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.

And I have never heard any English person say bint

common in the NW.

@FudgeDrudge

And I have never heard any English person say bint

common in the NW.

"Moistened bint" from the couldn't-be-more-English Michael Palin in MPATHG ?

@SenecaFallsRedux

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.

Is it true - as a friend from Kentucky once told me - that British actors find Southern accents easier to do than northern (urban?) ones?

And I've never worked out how (some? all?) American accents manage to pronounce the L in words like 'calm' and 'palm'. I've tried but my mouth just can't do it.

No reason why he should be able to do a West of Ireland accent, and he can't.

I've no doubt.

However, WMT is not set in the West of Ireland either, it's in the Midlands. Apparently - at least the play it was based on was.

Not that it makes any difference to the dire accents.

@EggyPegg

For me it's the dialect that's written. An actor cn have a perfectly fine British accent, but will use American idioms such as replying 'sure' when asked something, or refering to the boot of a car as the 'trunk'.

Agree and I always wonder why the actor never mentions it before doing the scene? Usually they would be easy enough to change. I remember Robb Stark, the most northern of northerners, saying he would "write" his wife while on campaign, but no British person would say that sentence without including a "to."

Also agree that being "British" doesn't mean you can do any other UK-based accent successfully.

My nomination for worst ever Welsh accent was Stephen Graham in the recent White House Farm ITV series www.walesonline.co.uk/lifestyle/tv/white-house-farm-stephen-graham-17536511
The character was called 'Taff' Jones in an additional stroke of irony so you couldn't even pretend he was supposed to be Irish/Brummie/Indian/whatever other areas his accent meandered around...

Hugh Grant in The Gentleman.
Guessing he was meant to do a kind of camp Michael Caine, but oh my goodness!

Oh god Bly Manor accents were just terrible!!! It made it almost comedic! Especially the episode set in medieval times. So so so so bad.

@SenecaFallsRedux the thing I can hear all the time is the mistaken assumption by English actors that the “r” sound they use in their native accent when the sound appears in initial position (as in “rush”) or middle position (“crash”) is the same r that you would use when r appears in final position in a rhotic accent. In RP, this r sound is formed by the tip of the tongue moving up and backwards...but american rs are formed by the back of the tongue moving up and back. The resonance of the two sounds is totally different and hearing an RP speaker approximate an american r using an RP r in the middle or at the end of the word is unmistakable. I have heard it many times but a great example is Alison Wright in “the Americans”. She’s English, playing american and Matthew Rhys plays her lover and then husband - a character she knows as “Clarke”. She uses his name a lot, obviously, and I can actually hear the tip of her tongue moving to make the r in the wrong way every time she says it. It affects the “a” vowel sound preceding it in the wrong way. Unmistakeable.

God, I’m such a geek. I love this shit - Henry Higgins from “My Fair Lady” is my accent icon.

@EarringsandLipstick the play on which “Wild mountain rhyme” was based is called “Outside Mullingar” and it’s set in the midlands of IRELAND.

@FudgeDrudge

And I have never heard any English person say bint

common in the NW.

I was going to say common in London! All my family say it, we’re from London or suburbs. Live in the NW now and don’t think I’ve heard anyone say it.

For me it's the dialect that's written. An actor cn have a perfectly fine British accent, but will use American idioms such as replying 'sure' when asked something, or refering to the boot of a car as the 'trunk'

The most infuriating one of these is Jason Statham - at least he doesn’t try and do American any more, but in one film I saw him in he used the word twat but pronounced it ‘twot’??! There are so many swear words he could have recommended but they went with twot?!?? What British person would say that!

I can’t remember anything else about the film that infuriated me so much.

James Marsters I thought his accent was crap. I also though Hugh Laurie’s as House was crap but most people think it’s great. Idris Elba in one of the Alien movies was shit too - was surprised to hear he did a good one in The Wire!

Speaking of the Wire: Dominic West’s was terrible. Loads of examples of the “r” debacle I was mentioning above.

OP I really hope you aren't from GB! There's no such thing as a British accent

Somebody could speak with a Scottish accent for example or, a Welsh accent etc etc

It's very uneducated to say that somebody speaks with a "British" accent

No accent is butchered in film quite as bad as South African.

Lethal weapon 2
Blood diamond
I could go on...

@SuperbGorgonzola
I hate it when they have regional accents for no reason. There was no reason for the Bly Manor gardener to be northern.
All accents are regional.
What was the reason the gardener NOT to be Northern?

Stephen Dorff's "Scouse accent" in Backbeat was cringeworthy. Awful.

Dr Bekker in Chicago Med has an awful South African accent. Veers all over the place.

@Buster72

No accent is butchered in film quite as bad as South African.

Lethal weapon 2
Blood diamond
I could go on...

The accents in Invictus were HILARIOUS.

I can't bear Suranne Jones doing any accent apart from her Corrie one. She slips all the time !

On the topic of inappropriate words, I watched Mary Shelley on Netflix and at one point she says something about “gender”, which really jarred. I’m pretty sure they didn't say gender in those days.

Not British, but the guy who played Gus Fring in Breaking Bad is a wonderful actor, but my goodness he cannot speak Spanish at all. It’s really awful.

@HitchikersGuide

Chris Hemsworth in the Huntsman 2 - or whatever it's called - I've tried to wipe it from my memory

Chris Helmsworth spoke in that movie? I didn't notice.

Posh southern English is usually a spoiler that the character is a "baddie" of some description. Annoying...

Inability to distinguish accents is an issue though. I can localise most English accents and probably east Vs west Scotland but subtleties within that are beyond me (can recognise but not understand Glaswegian) but although I can hear there are differences between the surrounding areas I have no idea where they're from...

Interestingly my posh southern accent doesn't get the same judgement and assumptions that it does in England.

@Burnthurst187 pretty harsh, superior and unnecessarily insulting comment.

[quote DynamoKev]@SuperbGorgonzola
I hate it when they have regional accents for no reason. There was no reason for the Bly Manor gardener to be northern.
All accents are regional.
What was the reason the gardener NOT to be Northern?[/quote]
RP is a non regional accent.