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 Sandman My XH went to primary school with Jamie Bamber, and one of his parents (can’t remember which now) is American, so that may well have helped.

[quote frolicmum]@sauvignonbonk I agree. I am German and I find it awful when American actors play Germans and then put German accents on or worse speaking German.

Both countries have 60+ and 80+ million inhabitants, surely you can get a good actor from that country? [/quote]
Famously Arnold Schwarzenegger wasn't suitable for dubbing "Terminator 2" into German as his Austrian accent is apparently a bit local-yokel ?

@Shortfeet

Also there is a particular accent that I call " drama school Scottish " that is done by Scottish actors that NOONE in Scotland speaks like.

Yes John Hannah, I'm looking at you

Listening to his accent wobble about all over the place was one of the best (certainly the funniest) things about The Mummy.

In The Haunting of Bly Manor, it wasn’t just the accents that were bad. The use of Americanisms that would have been almost unheard of in 1980s Britain was really jarring. Also, one British character (played by a British actor) saying “math” instead of maths. Argh!

@CounsellorTroi there’s a whole separate Mumsnet thread about the shitness of “Wild Mountain Thyme”, for that is the name of that Blunt/Dornan shitshow.

Dornan’s from Belfast but his County Westmeath accent is apparently HORRIFIC. The two accents are pretty different TBF...

It's odd how British actors doing their natural accents in American films often sound odd as well. Sam Palladio who is British sounded flawlessly American to me in Nashville, yet in the Princess Switch (top end cultural viewing all the way for me ) his English accent sounds like an American trying too hard.

I’m low carbing at the moment and already suffering from hanger: I think watching “WMT” might just push me over the edge.

Helen Baxendale's voice always sounds really odd in Friends although I presume it's her natural accent.

@Housewife2010 I do think that but honestly I think it’s in the context of the Americans around her. I think she sounded exactly the same in Cold Feet...

How good is Cate Blanchett's posh British accent? I always think she's good but as a Kiwi I'm no expert. She sounded so weird with her natural accent in Ocean's 8; it took us ages to work out that's what it was.

Anthony Hopkins attempted a Southern NZ accent for the World's Fastest Indian, which was utterly atrocious.

Worst is Don Cheadle in the Oceans films.

Someone mentioned Alexis Denisof from
Buffy. I also thought James Marsters (Spike) had a good accent too. I was surprised when I realised he wasn’t English. Maybe having Anthony Head on set helped

@purplemunkey

Worst is Don Cheadle in the Oceans films.

Someone mentioned Alexis Denisof from
Buffy. I also thought James Marsters (Spike) had a good accent too. I was surprised when I realised he wasn’t English. Maybe having Anthony Head on set helped

Everyone says Spike has a great English accent but I just can't hear it! From the moment he arrived (brilliantly) in Sunnydale his accent just made me cringe. As I said before I got used to it eventually, and now I love him with a love that is pure and true, or perhaps not so pure, but it still just doesn't seem right to me. Especially when he says a word with an "a" in it, it just sounds like an American a to me. I choose to believe his accent is some weird mix of Victorian and present day and bears no relationship to any actual English accent.

Spike's accent got better - but was pure Dick Van Dyke to begin with. Alexis Denisof lived in England as a teenager and was in London for over ten years - he's in Sharpe playing an Englishman surrounded by Englishmen playing Englishmen and doesn't stand out.

The Buffyverse is where good accents go to die though. Kendra - the part Irish part Jamaican part where in the world is that vampoire slayah, Drusilla's mental mockney and of course Angel's "Irish" (note sarcastic airquotes) accent - it is the stuff of legend.

Oh god - and Molly the potential! I forgot about her. Now she was pure Dick Van Dyke.

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

He's from NI, which is part of the UK. No reason why he should be able to do a West of Ireland accent, and he can't. The only thing to be said for it is that its better than the other fake irish accents in that god-awful excuse for a film.

Also, don't say "southern Ireland", as that means Cork and Kerry (the southern part of the country called Ireland). It's just Ireland.

@elquinto re billy in the boys.....YES -it took me until about the eighth episode to work out he was supposed to be a cockney and not Australian using British slang....and then his equally appallingly accented family turned up including Mrs Patmore from downton abbey who is British but apparently still can't do an east London accent.....

@elQuintoConyo

As much as I love The Boys and Karl Urban in anything, his Billy Butcher accent is atrocious sorry Karl!

As soon as I saw this thread I thought of him!

Boy manor was ruined for me by the narrator hanging English accent evvery 20 minutes. One episode she began like Emma Thompson and ended like Ena Sharples. Absolutely bizarre.

Would it really have blown the budget to have a different person doing the narration to the actress who was made up to look older and was supposed to be the narrator but didn't have an English accent in RL by the end? Dreadful.

I know it's going back a bit (but it one of my favourite films) I've always enjoyed the irony of Finlay Currie's character in Billy Liar chiding the young Billy about taking the mick out of his accent.

Billy who has aspirations to escape his dreary northern town affects a 'posh' southern voice at times but when talking to his boss starts to mimic his heavy Yorkshire accent. Finlay Currie playing the boss was born in Edinburgh and his natural speaking voice was identifiably Scottish while Tom Courtney who played Billy was born and grew up in Yorkshire. (If Hull and the rest of the East Riding really counts as Yorkshire proper.)

But they were proper dead good actors they were. Not like your modern lot....

I thought Don Cheadle did a really good job with the accent in Oceans 11 - the problem was the awful script he was given to deliver.

Don Cheadle's 'cockney' accent in Snatch made my ears bleed. I'm a cockney and we don't talk like that. I don't understand why they don't just cast someone who is from the country/region instead of getting an actor to do a bad accent!

Apologies, I didn't mean Snatch, I meant Oceans 11, but I see someone has already mentioned how bad it was!!

And yes to James Marsters in Buffy! Not sure why so many people say it's good when it's so terrible.... Weird hybrid American English. And I have never heard any English person say bint. We do say bloody alot though!

It does happen the other way round too - with English or Scots actors doing a General American accent, the wrong Rs are a DEAD giveaway.

So true. And often the problem is that they over do the rhotic element. Quite a few American accents retain some elements of non-rhotic pronunciation (coastal South, New England, and African American Vernacular English, for example) and even those that are fully rhotic don't have a pirate-like "rrrrr" sound.

@FudgeDrudge

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

He's from NI, which is part of the UK. No reason why he should be able to do a West of Ireland accent, and he can't. The only thing to be said for it is that its better than the other fake irish accents in that god-awful excuse for a film.

Also, don't say "southern Ireland", as that means Cork and Kerry (the southern part of the country called Ireland). It's just Ireland.

For some reason I was tickled to hear Ed Byrne and Dara O'Briain drop into a clear "Norn Iron" accent in Mock The Week, when joking that if Scotland was having 5 tiers, then "Norn Iron" would want 10 ...

Guy I shared with for a couple of years at Uni came from NI, and seemed to be able to tell where anyone was from (and more importantly what religion they were) in Ireland. He did try to teach me - and I admit the accents of Ian Paisley and Gerry Adams were different in a way.