To find bad accents so off-putting?

[FrostyChocolateMilkshake]

Watching a film on Netflix and I cannot get past the terrible American accent of the male character, played by a British actor. His English accent keeps slipping in and it distracts from the storyline.

I just find it so annoying and off-putting - surely they could have cast an American actor as the lead role!? It's one of my biggest bugbears.

Does anyone else find this irritating or has lockdown turned me into an accent-ravaging arsehole?

Arrrghhh

@SuperbGorgonzola yes!!! Absolutely no background to his Scottish accent whatsoever. His natural British accent would have been absolutely fine and wouldn't have ruined the whole goddamn thing for me

* I much prefer this - same with Sound of Music, the actors speak in their own accents despite the characters being Austrian and it makes for far pleasanter viewing*

But they wouldn’t have been speaking English with a German accent, would they? They would have been speaking German. So it would have been plain daft to have the actors putting on a foreign accent anyway.

Not an accent issue because it was an American narrator and set in America, but I had to stop listening to an audiobook after half a chapter because the lead character was named Fleur and the narrator called her Flew-urr.

We spent the last series of Heroes laughing at the Irish accents. Even if you accepted they were American Irish they were bloody awful! Took away quite a lot of the drama...

@ohnoihavetoexercise I came on here to say Daniel Craig in Knives Out! I enjoyed the film but his accent was so bad that to start with I assumed it was deliberately fake and his character would be revealed as a plummy Brit (or whatever) after all! 😂

I can't bear the Northern Irish policeman's accent in Peaky Blinders, awful! We live on the Wirral although I'm from down south and DH loves spotting a Wirralaccent. The first time he saw Paul Hollywood he said he was from Wallasey and he is 😊

Some actors are very good at putting on another accent. Meryl Streep for example is brilliant at it; I haven't seen too many films with her actually speaking with her own accent. She was particularly good as Maggie Thatcher in 'Iron Lady'.

Others are hopeless, obviously. Like Dick Van Dyke in particular. I wish actors would only put on accents if they're good at it.

A few people have already mentioned Frasier. I actually like that they made Daphne Mancunian - if you watch most US TV, you’d think English people are either all chirpy cocker-nees or landed gentry. At least they were trying something different.

However, her friends and relatives in the show had universally awful accents. The episodes with Clive the mechanic (who actually does say ‘luverly’) and the underwear model at the English pub (‘Difnoy! Oim ingoyged!’) were particular low points. These so-called actors sounded like they’d never even heard of Britain, never mind having come from Britain.

Even Millicent Martin sounds like she’s doing a terrible British accent, and she is British! I wonder if some British actors, having spent a few years in America, drift into doing a kind of parody accent; what Americans think Brits ‘should’ sound like.

I watched The Wire over the first lockdown and Dominic West’s accent was very iffy imho - he kept slipping into English and I winced every time.

Idris was amazing throughout though.

I come from Nottingham and the attempts at our accent in films - not just Robin Hood but things like Saturday Night and Sunday Morning - never fail to amuse me.

Thank God for the Shane Meadows films.

Not quite on the point but I adore the deliberately ott accents on 'Allo 'Allo, especially Officer Crabtree,s mangled French

@Nocaloriesinchocolate Good moaning! I was pissing by the cafe and thought I’d poop in etc.

That was funny!

I hated Emily Blunt’s accent in Mary Poppins. I could barely watch it. There was no need to try and posh up her existing accent- it was just awfully affected.

PuppyMonkey Ha! Notts born & bred here too. I've been reading through the thread looking to see if anyone mentions East mids accents.
All the really good accents are from actors that are actually from Notts/Derbys

@DilysPrice

I think it’s sometimes simply a problem of seeing someone whose normal voice you know so well putting on a very different accent. Cumberbatch’s accent in Dr Strange might be impeccable for the character but I spent the first half hour of the movie doing a “why is Sherlock pretending to be an American????? ” double take. Yes consciously I am aware that there is such a thing as “acting” but it plays havoc with my subconscious suspension of disbelief.

