Foreign accents by non natives in movies and TV

[LizzieMaine]

That's more of a new England accent.

Massachusetts and parts of southern New Hampshire, to be exact. Up north we say "Idee-ah," with the "ah" sound forced upward and outward thru the adenoids.

Maine dialect is very difficult for non-natives to imitate. We made it that way to catch them if they try to sneak in unnoticed, the same way the ancient Hebrews used "shibboleth."

 

[ChiTownScion]

Famously (and thankfully), Clark Gable and Leslie Howard didn't even attempt Southern American accents in Gone With the Wind. Vivien Leigh's attempt at it... meh.

On a somewhat similar note, and noting someone who got a regional action right, there was Brando in "Streetcar."

A friend and lodge brother of mine had lived in New Orleans (he eventually went back there and has remained there) told me that almost Brooklyn-ese accent of Stanley's is very typical of locals known as Yats. ( Derived from " Where y' at?") He even created a local Yat character named Angelo who would call into local NO radio station talk shows and voice his opinions on current events-- cleaned up from four letter expletives that he'd have the character employ when we were not in mixed company, of course. "Angelo" was almost tribal in the love of his city ("----in' New AWE-lins, dude!") and his dislike of yuppies, tourists, etc. The routine was pretty funny, but it also illustrated his point that New Orleans isn't really "Southern."

 

[LizzieMaine]

You can hear that "South Brooklyn" sort of accent very clearly in recordings of Louis Armstrong's speaking voice. He uses the characteristic slurred oi/ir transposition that occurs in both dialects.

Traditional "New York" accents are very difficult for actors to get right as well. It used to irritate me to no end to hear Art Carney as Ed Norton say things like "kern" for "coin." A real 1950s Brooklyn pronunciation would have been something like "keyirn," a melding of the "oi" and "ir", rather than a pure substitution. To hear an authentic Golden Era Brooklyn accent, listen to "Duffy's Tavern" sometime, and pay close attention to Ed Gardner's pronunciations.

 

[HudsonHawk]

A "New Awlins" accent (nobody says "N'awlins") is almost identical to that of New Jersey to those who don't hear it often. And accents vary even within the city. For example, the previously mentioned "Yat" is very distinct to a particular neighborhood within New Orleans, the 9th Ward. You don't really hear it in the French Quarter, for example. And there are other subtlties that natives can distinguish, that most people can't. They say that a native can tell what part of the city you're from, right down to the street! All of which goes to show what a fascinating mix of culture New Orleans is. There is no other city in the US (maybe even the world) like it. It's a must see.

 

[ChiTownScion]

All of which goes to show what a fascinating mix of culture New Orleans is. There is no other city in the US (maybe even the world) like it. It's a must see.

Definitely on the Bucket List: A trip down to New Orleans via Pullman Rail Journeys for an extended weekend with my wife. She isn't too keen on the idea, so I may have to agree to a trip to Maui or Hilton Head as a condition precedent/ trading chit.

http://www.travelpullman.com/

 

[Stearmen]

How about a Bronx-Brooklyn accent! [video=youtube;e8TUwHTfOOU]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e8TUwHTfOOU[/video]

 

[Seb Lucas]

I really hate Sylvester Stallone's attempt at an American accent, you can't even understand what he's saying it's so terrible.

 

[Edward]

I really hate Sylvester Stallone's attempt at an American accent, you can't even understand what he's saying it's so terrible.

Really? I've never struggled at all with him - fairly standard Philly, I thought? He does have a bit of a slur occasionally, which I believe is due to his partial facial-paralysis (a nerve was severed in his face owing to complications during birth).

 

[Seb Lucas]

A joke, Edward, based on the frequently made of observation of Stallone's poor enunciation.

 

[MikeKardec]

Stallone can not be blamed, he was trained from birth to use only vowels!

Someone mentioned Andrew Lincoln ... it is definitely true that in the last 10 to 15 years several dialect coaches have cracked the code for British, Scottish, Irish, Kiwi and Aussie actors to speak with credible American accents (of one sort or another). The only one that makes me blink occasionally is Charlie Hunnam on Sons of Anarchy. I will say from slight experience (I auditioned hundreds of actors, many British and Australian a few years ago) that I believe doing a great American accent is not their natural state. I think there are some VERY VERY good coaches out there ... I only wish they could do a better jobs with American actors playing foreign roles.

