Dodgy British accents in films/tv

[sauvignonbonk]

Watched 2 things on Netflix recently (haunting of bly manor and Juliet, naked) which featured American/Australian actors putting on really dodgy British accents and it was so distracting! Surely just cast somebody who can do the accent correctly or is actually British themselves?

It must happen the other way round as well but I’d never be able to tell if somebody was doing a poor American accent.

The Boys and Karl Urban - until they mentioned he was meant to be British I thought he was Australian. The phrases he uses and how he says them is so Australian (I'm Australian).

See to me nothing is more painful than British and American actors attempting an Australian accent. I guess we all feel that way about our own accents as we are much more attuned to the nuances.

I was watching an early episode of the X Files, which featured an entire English family, their servants (naturally - we all have servants here) and then a posh - maybe Scotland Yard - lady who was protecting the family. The accents were terrible - really awful. The super posh one and this dreadful mockney. So I imdbd the actors ... they were English actors! But no way were they their real voices!
I think they'd been told to put on certain accents that Americans would recognise as 'Briddish' - plummy and toffee nosed or 'oi oi guvnor' and they just weren't any good at them, no better than an American trying.

In fairness to Americans, I can't do any British accents that aren't my own. And our own accents are so massively varied that clearly employing someone British isn't going to guarantee an authentic or even credible accent, if they're playing a character from a different part of the country.

Anyone remember Scottish actor Dougray Scott as Susan's posh English boyfriend in Desperate Housewives. He had the most appalling English accent. I remembered him as having a decent English accent in Ever After but it's been a long time since I've seen it.

The gardener from The Haunting of Bly Manor is from the South of England and her Northern accent sounded very fake to me.

Years ago the Australian actor Guy Pierce told a story of a US producer who asked him why he was talking in that weird way, and he had to explain that that was his real way of talking and he only put on an American accent when he was acting (to which the producer said " But we don't have an accent"). I gathered from that that it must be much easier to fake an American accent, possibly because we all hear them so much on tv from an early age.

Apparently Russian journalists very much appreciated the lack of attempted Russian accents in Armando Iannucci's "The death of Stalin".

I was surprised to hear that Jamie Dornan’s Irish accent was mocked in a film recently, but apparently he sounded like someone from Northern Ireland doing an American accent impersonating someone from Southern Ireland.

Has anyone mentioned Dick Van Dyke yet?

The Haunting of Bly is really bad. I did google as the vair posh and stiff local bobby.

Is there any such thing as a British accent? Scottish, welsh, Irish, English all different accents not to mention all the regionals

I think the OP means any British accent that you think was done badly, rather than she's assuming all British accents are the same.

Not quite what the OP asked, but I thought that (Glaswegian) Martin Compton's estuary accent in Line Of Duty was utterly convincing. I had quite a surprise when he was interviewed on daytime TV in his usual voice!

When I first watched trainspotting I had no idea that Johnny Lee Miller was English.

I didn’t notice any dodgy accents in Juliet naked...

“Not quite what the OP asked, but I thought that (Glaswegian) Martin Compton's estuary accent in Line Of Duty was utterly convincing.”

Yes! I’d have had no idea!

Nobody’s mentioned Jodie Comer yet as solid proof that it can be done. Her various characters in Killing Eve are utterly convincing and I just presumed she was quite posh in real life (like her character in Doctor Foster). Her real accent actually quite broad Liverpudlian!!!

Totally agree re Anne Hathaway in One Day. Gréât book, awful film.

Also I had to turn off How to be a Girl as the actress's supposed Brummie accent was painful.

Green Street is another one. The guy sounds sort of Australian, sort of Dick Van Dyke.

@sauvignonbonk

Watched 2 things on Netflix recently (haunting of bly manor and Juliet, naked) which featured American/Australian actors putting on really dodgy British accents and it was so distracting! Surely just cast somebody who can do the accent correctly or is actually British themselves?

It must happen the other way round as well but I’d never be able to tell if somebody was doing a poor American accent.

I'm sure you would! I've noticed recently in a discovery of witches Alex Kingston does a terrible American accent - why not just make the character English?? And in fantastic beasts and where to find them you can hear Colin Farrell's Irish accent come through a few times

I don't know why the producers don't seem to notice or care

Anthony LaPaglia's accent, (Daphne Moons brother in Frasier), wasn't from anywhere. They went with him being drunk most of the time and Robbie Coltrane having been dropped on his head as a baby, to cover them up.

I loved The Affair when it was on tv, set in the US, 5 series - couldn't believe it when it turned out the leads Dominic West and Ruth Wilson were British actors. Ruth W especially just seemed so American. She won a Golden Globe award for Best Actress for it in 2015.

I've just remembered David Tennant in a Bad Samaritan. He played a billionaire, so could have been educated anywhere in the world. Why they made him try to do an American accent, when he was cleary failing, I didn't understand.

I think with all the mingling of different countries and cultures we are gradually moving to an homogenised accent and way of speaking, but if different accents were dropped in films and TV programmes and everybody adopted a voice like Popeye and Olive Oil it would speed up this process and make things like 'The Crown' and 'Question Time' much more entertaining.

Nobody will ever be worse than Dick Van Dyke in Mary Poppins! Which I’ve had to endure more than once lately, since I was daft enough to record it for visiting little Gdcs, who love it.

I haven’t watched the film yet, have recorded it for later but there’s a film where Liam Niessan is on a train. From the clip I saw his accent was terrible.

Just let him be Irish! I don’t think he can do a great American accent, it’s all nasally and wrong!

Still love his films though.

It does seem American actors tend to default to RP when playing someone English. So I think that's the idea of what a "British accent" despite the number of British people speaking like it being low.

Regional Britush accents are often questionable. Probably not aided by the fact that regional accents themselves can vary a lot.

There's a variety of Irish accents too. Seemingly Emily Blunt and Jamie Doran are in a new film series in Ireland. Can't remember which county, but the accents apparently are horrendous (akin to Tom Cruise in Far and Away.) Jamie Doran actually has an irish accent normally just not the one it's supposed to be in the film. Emily had no hope 😄

"set in Ireland". Not series in Ireland!

Why they made him try to do an American accent, when he was cleary failing, I didn't understand.
I suspect they wanted an American accent to please north American viewers, who are a huge market and who expect to hear American accents. That's a generalisation, of course, but sometimes I read comments on film forums such as "My kids won't watch films with accents" meaning nonnorth American accents. So, even if he doesn't sound like a north American, he's not making that sort of viewer uncomfortable by speaking in an accent they consider outlandish.