Bad accents in tv/ films

[Bearpawk]

Anybody else get really bothered by this?

Honestly it makes my skin crawl for some reason and that's ALL I can think about/ hear and it completely ruins whatever I'm watching.
Some examples - Suranne Jones in dr foster
Lemon in Bullet Train
The sister in Insomnia

Arghhhh am I the only one who picks up on it ?

Worst was the Irish accents in an episode of Murder She Wrote when it was set in Ireland.

I fortunately missed that. IIRC Angela Lansbury's mother was Irish, so she should have known better! Though she was another one who could do British and American accents - on her father's side, she had East End roots.

There is a particular 'BBC American' that they all use, and they used to do the same one on TV. I remember struggling to watch Anne of Green Gables in the 1970s.

If that was the one with Kim Braden, she is British, but her parents were Canadian (although not the right part of Canada for AOGG), so she should have had some idea about a Canadian accent.

Gerard Butler is scottish but his accent in crime seemed so totally fake and he was meant to be scottish in it!

Her dad is scottish. And she was in an episode of still game and I had no idea she wasn't scottish herself.

Also one that DID nail an accent was Johnny Lee Miller in Trainspotting. I had no idea he was actually English until I seen him in other things.

Johnny Lee millers was decent definitely

and Greg Hemphill, I forget he’s not Scottish

Haven't read the full thread, so it may have been mentioned, but Mark Ruffallo's accent in Poor Things. It was all over the show!

Gillian Anderson is British.

@Crinkle77 I just checked, she's American, born there, but you're right in the sense that she lived in the UK until she was 11 so would explain things a bit

Granite Harbour

Ok Aberdeen is not the accent most people think of when they hear Scottish but either get local actors or people who can do the accent

Why not? He's popular there

My mistake but she's spent so much time here she has a British accent. I used to be obsessed with the X-Files and I was shocked when I heard her real accent.

I agree with a PP about the awful English accents in haunting of Bly manor - awful and distracting.

Daniel Craig accent kept slipping in the knives out films.

I think Stephen Graham is an amazing actor but I couldn't get on board with his accent in Yardie.

I can't believe nobody has mentioned the abomination that is Jason Statham's attemps at an American accent. Or anything other than cockney.

Not to mention his terrible acting.

Yes I had to stop watching that series of SofA because their take on Belfast as a benighted and remote village from the 1920s was just too irritating!

As a corrective to bad accents, I think the most 'nailed it' accent performance was Alan Rickman is Die Hard, especially the part where he's an English actor pretending to be a German who's pretending to be a Midwest American.

To be fair that actor (forget his name, the one who was in braveheart) was phoning it in for most of the series 😂

Oh God don't get me started on this.

I couldn't watch Peaky Blinders; my mum's from the West Midlands (Black Country not Brum, but you take my point). None of them sounded right, even the sainted and much-missed Helen McCrory.

Stephen Graham in that recent time-travel/sci-fi thing where he plays a wealthy top-hatted sort. Appalling.

I've just started watching Eric and am gritting my teeth at Benedict C's accent. I love him but his 'generic American' really winds me up.

The Responder: I don't think Martin F is awful at Scouse, but he isn't that good.

Jack Lowden in Slow Horses. Fabulous series, terrific actor, but I feel like he's just a little flat/stiff because he's having to concentrate on the accent. No massive reason why he couldn't just be Scottish; he could easily have a different accent from his grandfather.

Attempts at Welsh ALWAYS turn Indian

Yes... I think our O level English teacher realised too late she shouldn't have encouraged us to attempt the read around the class of Under Milk Wood with a Welsh accent. Whether our attempts at The Nun's Priest's Tale was remotely like Middle English none of us knew.

This was one of the most perfect bits of the most perfect film
RIP Alan.

Yes because the American accent would deliberately falter sometimes and the German come through but only really slightly so, through Bruce's POV, he could sort of feel something was off but not totally lol

How AR did that I will never know!

I'm 2nd generation Irish and have lived here for nearly 2 decades and the fake-Irish accents really give me ire! There's so many native Irish actors who are really good at what they do, I'm baffled as to why non-Irish actors are cast! It's a difficult accent to do accurately, especially for a whole script and unless you were reared here from childhood, it's almost impossible to do well!

I don't think I've ever heard a convincing fake scouse accent, but the woman who played Stephen Graham's wife in line of duty was so terrible there were articles in the Liverpool echo about it!
Also God knows what Barry Keogan was attempting to do in Saltburn - he is supposed to be from Prescot which tbf is just outside Liverpool but the accent there is definitely not what he was speaking.
I get its a difficult accent to do - my family is from Liverpool, I'm from Merseyside and I can only manage it myself if I'm in a room full of scousers, but why not just get an actor from the area if its necessary for the plot, or just have the actor speak in a different accent if it's not?

Derek Thompson is from Belfast and that’s his real voice! His accent in Casualty was the one he put on.