From observation and a touch of insider knowledge I'd also say that a lot of the current crop of really good performances (especially in TV) is because of similarly top notch coaching of actors. The best acting teachers in LA and NYC do a land office business in "private consultations."

 

[Young fogey]

Why young British actors do American accents so well

Sylvester Stallone is from New York; lots of movies and TV use that accent as a stand-in for Philly, confusing the two. (They are very different.) He did go to school here for a while growing up but he has a New York accent. And yes, his slur is because of the paralysis from the birth accident. He turned that into an asset as an actor. Smart man: he wrote the first "Rocky" screenplay. Saw him once (alas, no camera), when Philly rededicated the "Rocky" statue from the movies.

...in the last 10 to 15 years several dialect coaches have cracked the code for British, Scottish, Irish, Kiwi and Aussie actors to speak with credible American accents (of one sort or another).

Nitpick: Scots are "British," though they prefer "Scottish"; I think by "British" you mean "English" or "English and Welsh." I've noticed that too. It's VERY hard for an American to convincingly fake an English accent but young British actors do it well with American accents all the time. (Kate Winslet, for example.) A couple of theories: excellent dialect coaches who've "cracked the code," and mine that they've been hearing our TV all their lives so they can imitate the speech very well; they're already almost bi-dialectal. (An example of bi-dialectal/code-switching: blacks who switch between white American English for work and black American English at home.) The British accents are simply less familiar to young Americans.

Older British actors (Cary Grant, and Jared Harris from "Mad Men" doing an American part, for example) who try American accents often end up sounding "Mid-Atlantic," a mixture of the two.

 

[Hemingway Jones]

It depends on where you are in the US too. That's the different rhotic (pronouncing the hard "R" sound) and non-rhotic accents. In places like New England and Virginia, the accents tend to be non-rhotic, more English influenced. Most of the American South, and the generic American accents are more Scottish and Scots-Irish influenced and are heavily rhotic, so you almost always hear the "R" when it's there, and sometimes even when it's not.

And Boston accents tend to take Rs away from where they are, such as "cah" and the newly famous "blinkah," and add them where they are not, such as "Vodker" or "Idee-er" for "idea." Much of that is fading away in an increasingly homogenized world.

Not all Brits get the American accent right. Andrew Lincoln's southern accent is comically bad. There are memes devoted to it, especially his inability to say his son's name, "Corrralll!"

I've yet to hear an American actor properly capture a Boston accent. Somehow even some natives get it wrong... but if you grow up in Cambridge or Brookline and pretend that you're from Southie that's what happens.

 

[HudsonHawk]

This past weekend, I was sitting around flipping channels and came across a movie version of The Yearling from sometime in the 90's. I remember reading the book when I was a kid, and seeing that it's about "my people", rural Florida "crackers", I'd thought I'd watch a bit. While most of the dialogue was fairly accurate, the accents were terrible, save for a couple; Jean Smart played the mother in the story, and I don't know where she's from, but she nailed it pretty good. The other was Philip Seymour Hoffman, of all people. He wasn't perfect, but his Florida accent was as good as any actor's I've ever seen.

 

[rjb1]

Concerning British actors with good American accents, the several British/English actors in "Band of Brothers" did an excellent job at that. Damien Lewis, the person who played the main character, Maj. Dick Winters, was especially good. I saw him later on a talk show using his "real" accent and I could hardly believe it. (His firearms-handling skills were also amazingly good. His rapid unloading and loading of the US M1 rifle was perfect, and that takes a lot of skill and dexterity.)
I know there were some others in that cast, but unless I looked them up I could not tell which ones had real or fake US accents.

On the other side of the coin, we have mentioned here before various people who can't properly do Southern accents. On of the worst, of many "worsts" in that regard is Paul Newman in "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof". It's not that good of a movie to begin with, and with PN sounding like he does, I have never been able to watch that movie all the way through. Considering his overall acting skills, it was sad to watch him in that movie try to talk like a Southerner.
(I think the South in general gets partial credit for being a foreign country with foreign accents, since we tried our best to make it one, once upon a time.) Hollywood and New York movie people certainly don't grasp the subtleties of the number and variety of Southern dialects.
I think it was Hudson Hawk earlier who pointed out the absurdity of a poor boy from mid-Alabama (Forrest Gump) speaking with an accent appropriate for upper-class mid-Virginia.

