How important is an accent?

I'm sure we've all watched films where an actor tried to pull off an accent and failed badly. See Robert Pattinson in Little Ashes if you haven't.

Failure to do a convincing accent can take you right out of the story and you end up becoming annoyed with the film. But what if they did it in their own accents? Could you overlook this detail or would this put you off?

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I've been really impressed by many of British and Australian actors' ability to pull off American accents. Just watched some old Deadwood episodes and thought Ian McShane and Paula Malcomson did a great job with it.

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Back in the day, Brits played American without changing accents and it was accepted, partly because so many American actors in the 30s and 40s had that drama school trained mid Atlantic accent that was very close to the upper class British accent. Method acting did away with the accent. If you can't do the accent, just do your own, I say. A bad accent does distract.

The worst 'British' accent of all time. Yep, even worse than the legendary Dick Van Dyke.

The worst American accent by a British actor was the one in that Faulty Towers episode. What the hell was that and why did John Cleese who knows what Americans sound like allow it?

Wasn't that guy Canadian?

Agreed!

second place to Emily Mortimer and Robert Carlyle for their cringingly awful scouse accents in 51st State

If one actor does an accent, all in the film must, otherwise, it ruins the illuision. If none attempt one, then you don't need them, really.

But if one actor can't do the accent (say, your lead - Valkyrie (2008)) and rest still try, well - that's just stupid. Makes the movie really look stupid. Like Valkyrie.

The question is; why cast an actor who cannot play the part? This happens all the time.

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The woman that played Brenda on Six Feet Under was British and I had no idea. It's something I think most mainstream movies can do because they have a wide variety of actors to choose from.

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She's Australian, actually. Now she's in Brothers & Sisters, of course.

What about Gone with the Wind?

I can think of quite a few others.

Considering that most movie watchers aren't Henry Higgins, I don't see why you should especially care one way or another about accents or the lack thereof. There are just so many accents within small areas, let alone full countries, that at what point do you draw a line to say whether an accent is good enough? Besides that, how do you know? Isn't there something better for you to spend your time watching in the movie? I realize that some people are easily taken out of movies by all kinds of anachronisms and anomolies, but if you like movies, you should be able to laugh over something seemingly-bad and then move on with the movie.

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I can see where your coming from Mark but sometimes the accent is so bad it is distracting. It then becomes difficult to take the film seriously. Its kind of the same as when you got a film with a great script but terrible acting it destroys the whole thing.

On a some wa related note, I hate when a film set in a foreign language environment but spoken in English requires having the accent of that particular country. This consistenly bothers me.

For example, why did Kate Winslet need to put on a German accent in The Reader? The whole movie was in English!

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Can you actually name a movie with a great script, but terrible acting?
(Except for the Psycho remake)

Gone With The Wind needs a remake.

I used to dislike Meryl Streep because all she seemed to do was accents. On the other hand, do you think Brando sounded anything like the real Mexican, Anthony Quinn, playing his brother in Viva, Zapata? Brando was much better at a Southern accent and phrasing in Sayonara. However, he didn't look or sound like the real Okinawans in Tea House of the August Moon, although he did as much as he could with that role, better than Mickey Rooney's Japanese tenant in Breakfast at Tiffany's.

Sometimes a bad accent can be fun, like betting whether Laurence Harvey will deliver his next line in his native British accent, a phoney Southern accent, or something entirely different in The Alamo. Accents were about the only interesting thing in Coustner's Robin Hood saga, where seemingly all of the "bad" guys were played by British actors with real British accents and all the "good" guys were Americans with American accents.

One of the worst accents of all time was Paul Newman's "Frito Bandito" rendition of the Mexican bandit in The Outrage. It was so bad it even took attention away from another of Harvey's Russian roullete lapses between his British and a fake southern accent. Yet the movie is still interesting despite those lapses.

And then there were all those bands back during the "British invasion" who sang in American accents but their British accents when they talked were almost unintelligible. A Scot accent is particularly hard for me to understand despite frequent contact with Scots.

Basically, I'm all for a person who is good at accents doing accents, but it takes study and practice to do them well. Without that, they're better off just acting the foreign character without attempting a bad accent. For instance, in Valdez Is Coming, Lancaster portrays a Mexican in an Anglo-dominated US of the late 19th century more through attitude than accent with deference, down-cast eyes, hat in hand in the first of the film, and later native pride and defiance and the experience of a man who conquered that land before it was part of the US.

About those British invasion singers singing American but speaking with those accents, what about Gomer Pyle?

Sounds sorta like, "Movies--love 'em or leave 'em!"

Some of us are just more picky or less forgiving than you on what we've paid admission for. Folks enjoy movies on different levels. Accents bother some folks like improper costumes bother me. We're not trying to be ornery; it's just a burr that gets under our saddle. We can't help it.

Yeah, how about Gomer Pyle!!!! Long before Jim Nabors ever got on the screen Jackie Gleason used to have a guy on his TV program who played Crazy Gugenheim (sp?) a kinda goofy drunk in comic scenes in which Gleason played the bartender; at the end of the skit, Gleason would say, "Sing something," and this guy would burst into some ballad with this really great baritone voice.

The British bands singing in American accents always reminded of stutterers who could lose their stutter when singing. Mel Tillis is a prime example. Could hardly talk at times, but never hesitated a second when singing.