Worst attempts at accents

[Iamnotspock]

I've heard David Boreanaz's Irish accent was pretty bad during some of his flashbacks on Angel. Personally, I don't think it's that bad but what would I know.

Terrible.

Wait, Linus Roache is English? Wow. He's good.

Yes, he's the son of William Roache, who is the UK's longest-serving soap opera actor, having played the character Ken Barlow in ITV's Coronation Street since 1960. Linus played Ken's son Peter Barlow as a child, and recently returned briefly as Ken's other long-lost son during a break in L&O filming.

[YT]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AyxO3M_7C2M[/YT]

And Anthony la Paglia in Frasier

Not only a terrible attempt at a Cockney accent, but the character is supposed to be from Manchester... The worst Frasier example is guest star Scott Atkinson in the Season 4 premiere "The Two Mrs Cranes", as Daphne's ex-fiancé Clive. He'd clearly been studying Dick Van Dyke.

What, her Mancunian natural accent?

No, her bad, fake Mancunian accent. Jane Leeves is from East Grinstead.

 

[Chaos Descending]

Princess Leia's quasi-English accent for the first half of Star Wars. She only used it in the presence of Darth Vader and Grand Moff Tarkin, and then abandoned it once Luke and Han rescued her.

I often find that the people complaining about "terrible accents" are often less informed than they believe. A lot of the actors with "terrible" accents have just learned a slightly different dialect.

I found it funny after the Series One episode of Doctor Who called Dalek came out, a lot of people were saying that Van Statten's American accent was dreadful. Of course, that was odd condemnation since the actor playing Van Statten was an actual American from Louisiana.

 

[stj]

And I'm still trying to figure out what the hell kind of accent Angelina Jolie had in Alexander. But the movie sucked in general, so her bad accent sort of blends in with the overall film.

The difference between Macedonians and Greeks was indicated by having the Macedonians talk amongst themselves with Irish accents, more or less, I suppose, not being an authority on that. But Jolie had to do a different accent from either the standard English for Greeks like Aristotle, or the Macedonian Irish, because her character Olympias was from yet another country, Epirus. As long as it was different, to mark off Olympias as foreign enough so that talk of a true Macedonian heir made sense, it wasn't a bad accent. Unless you assume that they should have all spoken with authentic Macedonian, Epirote and "Greek" accents?

The extreme delivery prompting foolishness like the "Countess Dracula" remark comes partly from the rather lurid dialogue. The portrait of Olympias' personality is not some crazed flight of fancy, though it may ultimately stem from hostile gossip rather than from truth. Indeed, in some respects, the movie understated Olympias!

Engligh actors playing US nationals often don't sound quite right, but there are local accents in the US too. Even if they aren't all as distinctive as an Outer Banks brogue or Gullah, it's really quite difficult to be sure if the American accent is badly done, or just an unfamiliar version. It can even be hard to tell if an accent is overdone.

The easiest thing to spot is an actor slipping, period. I'm rather skeptical about people's claims of an accent just being bad.

 

[Christopher]

And Anthony la Paglia in Frasier

Not only a terrible attempt at a Cockney accent, but the character is supposed to be from Manchester...

Then again, Anthony LaPaglia is actually Australian, but you'd have a hard time telling from the various shows where he's played Americans. So he does at least one accent well.

 

[auntiehill]

The easiest thing to spot is an actor slipping, period. I'm rather skeptical about people's claims of an accent just being bad.

I consider an accent "bad" when how the actor is speaking is so out of place with the rest of the film (Kevin Costner in Robin Hood) or the actor is clearly trying very, very hard to speak a certain way and it shows. I thought Jolie in Alexander sounded and looked like she was a kid in a school play "doing" a voice, rather than just being that character. You shouldn't notice the accent and shouldn't even be aware that it is one. This is harder with well-known stars, as we are all familiar with how they naturally sound. But some actors just handle it better, prepare better and perhaps they are just better actors. I remember seeing Meryl Streep in a film and when I first heard her in the first few seconds of the film, I thought, "Wow, she's doing an accent" and then later, that thought just disappeared and it all was just part of the character. But I remember seeing Brad Pitt in a film "The Devil's Own," (I think) and I really didn't know much about him. But I knew that he was trying really, really hard to sound Irish and it just didn't feel like a natural, believable performance. The way the character speaks should feel like a natural part of the character, not an exercise in a high school acting class. But, granted, it could also be an unsuccessful performance that itself calls attention to an attempt at an accent. I suppose it's a "chicken and egg" kind of thing.
*shrug*

 

[lurok]

Then again, Anthony LaPaglia is actually Australian, but you'd have a hard time telling from the various shows where he's played Americans. So he does at least one accent well.

I've noticed most Aussies (or US born,Aussie-raised) do a decent American accent, at least to my untrained ears. Blanchett, Kidman, Rush, Ledger, Jackman. But few people do an Aussie accent well.

 

[scotpens]

Engligh actors playing US nationals often don't sound quite right, but there are local accents in the US too. Even if they aren't all as distinctive as an Outer Banks brogue or Gullah, it's really quite difficult to be sure if the American accent is badly done, or just an unfamiliar version. It can even be hard to tell if an accent is overdone.