 

[F. J.]

Well now . . .

[...]
Not all Brits get the American accent right. Andrew Lincoln's southern accent is comically bad. There are memes devoted to it, especially his inability to say his son's name, "Corrralll!"
[...]

I don't know about that one; I'm a Southerner myself and know several people who were surprised to find out that he is English.
Granted, I'm a Mississippian and The Walking Dead is set in Georgia, but I consider his accent pretty well convincing.

 

[Benny Holiday]

What do you fine people think of Simon Baker's accent? Does he sound convincing to you? I've gotten so used to hearing him speak with an American accent (Californian? - if there is such a regional accent) in The Mentalist and playing the same role in TV advertisements here in Australia that it shocks me when I hear him speak with his native accent in an interview!

 

[Horace Debussy Jones]

The worst of the worst? Any American in a Hollywood film trying to do an Irish accent. Especially the onez supposed to be Belfast but which are actually a poor imitation of Dublin.

Yes. Brad Pitt did the most awful and contrived Irish accent in a movie with Harrison Ford. Ford playing a cop who unknowingly sponsers Brad Pitts terrorist character who is attempting to smuggle weapons out of the country on a fishing boat.
I forget the title now, as it wasn't such a great film considering the talents of the actors in it. Possibly the worst performance by the both of them I've ever seen.

 

[MikeKardec]

Actually, it's pretty wonderful that actors do better these days than they used to. The preparation time (especially for a TV pilot) is often just a few days and the actors that I have met seldom spend any time practicing anything they are not contracted to use.

I suspect that is different with non-US actors who want to work in the US, however. I just worked with two Indian actors one born in Mumbai the other in New Jersey ... the Indian born actor had to struggle to sound "Indian" while the US born actor easily put on an atypical but convincing (I don't know how perfect it was but it wasn't a caricature) Indian accent. The New Jersey guy explained it by saying, "If you look like me you'd better be able to sound like an Indian" ... but he sure didn't sound Indian when he said it!!!

In my limited experience, even if you don't have exactly the right sound, the more you practice the better it gets, I think it has something to do with muscular familiarity. Basically, if you want to sound right you have to stay "on accent" at least until you get it down.

Back in the 1990s I got a chance to audition Simon Baker (Simon Baker Denny in those days) for what might have been his first US job. I wish we'd hired him but we didn't. His American accent was only okay and his Irish accent (required by the part) was not so hot. None of that mattered because, typical of those days, we were ordered by the network to hire only American actors to play our Irishmen and especially not to hire any real Irish actors because, "No one can understand them." So we had a bunch of Americans who learned from Lucky charms commercials. Well, we did sneak in one Irish guy at the last moment when they were panicked to fill the part!

I'm sure Baker could have done a much better job than many of our American actors with some training ... I find Australian culture to be very "Irish" and I believe that would have made him even more convincing. To our discredit (or the network's) we passed on some other actors we also really liked ... like Hilary Swank.

 

[LizzieMaine]

In my limited experience, even if you don't have exactly the right sound, the more you practice the better it gets, I think it has something to do with muscular familiarity. Basically, if you want to sound right you have to stay "on accent" at least until you get it down.

That's absoutely it. Dialect isn't just the way you pronounce words, it's the way you hold your jaw and tongue while speaking, and all those muscles have a part to play in the process. Muscle control in the jaw is absolutely critical to getting a Maine accent right -- it has to be practically immobile. Getting that right is the difference between sounding like Titus Moody and sounding like Tom Bosley.

 

[rjb1]

"If you look like me you'd better be able to sound like an Indian."
That reminds me of a humorous situation that I encountered some years ago. One of our state engineering schools is in East Tennessee, where the Appalachian accents can be very pronounced (pun intended). One of the engineering professors there was a first-generation Indian (as was his wife). They had a son who was born in the area and grew up there, and obviously learned to talk there.
I encountered the son when he came here for grad school. He looked pure Indian on the outside, but when he talked it was pretty much Gomer Pyle on the inside. He was smart enough and mature enough to realize the situation was not ordinary, and went along with the humor and strangeness of it. I still smile when I think of my first meeting with him. What!?!