I had the same problem with Hugh Laurie in House, because I’m so familiar with him in all his UK work, but because it only lasted half an hour or so, that’s nothing in the context of the hundreds of hours I’ve watched of House.

Yes this is me for both Laurie and Cumberbatch actually.

@Tiquismiquis

I hated Emily Blunt’s accent in Mary Poppins. I could barely watch it. There was no need to try and posh up her existing accent- it was just awfully affected.

I agree, she was far posher than Julie Andrew's as well. Emily Blunt is posh enough!

@Tiquismiquis I agree it was awful and just threw me out all the time.

It’s impossible for people today who are not royalty (or at least minor poshos!) to do that accent. It just sounds put on...because it is, but I genuinely think it’s just not possible to do.

I haven’t watched Chernobyl yet but I agree on the accents when not required - see also that film of the book where it’s narrated by death, there’s two children in WW2 one is stealing books? Sorry I can’t remember the name!

@StillCoughingandLaughing they may have made Daphne from Manchester but her accent was a bad Yorkshire.

Since Game of Thrones is so popular I do wonder if Americans can hear the variety in accents when watching; Sean Bean is so obviously Yorkshire, John Snow slightly less so and then Sam has more of a Manchester accent for example (not true Manc).

And then there are all the Southern/posher accents such as Cersei, Charles Dance etc.

I'm pretty useless when watching Steel Magnolias for instance, they all sound 'Southern' to me.

I agree. I've really struggled to get into "The Boys" because of Karl Urban's "Cockney" accent. Honestly, if it wasn't for Dick van Dyke it would probably be the worst version of that accent I have ever heard

Blow me, I was half watching that the other day and thought how nice it is that he finally gets to use his own accent! Oops! 😂

@kwiksavenofrillsusername

Daphne from Frasier has such a strange accent. I can’t quite place it. Sort of like an old Yorkshire lady. When her brothers show up, they’re a combination of Geordie and Londoners which is confusing.

Mel Gibson in Braveheart is just embarrassing.

Yes the Nashville actors were surprisingly good, seeing as they had to sing in the right accent too.

I agree about Daphne. I couldn't bear it and then was shocked to discover she was English. Did someone persuade her to make her accent more like Americans thought we sound like? Well weird.

When I lived in the States I was amused to see a cockney Londoner speaking about the government on the news. They gave him subtitles!

DynamoKev
OP - The reason so many Brits get work in USA is they are cheaper and adaptable.

Why are British actors cheaper?

Because they're less known in Hollywood/to American audiences so can't command the same pay.

They're also generally better trained than American actors, as most seem to go to acting/theatre school

@Snowpaw

Lord Baelish in Game of Thrones -hilarious

But what should his accent be? It’s not real places so his accent can be anything.

Like a pp I have to turn off most Radio 4 dramas where a British actor is doing an American accent. Most of them seem to do a weak impression of a 1940s film noir character.
Martin Compston's English accent was amazing in Line of Duty. God knows how he sustained it all the way through. I was so shocked when I heard him speak with his real accent.

Since Game of Thrones is so popular I do wonder if Americans can hear the variety in accents when watching; Sean Bean is so obviously Yorkshire, John Snow slightly less so and then Sam has more of a Manchester accent for example (not true Manc).

Sean Bean said that they did ask him if he could make his accent slightly less northern. His response was ‘no’ (but in the broadest Sheffield accent you can imagine)

I agree about Daphne. I couldn't bear it and then was shocked to discover she was English. Did someone persuade her to make her accent more like Americans thought we sound like? Well weird.

I do wonder if Jane Leeves was very conscious that someone else (Lisa Maxwell) had come close to getting the part, but essentially blew it at the audition by pointing out things in the script that didn’t ring true for a Brit. I think there are quite a few odd Americanisms in Daphne’s dialogue that you’d expect an actor to question otherwise.