Does It Annoy You When An Actor You Like Has To Do An Accent?
 

There's so many scenarios where a certain actor could have been an American in England, and kept his accent instead of pretending a guy in NYC was born in London. Especially in the movie business with so many expatriates.

I won't even ask about dubbing. I started a movie over the weekend, and after hearing someone with clear English dubbing in for Marcello Mastroianni, I had to shut it off.

It only bothers me if the accent is bad or if it keeps me from understanding what the actor is saying.

Re: Does It Annoy You When An Actor You Like Has To Do An Accent?
 

If the actor can make the character feel real and the accent doesn't feel phoney, then no it doesn't annoy me.

No, accents don’t bother me.

Re: Does It Annoy You When An Actor You Like Has To Do An Accent?
 

Accents don't bother me unless they sound totally fake. I think American audiences in general aren't as sensitive to non Americans speaking with an 'American accent' as British audiences are about Americans doing a British accent.

One of the tricks in doing a British accent (when you’re actually American) is to have a very light touch. Don’t clobber the audience with your accent skills & don’t attempt any kind of thick regional accent.

Gwyneth Paltrow played a Brit in Sliding Doors & she was terrific. Ditto Renée what’s-her-face in Bridget Jones Diary.

I do wonder why several movies & tv shows I’ve seen (C’mon C’mon, for example) bring a British kid over here to play an American. Why not cast an American kid?

That makes sense. I just seen Jude Law as an American in Contagion and he did what you suggested...he did an American accent but didn't over do it. He was good at it too.

*Of course all countries have many different accents.

Yes, it annoys me.



If the person has it in their skill set to be solid, fine.



If not, move one. And yes, a person from the region being depicted is probably going to naturally sound like a person from that region, so why not use them more often? I'd rather eat ground glass than listen to Keanu Reeves "being English" in Bram Stoker's Dracula.

Domhnall Gleason, who is Irish, is doing a terrific American accent in The Patient on Hulu. And Robert Pattinson has done American accents & cast & crew actually thought he was American.

I like how a British actor does an American accent, like Kate Winslet in Titanic and Tracy Ullman in Panic. They do a really good job at it. I didn't even know Kate Winslet was English until I heard her talk in an interview.

I can't remember specific instances but I do remember having this complaint.

When Winslet was making the limited series Mare of Easttown, she was the only actor in the cast who reverted to their natural accent during breaks. Nobody else did since they were afraid of losing the accent once the cameras rolled again.

It can be a little jarring when they don’t sound how I expect them to, but I’m not annoyed by it.

Tracy Ullman is a little different since she refers to herself as British-American. (I never do this.) I heard her on something just last week (can’t remember what) & I wasn’t sure it was her because of her somewhat American accent. I was confused.

Re: Does It Annoy You When An Actor You Like Has To Do An Accent?
 

It annoys me when they don't do a good job on the accent. Some actors are great at accents while others not so much. Some like the late great Sean Connery didn't even bother to even try an accent :).

Wow, I didn't know Kate Winslet was English either until just this moment. Agreed she does the homogenized/standardized American accent perfectly...she fooled me.

Yeah it's probably a good thing that Sean Connery didn't try doing other accents, unless he was really skilled at it.

Orson Welles in Shanghai Lady does a jarring Irish accent. It's not that he's bad at it, I suppose he's actually pretty good... but fans of classic cinema know what Orson sounds like as he had a very distictive voice and it wasn't Irish.

Re: Does It Annoy You When An Actor You Like Has To Do An Accent?
 

Andrew Garfield does both British & American accents very well since his parents are from both sides of the Atlantic.

Sometimes it’s best not to even try. Catherine Zeta Jones kept her British accent in Traffik & it made no difference whatsoever to this terrific movie.

And let’s not forget Meryl Streep who is the master of accents.

Re: Does It Annoy You When An Actor You Like Has To Do An Accent?
 

I love that Jason Statham always uses his natural British accent no matter which movie it is. It actually added to the comedy in Spy to have a British angry guy yelling at all his American co-workers.

He couldn’t do a foreign accent if it hit him over the head with it. Not the most talented of actors & he makes very mediocre movies.

Re: Does It Annoy You When An Actor You Like Has To Do An Accent?
 

It depends. My least favorite is when it involved ancient Romans. Movie makers just don't seem to be able to resist giving patrician Romans of the ancient world patrician British accents when the movie is an English language movie. I guess that's because both used the word Empire somewhere. Having once studied Latin, I know that English and Latin don't sound a bit like each other. Vocabulary wise, French, Spanish, church Latin or modern Italian are closer, but have different accents, English is a Germanic language.

I know it will never happen but the Latin student in me would like to see a movie about ancient Rome done in classic Latin with subtitles. I guess the box office on that one would be near zero, but, for once, don't pronounce the name of that emperor who was stabbed like see-zer. It's actually closer to Kaiser.

You know what's funny? As I read the first part of your post, that I just quoted, my mind instantly said James Mason's voice makes for a good sounding ancient Roman. But then of course I read the rest of your post and seen you had the opposite thought.

I just thought that was interesting how the first name that popped into my mind for a good sounding Ancient Roman was someone like James Mason or Richard Burton...Which goes to show that Hollywood often cast British actors trained in the theatrical style of acting to play ancient historical characters.

