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Original poster

In being annoyed by AMERICAN actors and actresses playing BRITISH literary icons?

95 replies

purplemonkeydishwasher · 02/03/2007 15:46

Barrie - Johnny Depp
Potter - Renee Zellwger
now Austen - Ann Big teeth watsername!

just really really gets on my tits!!

OP posts:
yellowrose · 02/03/2007 17:48

Yes, someone PLEASE get Hugh Grant off the movies for good !

Nockney · 02/03/2007 17:47

Hugh Grant is horrible. I don't think I can stand him, ever. Except for those few moments.

yellowrose · 02/03/2007 17:45

Ah, it must be because I really, really can't stand Hugh Grant. I have just seen bits of that film on Freeview, found it impossible to watch.

yellowrose · 02/03/2007 17:43

My all time fave crap accent is Meryl Streep in Out of Africa (was she trying to be Norwegian or something ?) Good film, but the accent was unbearable. She sounded like she was constipated throughout !

Nockney · 02/03/2007 17:41

Hugh Grant trying to sound like a Brooklynite in Mickey Blue Eyes is a very very funny few seconds in an otherwise dreadful movie. Just thinking about him saying 'Fugeddaboutit!' makes me crack up ...

Nockney · 02/03/2007 17:40

British actors do get North American accents wrong, too. Helena Bonham Carter did some film set in Nova Scotia, where her accent was so bad I didn't know whether to laugh or cry ... and I just saw the preview!

bran · 02/03/2007 17:37

Actually, Brad Pitt was pretty good in that awful film by Madonna's husband (Snatched? about a diamond or something). I was expecting Brad to be terrible and film to be exciting, I was very wrong.

I think the movie that was most spoiled by a bad accent was Star Wars ep. 1. I spent most of the film distracted by Ewan McGregor's accent until I realised he trying, and failing, to sound like Alec Guinness. Obviously they should have cast a real 'Galaxy far, far away' actor for that.

yellowrose · 02/03/2007 16:58

It is extremely annoying hearing even a good actor put on a strange accent, whatever their nationality. Very few get accents right.

They put actors/actresses into films these days because they are on the Hollywood A list, not because they can act or do good foreign accents. Most end up sounding like Hugh Grant trying to do a NY mafia accent in that awful film, Something Blue Eyes ? It always sounds fake.

expatinscotland · 02/03/2007 16:43

James McAvoy played a Dubliner in 'Inside I'm Dancing', which is a terrific film, btw.

expatinscotland · 02/03/2007 16:42

I'm not sure why they made him put on that horrid English accent. It sounds so phoney on him.

Maybe that says something about his acting ability?

Dunno.

I mean, James McAvoy put on a terrific Irish accent - even fooled two of my work colleagues from Dublin - and another accent for Shameless, yet he's a Scotsman as well.

ShinyHappyPeopleHoldingHands · 02/03/2007 16:39

Yeah why couldn't he have been "Susan's Scottish boyfriend"? Same difference, in these circs, surely!

ShinyHappyPeopleHoldingHands · 02/03/2007 16:37

Ah that explains that then Expat (Susan's boyfriend).

Yes I agree that any actor should be able to play any part.. but he/she should be able to do it well, accent and all, or it should go to someone else who can, an unknown if necessary, surely!

expatinscotland · 02/03/2007 16:36

Sarah,
DH saw him and said, 'He's a Scotsman! I've seen him in some films.' I said, 'No way!' So he IMDB'd him and yep, he's a Scotsman. He's doing a dreadful English accent.

LittleSarah · 02/03/2007 16:35

expat - god yes, that is a terrible accent. Wish they'd just let him ponce up his Scottish accent.

Original poster
purplemonkeydishwasher · 02/03/2007 16:21

ok. ok. fair play.
Renee Zellweger in ANY form annoys the shit out of me.

I guess my point was just that there are a lot of really good british actors and actresses out there so why do they need to go abroad for a lead? Especially when everyone else in the movie is british?
and it's not an accent thing. cause generally even if it;s a british actor playing a role he/she will no doubt have to put on a different British accent anyway.

OP posts:
expatinscotland · 02/03/2007 16:19

'Having said that I thought the bloke paying Susan's British boyfriend in Desperate Housewives was putting his British accent on but my friend told me he is English... '

Shiny, he sounds terrible because he is actually a Scotsman putting on an English accent.

Tutter · 02/03/2007 16:17

nationlity of the actor shouldn't really come into it should it?

if the actor's shite, or has a shite english accent, then by all means be annoyed by that particular actor, but think it's unfair to expect only brits to play brits, yanks to play yanks etc etc

Pruni · 02/03/2007 16:16

Message withdrawn

Caligula · 02/03/2007 16:16

Um, shouldn't Braveheart have been French? Or is that that other big Scottish hero whose name escapes me?

bran · 02/03/2007 16:15

Yes I was thinking of Braveheart on both counts (unsuitable actor/fictionalised history), but also that one about American independence, although I didn't see it.

Caligula · 02/03/2007 16:14

I think you're uneasonable. Actors should be allowed to play anyone - otherwise, only Romans would be allowed to play Caesar, only Greeks Alexander the Great, etc.

Just a small pedantic point re American Robin Hood - the English language has changed so much since mediaeval times that English accents are as likely to be wrong as American ones. And American accents are much closer to the English of Southern England in Elizabethan times anyway.

tallulah · 02/03/2007 16:13

Yes I often wonder if Directors have noticed there are some English actors out there.

Actually it bugs me when American actors talk about a "British accent". There is no such thing!!!!! But then they tend to use the words English and British interchangeably. Their idea of a "British" (cringe) accent is either Dick Van Dyke Mockney or the Queen. Perhaps our standard "American accent" is just as annoying to them?

Original poster
purplemonkeydishwasher · 02/03/2007 16:12

'I'M' even.

OP posts:
Original poster
purplemonkeydishwasher · 02/03/2007 16:11

ironically I not even BRITISH!

OP posts:
KathyMCMLXXII · 02/03/2007 16:10

LOL.