Accents

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DeeVeeDee's Avatar
Not Enough Time
I don't know about bad accents, though I can say most times people try to do an English/British accent it is horrible.

But good accents, I think Jude Law in I Heart Huckabees did a good job, and does usually in general. I didn't know he was British for a long time, same with Nicole Kidman in most of her movies, I had no idea she was Australian for a long long time. I'm trying to remember, there's someone else who did a really excellent American accent in some movie, it wasn't even a proper accent it was like a slimeball, loose/slang accent. Ah well



Chappie doesn't like the real world
Here in the U.S., for example, there are many different accents among the English-speaking, American born citizens. I'm born and raised in California and have a distinctly different accent than an American who was born and raised in, say, Tennessee.
That's true. My friend's mom is a dialectologist and I find it very interesting why we talk the way we do. To bring this back to acting, it must be fairly hard to do a southern accent because not many actors do it well.



DeeVeeDee's Avatar
Not Enough Time
To bring this back to acting, it must be fairly hard to do a southern accent because not many actors do it well.
One thing that drives me nuts is when I'm watching a movie where they are speaking with "Southern" accents, yet they're talking as fast as a New Yorker! Please who live in the southern states talk very slowly! I know its for the purpose of the movie probably because it keeps people interested, but thats just my thing when details aren't true to life it bothers the bananas out of me.
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...but thats just my thing when details aren't true to life it bothers the bananas out of me.
+ rep for the phrase, "bothers the bananas out of me."

I'd like to praise Gwyneth Paltrow who always, it seems to me, does a really good English accent.
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South African accents are notoriously difficult to get right - especially for American actors.

Morgan Freeman had a tall order in Invictus because Nelson Mandela's voice is so well-known. He got certain inflections right, but his American accent came through regularly. In that same movie Matt Damon did a better job with an Afrikaans accent, but it was a bit soft around the edges.

Denzel Washington and Kevin Kline completely missed the mark with their accents as Steve Biko and Donald Woods in Cry Freedom.

Donald Sutherland's accent in A Dry White Season was pretty terrible. Marlon Brando's was a bit better.

Leonardo di Caprio does a valiant job of portraying a Zimbabwean/Rhodesian accent. He gets the attitude right, but with so much screen time cracks are bound to appear in the accent, and they do.

A good job of South African accents is in Stander, as this clip with Thomas Jane and Deboarah Kara Unger shows.




DeeVeeDee's Avatar
Not Enough Time
+ rep for the phrase, "bothers the bananas out of me."

I'd like to praise Gwyneth Paltrow who always, it seems to me, does a really good English accent.
thanks for the rep, its funny what we come up with to replace unallowed words..

and while i'm not english, I have to disagree about Gwenyth Paltrow, in some movies anyway. In Sliding Doors she plays a Londoner, but I always thought her accent was see-through.



Kakarot89: The Infamous Thread Killer
I was just reading a Cracked article about why his band has one of the most ridiculous names ever. Also Omega5, your correction made me laugh. I don't think I've seen a single film he's starred in because I just find him so insufferable.



"Do you know what 'Nemesis' means?"
Denzel Washington and Kevin Kline completely missed the mark with their accents as Steve Biko and Donald Woods in Cry Freedom
Not as badly as John Thaw playing Kruger though - sounded not so much South African as a slightly constipated rabbi

I can't believe that nobody has mentioned Keanu Reeves's appalling English accent in Dracula, though




This said, any time a British, usually English, actor has to do an 'British' accent, it's always horrible.
What does this mean? How can their own accent be bad?

There's a couple of really dodgy accents in "Enemy at the Gates". Bob Hoskins starts off being a Russian and descends into cockney.



I'd say it's a given that there isn't really one set "accent" for each country or ethnicity so I really don't see much point in Guaporense's post.

Here in the U.S., for example, there are many different accents among the English-speaking, American born citizens. I'm born and raised in California and have a distinctly different accent than an American who was born and raised in, say, Tennessee.
The degree in variation is much greater between native speakers of different languages. My english accent is much heavier than anything you can expect from a native english speaker.



The degree in variation is much greater between native speakers of different languages. My english accent is much heavier than anything you can expect from a native english speaker.
What does that have to do with anything?

You got on Gunslinger's case for talking about white people doing a hispanic accent and talked about how there are distinctly different accents that fall under the term "hispanic." I said that it's a given that different people of the same "ethnicity" but of different regions or countries and even people of the same country may have different accents.



Because it isn't their own accent. It's a "British" accent that''s used, primarily it seems, on US network tv.
Can you give me an example please? I'm struggling to see your point.

How can a British person doing a British accent not be doing their own accent?



Sorta speaking of Orson Welles, his Irish accent in Lady From Shanghai is ridiculous, as is Pacino's Cuban accent in Scarface. They do add some humor to the movies though.
Simon Callow seems to think Welles's accent in The Lady from Shanghai actually wasn't bad (I think he said so in his second Welles volume). Maybe Tacitus can weigh in.



Bright light. Bright light. Uh oh.
Can you give me an example please? I'm struggling to see your point.

How can a British person doing a British accent not be doing their own accent?
For example, Michael Caine as Alfie has a Cockney accent, but when he plays British spy Harry Palmer, he doesn't.

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