Botched accents from my favorite actors don't generally bother me. After all, it's all make believe. But I will say that Michael Shannon, whose work I really enjoy, did a pretty cheesy Russian accent in Bullet Train portraying The White Death. It's good that he didn't have a lot of dialogue...:)

One exception to that is American actors (or other English speakers) who attempt southern accents. They usually end up sounding like generic hicks. There are many different southern accents, which oftentimes identify which part of the South that the person is from. But mostly actors don't bother zeroing in on a region.

The South is just a punching bag for the Hollywood. You don't have to go much past Foghorn Leghorn to pass the smell test for a casting director.

Belfast has a cast of Irish actors, but, for some reason, Brannagh cast Judi Dench in the part of Ciarán Hinds’ wife. Not only is Dench 19 years older than Hinds & English, but she has the most appalling Irish brogue in the movie. Unlike any one of her fellow actors. And they’ve made her up to look so old in the movie that I wonder is she supposed to be Hinds’ mother? I don’t think so & I bailed out of this movie as it didn’t engage me one bit.

It's my assumption too, since both Rome and Britain were small places that had an expansive empire that's gone now. Mason did at least one Roman role (Julius Caesar) and Burton is a dead ringer for the movie version of a Roman, even though his Brit accent was Welsh inflected.

I guess it all comes under the rubric of giving the audience what they stereotypically expect. I also wonder about English language movies with nazis, who all have German accents. Presumably, they are speaking German, but what does German sound like when it's spoken with the English version of a German who is speaking English? Wrap your linguistic head around that paradox. Does a native German have an accent?

Even worse, of course, is Nazis with British accents. There must be a movie or two that has this.

German was still spoken in part of my family when I was a kid. I recall hearing remarks that Hitler spoke with a "lower class Austrian accent", unlike the more educated Germans that had been their ancestors before coming to the US in the early 20th century. Having been around English speaking Germans who had patrician accents, as heard by a German, I could definitely hear the difference.

I guess it comes down to a movie characterization and what you want the character to be. For Hitler, he must sound like an evil lunatic barking dog, however that translates into English. Some of this hits close to home in the sense that we, in the US, have stereotypes about the sort of speech that political lunatics have. It's rough for OK people to get stuck with that accent, in spite of the fact that they are not seesesh-klansmen.

Unfortunately, however, speech mannerisms are one of the easiest ways to tell an audience who the bad guy is in the shortest span of time.

Meryl Street playing Margaret Thatcher in The Iron Lady had the perfect British accent. Distinctive, but not overpowering. What a performance from Streep: she was Thatcher.

Re: Does It Annoy You When An Actor You Like Has To Do An Accent?
 

Interesting.. I remember her doing a lousy accent in that movie with Clint Eastwood. Nothing even close to Italian, but I imagine English is easier. I think I'm going to watch it - you have been very good with recommendations, especially foreign films.

Yeah, there are, but they're officers, not draftees. The cannon fodder guys could not sound British.

My other observation is that when they do emote in German, they always do it with a high pitched male voice, kind of an authoritarian parrot squawk.

It doesn't annoy me a bit with Brits doing American accents because I can always pick up when they let slip occasionally and also in a way are losing that part of a performance they can bring with their voice that could be remembered in its own right if that makes sense, yeah it can be okay, it can be passable but it will never be iconic, Benedict Cumberbqtch, Martin Freeman, Daniel Radcliffe or example just so standard American baseline but Al Pacino don't sound like that, Tom Hanks don't sound like that, Denzil Washington don't sound like that, sure they sound American but also they also have their own distinct sound, as a Brit doing American accents you aren't going to have that so many be left without a voice.

Re: Does It Annoy You When An Actor You Like Has To Do An Accent?
 

Everything annoys me. So, in the grand scheme of things, no.

I've discovered over the past couple of years, that I have no skill at distinguishing real accents from accents affected for a role. I didn't know until the night that he accepted his Oscar that Christian Bale was British. I had no idea that two cast members from the ABC series Brothers and Sisters. Rachel Griffiths and Matthew Rhys, were British. I didn't know that David Oyelowo, who played Martin Luther King in Selma was British. It wasn't until I saw him in an interview situation on television that I realized Idris Elba was British.

Wow! I have only heard him speak with a very American accent. He's the only working actor who I think is pretty good, despite that bad movie (Laurel Canyon or something), but thought Patrick Bateman was probably the last memorable character (besides Daniel Plainview; Daniel Day Lewis) in "American Psycho". And despite it not being a great movie, I thought he was good in "The Machinist". I might have to take a look at his filmography sometime soon. Maybe find an interview with his accent!

Christian Bale does an unbelievable accent in Reign of Fire. He really lays it on thick. Come to think of it, he lays it on a bit thick in The Prestige as well. I think I only "believe" him as an American.

Rachel Griffiths is Australian.

None that I remember.


And I wish Kim Cattrall does a movie as a Scouser, unless she already has and I have missed.

And no doubt Rhys would like to be described as Welsh rather than British.

Well, the point is that they both are capable of burying the accents in order to play Americans.

I don't know if he would or not, but it's not incorrect.

I don't know if that is correct or not, but I say he wouldn't not do it.

John Wayne as Genghis Khan.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EHt0Pb8rkXU

Yknow maybe Keanu Reeves isnt so bad after all.

Totally not incorrect, but Welsh people seem to prefer being referred to as Welsh rather than British. Many Scots too for that matter. Personally, I never ever say I’m English: I always say I’m British.