# Absolute Best Accent In Film **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [July 16, 2012, 8:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/absolute-best-accent-in-film/628444 "2012-07-16T20:38:22Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Mahaloth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mahaloth/32/1079_2.png) [@Mahaloth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mahaloth)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2012, 3:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/absolute-best-accent-in-film/628444/21 "2012-07-17T03:39:47Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > The fact that Jamie “Apollo” Bamber, from Battlestar Galactica, is British comes as a tremendous shock to anyone hearing him speak in his regular speaking voice for the first time. I have never heard of a reliable case of a person who could tell he wasn’t American from his lines on the show. Yep, that is what I came in to say. Also, Lena Headey did a great American accent on Sarah Connor Chronicles. ---
**Author:** ![jovan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/0ea827/32.png) [@jovan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jovan)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2012, 4:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/absolute-best-accent-in-film/628444/22 "2012-07-17T04:50:41Z")
The French Canadian accent is incredibly hard to nail down. Anglo-Canadians will often try to mimic it, but unless they’ve spent most of their lives in Quebec, they’ll usually fail horribly. This is why I was quite surprised when Edward Norton completely nailed it in the otherwise forgettable The Score. ---
**Author:** ![GuanoLad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guanolad/32/42_2.png) [@GuanoLad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GuanoLad)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2012, 4:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/absolute-best-accent-in-film/628444/23 "2012-07-17T04:55:09Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > The fact that Jamie “Apollo” Bamber, from Battlestar Galactica, is British comes as a tremendous shock to anyone hearing him speak in his regular speaking voice for the first time. I have never heard of a reliable case of a person who could tell he wasn’t American from his lines on the show. He just starred in a film directed by a friend of mine, where he had to put on an Australian accent throughout. I’ve only seen clips, but he’s very convincing. ---
**Author:** ![Accidental\_Martyr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ce7236/32.png) [@Accidental\_Martyr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Accidental_Martyr)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2012, 5:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/absolute-best-accent-in-film/628444/24 "2012-07-17T05:14:34Z")
> [@Lamia](#): > > Toni Collette is fantastic. She’s Australian, and aside from doing a convincing American accent in several movies, she’s done English accents (e.g. _About a Boy_) that sounded fine to my American ears AND in _Velvet Goldmine_ even pulled off the challenge of doing an American who slides in and out of an affected posh English accent. > > Thinking of people who were in _Velvet Goldmine_, Christian Bale’s American accent is good enough that I thought he was an American for years and was impressed by how well he did an English accent in _VG_! But I believe he grew up partially in the US, so he may have picked up an American accent pretty early on. 2005 interview with Christian Bale from NPR’s Fresh Air. He talks about his accent near the end at around 16:30. (This is the mobile version.) [http://m.npr.org/story/4700914?storyId=4700914&from=mobile](http://m.npr.org/story/4700914?storyId=4700914&from=mobile) ---
**Author:** ![Malienation](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4af34b/32.png) [@Malienation](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malienation)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2012, 4:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/absolute-best-accent-in-film/628444/25 "2012-07-18T04:25:39Z")
I remember reading a newspaper article a few years ago in which the paper asked Spanish linguists to critique the accents done by a variety of actors playing Latinos. Major surprise: they said Al Pacino did an excellent job doing a low-rent Marielita accent in “Scarface”. If memory serves, the reviews of the movie when it was released tended to savage Pacino for his “ridiculous” accent (among other things). FWIW, the linguists didn’t care for his accent in “Carlito’s Way”. I think they said his accent was not bad, per se, but rather not ethnically correct (they said his accent did not reflect what a New York Puerto Rican of his background would sound like). ---
**Author:** ![Mississippienne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d2c977/32.png) [@Mississippienne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mississippienne)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2012, 4:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/absolute-best-accent-in-film/628444/26 "2012-07-18T04:47:11Z")
> [@Namkcalb](#): > > In the same way, I was impressed with Gillian Anderson’s English accent, right until I read she grew up in London. Similarly, Cary Elwes grew up partly in the UK and partly in America. Like John Barrowman, Gillian Anderson, and perhaps Bale, he is likely “fluent” in both accents. ---
