Ditto. I was shocked when I learned he was from California.
It seems like every time this subject comes up James Marsters is mentioned for how good his accent was, then someone else says they thought it wasn’t quite right, then someone excuses this by saying it’s the effect of being undead.
I’m American, so I guess I’m not the most qualified to judge, but I think his accent is not spot on.
With you on both (though gotta nitpick, it’s “Laurie” not “Lorrie”). There was one episode of House in which he had to phone up some doctor in the UK. Or maybe he was pretending to be a doctor from the UK. Anyway - he managed to do a fake-sounding British accent. That’s talent!
I don’t understand this when anyone brings this up. To me Mark Addy is barely trying to do an American accent. Its horrible.
His American accent does sound fake to me.
To me his American accent is flawless. Funny thing is I have seen interviews where he is with his family. When he is around his family his Scottish accent comes on in force. It happens to a friend of mine who is from Guyana. No accent until he is on the phone with his mother.
Well, you know that the urge to fanwank is mighty powerful. I bet I would be saying the same thing, except I’m basically of the opinion that Marsters’ accent is English enough that it didn’t get in the way of the character.
Marsters apparently also auditioned for Spike using a Cajun accent. I don’t think that would have worked out.
The thing about Barrowman to me is that his accent is generally spot on, but his pronunciation of specific words the British way gives him away. Right in Torchwood’s first episode, he pronounced estrogen “EEstrogen,” which made me think he was British. The writers, being British, tend to give him lines / phrasing that a Brit would use, but not an American. Which is probably to be expected since Jack isn’t really American, but I’m just saying that as a result, it’s easy to think Barrowman is faking the accent. The uncanny valley thing, as mentioned above.
James Marsters’ mockney on Buffy was kinda okay, but not terrific, IMO. Better than Drusilla by miles, or Angel’s hilarious Irish accent. And he’d improved it quite a lot for his spot on Torchwood.
(Was there some rule on Buffy that vampires can’t be American?)
Alexis Denisof’s accent was excellent; I don’t think I even realized he wasn’t British until a couple of years ago.
Its a long time since I’ve seen it but I remember that at the time how totally right he got the London accent.
Many people, even in the U.K. casually assume that the Esturaine accent which is common in and around London, IS the authentic Cockney accent but he actually spoke in the accent that is only found in parts of London and not in the closely surrounding areas.
Even British actors lazily use Estuarine when thay have to play a Cockney.
It was even more impressive that an American could be so convincing in the role especially as most of the American actors cited so far have all spoken in middle/upper class English accents which are so much easier to do.
I haven’t knowingly watched FW in any other films so can’t comment on his acting ability generally.
For those who don’t understand this reference in the previous post:
> Many people, even in the U.K. casually assume that the Esturaine accent which
> is common in and around London, IS the authentic Cockney accent but he
> actually spoke in the accent that is only found in parts of London and not in the
> closely surrounding areas.
> Even British actors lazily use Estuarine when thay have to play a Cockney.
The most common name for this is Estuary English. I’ve found a few references to it as Estuarine English. I haven’t found any for it as Esturaine English.
I just thought I’d mention that as there’s no way for someone to figure out what you’re talking about here when you use a rare name for it (and misspell that rare name in one case).
I was of course using the local slang version of the word.
I agree 100% that his accent is very convincing. I’d like to see him more.
Played Oscar on 90210 and is from Atlanta Georgia. I actually thought he was british.
Would that be an vampiric undead accent or a zombie, like this thread? 