# Actors using accents from your location - who was good / bad? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [August 11, 2005, 8:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actors-using-accents-from-your-location-who-was-good-bad/316636 "2005-08-11T20:39:33Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Morbo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/morbo/32/389_2.png) [@Morbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Morbo)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2005, 8:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actors-using-accents-from-your-location-who-was-good-bad/316636/1 "2005-08-11T20:39:33Z")
I didn’t want to hijack the [inappropriate fake accent](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=329596) thread, but I was curious: Which actors that used accents that were supposed to be from your neighborhood did a good job, and which ones didn’t? This can be a regional US thing, a different country thing, whatever. For example: I thought Collin Farrel did a decent job of an American accent in **Minority Report** , but it wasn’t regional - just American. I thought everyone in **Fargo** did a good job with their North Dakota accents. I also thought James Cromwell did a decent Irish accent in **L.A. Confidential** , but I’m probably wrong about that, since I’m not Irish. Julian McMahon does a pretty good American accent also - I never noticed an Australian accent in **Nip/Tuck** , **Charmed** , or the few scenes from the trailer of **Fantastic Four** that I saw. Does he even have an Australian accent? So which actors have delivered good / horrific accents? Oh, and let’s get this out of the way: Bad: cf. Kevin Coster: “entire film career.” ---
**Author:** ![Push\_You\_Down](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/push_you_down/32/9095_2.png) [@Push\_You\_Down](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Push_You_Down)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2005, 8:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actors-using-accents-from-your-location-who-was-good-bad/316636/2 "2005-08-11T20:46:33Z")
Well kind of related… I read a terrible script once that had characters from Montana talking like Southerners. Being born and raised in Great Falls, I think I can safely say that we Montanans speak nothing like our southern cousins. ---
**Author:** ![Push\_You\_Down](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/push_you_down/32/9095_2.png) [@Push\_You\_Down](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Push_You_Down)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2005, 8:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actors-using-accents-from-your-location-who-was-good-bad/316636/3 "2005-08-11T20:51:18Z")
Posted too soon! I was going to mention Ewan McGregor in Blackhawk Down… His american just sounds silly. "I’m oooover enun-ciat-ting ev-very-thing. ---
**Author:** ![h.sapiens](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e0b2c6/32.png) [@h.sapiens](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/h.sapiens)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2005, 8:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actors-using-accents-from-your-location-who-was-good-bad/316636/4 "2005-08-11T20:55:34Z")
Kevin Bacon’s Chicago accent in “Stir of Echoes” was very good. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2005, 8:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actors-using-accents-from-your-location-who-was-good-bad/316636/5 "2005-08-11T20:59:12Z")
Roseanna Arquette’s attempt at a francophone Montreal accent in _The Whole Nine Yards_ was truly awful. ---
**Author:** ![ouryL](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ouryl/32/6067_2.png) [@ouryL](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ouryL)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2005, 10:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actors-using-accents-from-your-location-who-was-good-bad/316636/6 "2005-08-11T22:15:31Z")
Rob Schneider did a credible local accent in 50 First Dates for someone who hasn’t spent time here in Hawaii. ---
**Author:** ![Cunctator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/43a26b/32.png) [@Cunctator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cunctator)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2005, 10:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actors-using-accents-from-your-location-who-was-good-bad/316636/7 "2005-08-11T22:16:40Z")
I don’t think I’ve ever heard a non-Australian actor or actress do a convincing Australian accent in a film. Even Meryl Streep’s accent in \*Evil Angels \* sounded like some weird Cockney thing. ---