**Author:** ![Typo\_Knig](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/cdc98d/32.png) [@Typo\_Knig](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Typo_Knig)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2012, 4:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/absolute-best-accent-in-film/628444/27 "2012-07-18T04:51:29Z")
Emma Thompson as a French princess in Henry V. And as American Nanny G on Cheers. ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2012, 5:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/absolute-best-accent-in-film/628444/28 "2012-07-18T05:12:51Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > Sam Neill (a native [New Zealander](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ts2bzkE4RBY)) does an excellent American accent. He also did a perfect English accent in “Reilly: Ace of Spies.” I think he also did a German accent in that series as well, but I don’t know how good it was. The times I’ve heard him do a Russian accent (“Amerika,” _The Hunt for Red October_, I’ve been less impressed. ---
**Author:** ![JKellyMap](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jkellymap/32/15880_2.png) [@JKellyMap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JKellyMap)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2012, 9:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/absolute-best-accent-in-film/628444/29 "2012-07-18T09:56:27Z")
If we’re doing cable dramatic series, both Idris Elba and Dominic West (Englishmen) did great American accents (though probably not specifically Baltimorean) in _The Wire_. Many are first made aware of their origins when they hear the actors’ audio commentary on the DVDs. Bryan Cranston spoofed this hilariously in the commentary for the first episode of the first season of _Breaking Bad_, when he starts out by saying, in an exaggerated Brit accent, “Hello! This is Bryan Cranston, and nobody knows I’m British!”. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![pseudotriton\_ruber\_ruber](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/a9a28c/32.png) [@pseudotriton\_ruber\_ruber](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pseudotriton_ruber_ruber)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2012, 10:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/absolute-best-accent-in-film/628444/30 "2012-07-18T10:08:37Z")
> [@SticksAndString](#): > > Stayed up late the other night watching “Secondhand Lions” which is one of my favorite films. Micheal Caine’s Texas accent in that film is spot freaking ON! 🙂 I didn’t expect him to pull off the accent as well as he did, to be honest. So why do you suppose he did the world’s worst New England accent in THE CIDER HOUSE RULES? He did it in his normal Cockney accent, playing a lifelong state of Mainer. I had to turn it off. ---
**Author:** ![KarlGauss](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/karlgauss/32/3713_2.png) [@KarlGauss](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KarlGauss)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2012, 10:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/absolute-best-accent-in-film/628444/31 "2012-07-18T10:33:46Z")
[Kelly MacDonald](http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0531808/) whose Texas accent as Carla Jean Moss in No Country for Old Men sounded absolutely genuine. All the more remarkable since she’s Scottish. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2012, 10:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/absolute-best-accent-in-film/628444/32 "2012-07-18T10:48:49Z")
Viggo Mortensen in Alatriste. His natural Spanish accent is Argentinian (he grew up there), and I’ve heard interviews when he was working in the LotR trilogy where his Spanish was rusty and he occasionally had to ask for a word which wouldn’t come to mind. But if I didn’t know better, watching him play that fortune soldier from León I would have been completely sure that his lastname is actually something as Old Castillian as Castille herself, and that he was born somewhere between Zamora and Burgos. ---
**Author:** ![JKellyMap](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jkellymap/32/15880_2.png) [@JKellyMap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JKellyMap)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2012, 11:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/absolute-best-accent-in-film/628444/33 "2012-07-18T11:29:56Z")
> [@Nava](#): > > Viggo Mortensen in Alatriste. His natural Spanish accent is Argentinian (he grew up there), and I’ve heard interviews when he was working in the LotR trilogy where his Spanish was rusty and he occasionally had to ask for a word which wouldn’t come to mind. > > But if I didn’t know better, watching him play that fortune soldier from León I would have been completely sure that his lastname is actually something as Old Castillian as Castille herself, and that he was born somewhere between Zamora and Burgos. Nice. How good is Mexican actor Gael Garcia Bernal at faking a Spain accent? (I think it was in an Almodovar film.) ---
**Author:** ![Loach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/loach/32/350_2.png) [@Loach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loach)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2012, 12:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/absolute-best-accent-in-film/628444/34 "2012-07-18T12:39:46Z")
> [@Joey\_P](#): > > Hugh Laurie in House. I don’t think many people knew that he wasn’t from the US until told and even then it’s exceedingly rare for him to slip up on camera. I believe even the casting director, upon seeing his tape, is said to have been glad to have found an American for the role (or something like that). If I didn’t know he was English ahead of time I might have missed it. But I did and his accent sounded off to me in the beginning. As the show went on it became flawless. > [@charmstr](#): > > The number of non-US actors and particularly actresses doing excellent American accents on television and in films these days is surprisingly large. In addition to those already mentioned there’s also Poppy Montgomery (Unforgettable), Yvonne Strahovski (Chuck), Sophia Myles (Moonlight), Simon Baker (The Mentalist), Kevin McKidd (Grey’s Anatomy) and probably a bunch of others I’m forgetting. That is Poppy Mongomery’s accent. Listen to her do interviews. On Unforgettable she lets the Austrailian