Accents

That's interesting because I always thought Carlyle was great at accents. He'd previously played a scouser in Cracker as well.

This Sporting Life was on again recently and I love William Hartnell playing a northerner. He sounds great.

Interesting that you mentioned This Sporting Life, a wonderful film, and one of my early "art film" viewings.

As a general statement it seems to me that Brit actors as a group are the best at nuances of accents, more so than the Aussies or the Americans. My guess is that's because --for a country of its size-- there are dozens of identifiable accents in a fairly proximate geographical expanse, so folks are more attuned to the subtle (and not so subtle) differences.

I recall Michael Caine's Georgia accent in an otherwise forgettable movie, Hurry Sundown. It seemed pretty good to me at the time, although I lived in the North U.S.

Awhile later Caine was on the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, and the subject of accents came up. Caine stated that a "southern accent" was not so much different from a Cockney accent. Carson took exception to the statement, so in a stunning display of technique, Caine started speaking in a Cockney accent, then gradually morphed it into a southern drawl. It was very impressive.

Of course American actors themselves (at least the coastal or northern ones) are peculiarly bad at southern accents. There are several distinct accents in Dixie, and there's a great difference between, say, New Orleans accents (there are 3), Arkansas, Mississippi, Georgia and Tennessee.

But yet oftentimes U.S. actors effect what I call a "hick" accent, as if saying "y'all", or altering the "i" sound is sufficient to get the job done. It's particularly hilarious when a NY or NJ actor attempts a "southern accent".

And that's the least of it...

~Doc

There are some great people in that film. I'd forgotten about Leonard Rossiter, and of course Arthur Lowe appears too. I was picking up more on Alan Badel this time as well. He seemed to be basically reverting to what would have been his own Manchester accent.

That's my understanding too. I've told this story before but I was really surprised a year ago to be baffled by Jodie Whittaker's Yorkshire accent (I'm from Lancashire) – along with everyone else on the Graham Norton Show. She'd had an earlier role as a milkmaid and described the unpleasantness of the cow's "warty teats". But it sounded like "water". She ended up having to convert it into an American accent to make herself understood .

That sounds good – I'll have to check it out. He's very interesting when he gets into the mechanics of it all. I remember a voice coach talking about a particular American accent, though I can't remember in what context. He said the words "just kind of lean on each other", which is an amazing 'way in' to dealing with the problem. I find the Chicago accent really dense at times, at least when I've been listening to Michael Mann on commentaries and things.

That sounds similar in design to our "Mummerset" accent that serves as an all-purpose rural accent. And then there's Mockney .

Robert Pattinson & Idris Elba both do very authentic American accents. I’ve read with both of them that people didn’t even know they’re British.

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[re: M. Caine] Here's an interesting quote from IMDB:

His first American accent was in the film Hurry Sundown (1967). He was taught the Southern drawl by Vivien Leigh, who told him to say "four door Ford" all day long for weeks.

And they didn't know that Matthew Rhys was Welsh.

Good example! I watched practically the entire The Americans series before discovering that he wasn't American, but from Cardiff. Looking forward to seeing him in the Mr. Rogers movie.

I suppose people would have been more forewarned with Ioan Gruffudd because of his name . How good his American accents have been in various shows and films I don't know .

They wouldn’t differentiate between the UK countries. Welsh to them would be British.

My understanding is that a lot of viewers didn't know he wasn't American. So they didn't even get to the point of wondering where he came from .

Just watched Juliet, Naked movie. (Not bad.) One of the negative IMDb reviewers was furious because “the British accents were so strong, he couldn’t understand a word, blah, blah, blah.” Wonder what he expected from a British movie? And strangely enough the 3 leads were, respectively, American, Irish & Australian.