**Author:** ![saoirse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/5daacb/32.png) [@saoirse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/saoirse)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2005, 10:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actors-using-accents-from-your-location-who-was-good-bad/316636/8 "2005-08-11T22:17:39Z")
Paul Newman did a great job with the Upstate dialect in _Nobody’s Fool_. Bruce Willis, however, did not. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Blue\_Sky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d26b3c/32.png) [@Mr.Blue\_Sky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Blue_Sky)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2005, 10:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actors-using-accents-from-your-location-who-was-good-bad/316636/9 "2005-08-11T22:18:28Z")
I have yet to hear anyone do a decent non-Gone With the Wind Southern accent. ---
**Author:** ![pinkfreud](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pinkfreud/32/17603_2.png) [@pinkfreud](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pinkfreud)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2005, 10:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actors-using-accents-from-your-location-who-was-good-bad/316636/10 "2005-08-11T22:26:03Z")
In Francis Ford Coppola’s **The Outsiders** , which is set in my hometown of Tulsa, Oklahoma, nobody really sounded as if they were from Tulsa. Or from Oklahoma, for that matter. It was an excellent film, but it didn’t have much regional flavor to it. ---
**Author:** ![Khan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/3ab097/32.png) [@Khan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Khan)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2005, 10:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actors-using-accents-from-your-location-who-was-good-bad/316636/11 "2005-08-11T22:26:16Z")
> [@Dooku](#): > > I thought everyone in **Fargo** did a good job with their North Dakota accents. I disagree. I grew up in Fargo and the movie did a fairly good job of butchering the regional accent. At best you could compare it to a movie set in the south where the actors take on a Slim Pickens-style drawl. It speaks for the quality of other acquired accents in movies. And the northern accent is an easy one! ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2005, 10:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actors-using-accents-from-your-location-who-was-good-bad/316636/12 "2005-08-11T22:27:55Z")
The closest movies set/filmed close to where I grew up were _Big Fish_, [The Grass Harp](http://imdb.com/title/tt0113211/) and [Rosa Parks](http://imdb.com/title/tt0293562/), all of them filmed in Wetumpka, AL, the city where I went to school about 20 miles from the farm where I grew up. In all cases the accents were mostly dreadfully inaccurate, with the exceptions of -Nell Carter (hardly surprising as she was born and reared in Alabama) -Sonny “Enos” Shroyer [Rosa Parks Story]-a native [and I believe resident] of Valdosta, Georgia -Sissy Spacek- she had a bit of an eccentric accent but I’ve known Southern women who sounded like her The worst included -Charles Durning- I think he’s a great character actor, but in _Grass Harp_ he used the same generic accent he used in _Evening Shade_, _Oh Brother Where Out Thou_ and other Southern ventures. It doesn’t really sound like any region. -Mary Steenburgen- I can’t stand this actress and she used the same voice she always uses. -Roddy McDowell- he played a slightly effeminate Southern barber who calls all men “Honeychild”. The accent sounded like an Englishman making fun of a southern accent, and a barber who called grown men Honeychild in the Depression era south would have been rather unlikely. ---
**Author:** ![Gangster\_Octopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a8b319/32.png) [@Gangster\_Octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gangster_Octopus)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2005, 10:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actors-using-accents-from-your-location-who-was-good-bad/316636/13 "2005-08-11T22:28:21Z")
Well, the characters aren’t from North Dakato, they are from Minnesota. And it is purposefully exagerrated accent, to an extent. ---
**Author:** ![Morbo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/morbo/32/389_2.png) [@Morbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Morbo)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2005, 10:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actors-using-accents-from-your-location-who-was-good-bad/316636/14 "2005-08-11T22:28:54Z")
> [@Khan](#): > > I disagree. I grew up in Fargo and the movie did a fairly good job of butchering the regional accent. At best you could compare it to a movie set in the south where the actors take on a Slim Pickens-style drawl. > > It speaks for the quality of other acquired accents in movies. And the northern accent is an easy one! Huh. I know someone from Fargo who sounds exactly like they did in the movie, but since I didn’t grow up there I defer to your firsthand knowledge. ---
