever wants to laugh out loud about an accent, there’s always the classic “hot tub scene” with Tony Curtis and Laurence Olivier in Spartacus. Wow. Simply wow. You tube it.
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