The biggest mistake English actors make when attempting an American accent is overdoing the “R.” They end up sounding more like they’re from Cornwall or Devon.

 

[The Wormhole]

I think Patrick Stewart's French accent in Star Trek: The Next Generation sounded very British.

I remember reading somewhere that since England is so close to France, chances are that a French person learning English is going to learn it with a British accent. I'm not really sure if that holds up, but it's an interesting theory anyway.

 

[Christopher]

I remember reading somewhere that since England is so close to France, chances are that a French person learning English is going to learn it with a British accent. I'm not really sure if that holds up, but it's an interesting theory anyway.

It's a bit oversimplified, but it stands to reason that if they study English at a school in England, or pick it up by watching the BBC, then surely that's the pronunciation they'll learn. Just as lots of people from, say, India or Hong Kong speak English with a British accent, though it may be leavened with a local accent as well.

 

[Beagleman]

Well in school here in Germany we learned to pronounce English with a somewhat English accent and I still got one...

 

[lennier1]

Speaking of which, I yet have to hear a convincing German accent from someone who didn't grow up with the language (children of immigrants (Sarah Chalke, Sandra Bullock, ...), native speakers, ...).
It usually ends up as either that annoying pseudo-Nazi accent, a weird mix of Pennsylvania Dutch and Yiddish or something that's intended to piss of the Germans, the Dutch and the Danes at the same time.

 

[FalTorPan]

The worst accent attempt is Patrick Stewart as Captain Jean-Luc Picard. It's as if he didn't even try to sound like he's from France.

 

[scotpens]

It's a bit oversimplified, but it stands to reason that if they study English at a school in England, or pick it up by watching the BBC, then surely that's the pronunciation they'll learn. Just as lots of people from, say, India or Hong Kong speak English with a British accent, though it may be leavened with a local accent as well.

I assume most Europeans who speak English as a second language learn British English. In this clip from The Long Goodbye, Danish-born Nina van Pallandt’s English is clearly closer to the right than the left side of the Atlantic.

[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fw6WnN4Objk[/yt]

As for Australian actors, those who become well-known stars have to be able to do British and American accents convincingly, since they usually play British or American characters. When’s the last time Nicole Kidman or Naomi Watts played an Aussie?

 

[Iamnotspock]

When’s the last time Nicole Kidman or Naomi Watts played an Aussie?

Australia.

 

[captcalhoun]

^except she plays an English woman, as you can see when you read that article... :P

 

[Captaindemotion]

[
I wince every time they try to do Irish accents on Leverage. Since seasons 2-4 are set in Boston (but filmed in Portland), they sometimes did episodes involving Irish mobsters, and the accents were consistently terrible. (Indeed, most Irish accents on US shows are pretty dreadful.)

Tv shows and movies. I think you could have a special sub-category of them. I'd include:

Tommy Lee Jones and Lloyd Bridges in Blown Away (TLJ's is probably the worst Oirish accent of all time)

Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman in Far and Away

Richard Gere in The Jackal (runner-up to Tommy Lee)

Pretty much everyone who attempted one in Voyager's Fair Haven

Pretty much everyone who attempted one in Season 2 of Heroes

Sean Connery in The Untouchables (throwing in the odd 'begorrah' does not make a Scottish accent sound any more like an Irish one)

Michael Madsen in some awful boxing movie he made a few years ago

Anyone who attempted one in The Thorn Birds

Gerard Butler in PS I Love You (as with Connery, I'm amazed at how hard a Scottish actor finds it hard to do an Irish accent, given that they're relatively similar - but to be fair, Liam Neeson mangled the Scottish one in Rob Roy)

David Boreanaz in Angel & Buffy (couldn't they have kept Glenn Quinn on as dialogue coach?)

Any Irish accent that ever appeared in Murder She Wrote

Fortunately, we were spared Kevin Costner playing Michael Collins as we were once threatened.

Offhand, the best efforts I can think of are Jon Voight in The General, Robin Wright in The Playboys, Kathy Burke and Meryl Streep (surprise, surprise) in Dancing at Lughnasa, while Mark Shepard sounded reasonably Irish in BSG (albeit that his character wasn't Irish, he was from outer space).

 

[Christopher]

I can forgive the bad Irish accents in the Voyager "Fair Haven" episodes, since they were a 24th-century computer simulation created by Tom Paris, so one wouldn't expect rigorous historical accuracy.

 

[Captaindemotion]

^ Meh. Still grates on my ears.

As for the Picard and his English accent, my explanation has always been that he's speaking fluent and accented French but we the audience hear how the Universal Translator interprets him.

 

[Nerys Myk]

^ Meh. Still grates on my ears.

As for the Picard and his English accent, my explanation has always been that he's speaking fluent and accented French but we the audience hear how the Universal Translator interprets him.

Why would we hear it that way? It doesn't seem to compensate for other characters.

 

[Iamnotspock]

^except she plays an English woman, as you can see when you read that article... :P

I take it back! That'll teach me not to read these things properly.