**Author:** ![Kent\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kent_clark/32/105_2.png) [@Kent\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kent_Clark)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2005, 10:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actors-using-accents-from-your-location-who-was-good-bad/316636/15 "2005-08-11T22:31:10Z")
In the whole history of American stage and cinema NO ONE has ever done a proper Missouri accent. Not Hal Holbrook in _Mark Twain Tonight_, not James Whitmore in _Give "em Hell, Harry!_ not any adaptation of _Huckleberry Finn_. Never. In fairness, though, that’s because the damned accent changes every 50 miles or less. Hell, we can’t even agree whether to pronounce the damn state as “Mizz-ooh-ree”, “Mizz-ooh-rah” or some other variation. ---
**Author:** ![E.Thorp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/898d66/32.png) [@E.Thorp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/E.Thorp)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2005, 10:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actors-using-accents-from-your-location-who-was-good-bad/316636/16 "2005-08-11T22:31:36Z")
> [@h.sapiens](#): > > Kevin Bacon’s Chicago accent in “Stir of Echoes” was very good. His Chicago accent in “Footloose,” on the other hand, made him sound like he was from Philadelphia. ---
**Author:** ![Lisa-go-Blind](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7c8e57/32.png) [@Lisa-go-Blind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lisa-go-Blind)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2005, 10:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actors-using-accents-from-your-location-who-was-good-bad/316636/17 "2005-08-11T22:33:48Z")
I have to give Oliver Stone’s **JFK** mad props for all the actors who at least attempted New Orleans accents. At least someone out there in Hollywood realized that natives of New Orleans don’t sound like Cajuns or Scarlett O’Hara. ---
**Author:** ![QuickSilver](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quicksilver/32/7832_2.png) [@QuickSilver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/QuickSilver)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2005, 10:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actors-using-accents-from-your-location-who-was-good-bad/316636/18 "2005-08-11T22:38:17Z")
Angelina Jolie in both Lara Croft movies… terrible. Almost made me consider not wanting to jump her if she, you know… just called me out of the blue and said she wanted me. Now. ---
**Author:** ![Khan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/3ab097/32.png) [@Khan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Khan)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2005, 11:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actors-using-accents-from-your-location-who-was-good-bad/316636/19 "2005-08-11T23:08:58Z")
> [@Dooku](#): > > Huh. I know someone from Fargo who sounds exactly like they did in the movie, but since I didn’t grow up there I defer to your firsthand knowledge. My brother in law is from LA. The last time he came home with my sister, one of her friends from high school tried to teach him how to say some things with a northern accent. What sounded ok to him wasn’t very close to the real deal. Anyway, I sounded pretty snarky in my first post. I didn’t mean to be a shit. Please accept my apologies. ---
**Author:** ![Morbo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/morbo/32/389_2.png) [@Morbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Morbo)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2005, 11:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actors-using-accents-from-your-location-who-was-good-bad/316636/20 "2005-08-11T23:22:06Z")
> [@Khan](#): > > Anyway, I sounded pretty snarky in my first post. I didn’t mean to be a shit. Please accept my apologies. No worries. That’s exactly the kind of feedback I was hoping for in this thread. > [@kunilou](#): > > In the whole history of American stage and cinema NO ONE has ever done a proper Missouri accent. Not Hal Holbrook in Mark Twain Tonight, not James Whitmore in Give "em Hell, Harry! not any adaptation of Huckleberry Finn. Never. > > In fairness, though, that’s because the damned accent changes every 50 miles or less. Hell, we can’t even agree whether to pronounce the damn state as “Mizz-ooh-ree”, “Mizz-ooh-rah” or some other variation. This grew-up-in-St. Louis-guy pronounces it “Mizz-ERRR-eee.” I also remember **White Palace** , in which no one even lifted a finger to _attempt_ an accent. Throw me a bone, people! Say the traffic was bad on “Farty Far” - something! 🙂 [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actors-using-accents-from-your-location-who-was-good-bad/316636.md?page=2)