come through in some words. I don’t think she is trying to hide it. In other roles I never noticed it. I looked it up, she has been in the U.S. since she was 18. I think she is one of those people who easily take on the accent of where they are living. I agree about Simon Baker. But even better in The Mentalist is Owain Yeoman who plays Rigsby. Baker has a strange affectation that doesn’t sound right but I think that is an acting choice rather than an accent problem. I had no idea that Rigsby was Welsh. > [@JKellyMap](#): > > If we’re doing cable dramatic series, both Idris Elba and Dominic West (Englishmen) did great American accents (though probably not specifically Baltimorean) in _The Wire_. I did not think that Dominic West’s accent was particularly good. I did not know where he was from but I knew he wasn’t American when I first saw him. Idris Elba’s accent was perfect. But strangely I did not think his American accent in Prometheus was very good. But I would still watch him reciting the phone book. He has become one of my favorite actors. Matt Passmore (The Glades) does a really good American accent. Joe Anderson (The River) did not. I am a little fanatical about Band of Brothers. More than half the cast was British. Almost all of them did a great job. Damien Lewis (Maj Winters) perfect Shane Taylor (Doc Roe) perfect Peter Youngblood Hills (Shifty) (no idea what his real accent is moved between countries) perfect Nicholas Aaron (Popeye Wynn) perfect Dexter Fletcher (SSG Martin) perfect Robin Laing (Babe Heffron) perfect Matthew Leitch (Talbert) perfect Ross MaCall (Leibgott) perfect Marc Warren (Blithe who the built an entire episode around) bloody awful Simon Pegg (1SG Evans) well thankfully he only had a line or two Usually when I hear a bad American accent it just sounds off to me. I usually can’t place where the actor is from it just sounds wrong. I think I am particularly tuned into it for some reason. I know I am one of the few that thought Hugh Laurie wasn’t perfect. ---
**Author:** ![Loach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/loach/32/350_2.png) [@Loach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loach)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2012, 12:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/absolute-best-accent-in-film/628444/35 "2012-07-18T12:45:29Z")
Oh honorable mention to John Barrowman. He does two accents perfectly, American and Scottish. But they are both his. Born in Scotland, spent most of his youth in America. Goes back and forth. His normal speaking voice is American but says when he is around family it switches on. I had a friend like that. He is from Guyana. You would never know he wasn’t born in America. Then I heard him speaking to his mother. ---
**Author:** ![JKellyMap](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jkellymap/32/15880_2.png) [@JKellyMap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JKellyMap)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2012, 1:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/absolute-best-accent-in-film/628444/36 "2012-07-18T13:14:12Z")
> [@Loach](#): > > Idris Elba’s accent was perfect. But strangely I did not think his American accent in Prometheus was very good. But I would still watch him reciting the phone book. You and my wife could start a club. She swoons for that guy. Heck, _I’d_ do him! 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2012, 2:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/absolute-best-accent-in-film/628444/37 "2012-07-18T14:11:34Z")
> [@JKellyMap](#): > > Nice. How good is Mexican actor Gael Garcia Bernal at faking a Spain accent? (I think it was in an Almodovar film.) I haven’t seen _La mala educación_ so I can’t answer personally, but I don’t recall any criticism and you bet the critics would have been salivating for a chance; take into account that the accent he should in theory have been imitating was Almodóvar’s own, so he had the model right there (the movie is barely-hidden autobiography). Critics almost ripped Cuban Jorge Perugorría apart for slipping _once_ in Volavérunt, when actually they should have been chopping up Bigas Luna for getting him a “newscaster” accent coach rather than sending him to live in Saragossa for a few weeks and pick up Goya’s Aragonese (despite his efforts, Goya was never able to get rid of the accent). ---
**Author:** ![JKellyMap](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jkellymap/32/15880_2.png) [@JKellyMap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JKellyMap)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2012, 2:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/absolute-best-accent-in-film/628444/38 "2012-07-18T14:36:21Z")
¡Grathiash! ---
**Author:** ![Chefguy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chefguy/32/138_2.png) [@Chefguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chefguy)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2012, 2:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/absolute-best-accent-in-film/628444/39 "2012-07-18T14:48:04Z")
From what I’ve read, Brad Pitt nailed the “Pikey” accent in _Snatch_. ---
**Author:** ![Shakester](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/shakester/32/437_2.png) [@Shakester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shakester)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2012, 3:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/absolute-best-accent-in-film/628444/40 "2012-07-18T15:05:17Z")
> [@charmstr](#): > > It’s harder for Americans to judge how good foreign accents are being done, but Meryl Streep has never been criticized (as far as I know) for the many she’s attempted. If you ever meet an Australian, try telling him/her that Meryl Streep can do accents. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/absolute-best-accent-in-film/628444.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/absolute-best-accent-in-film/628444.md?page=3)