Maybe not the best, but Mike Meyers’ Austin Powers is hilarious.
Another Australian who does various accents - Cate Blanchett. In fact I’ve only heard her do Australian in two movies, Oscar & Lucinda and Paradise Road.
Julianne Moore is another fab actress who’s great at both English and American accents.
IIRC, Jodi Foster did an English accent in one of her smaller movies. No, I’m not thinking of Anna & The King…
Until I heard him speak in an interview, I would never have imagined for a moment that Cary Elwes was British. He does a damned good American.
Carroll O’Connor managed to do a convincing, though broad, Brooklyn as well as a convincing, though broad, Mississippi.
Gary Oldman has a pretty good range of accents. His Lee Harvey Oswald was convincing enough, although a little dopey.
Although Matt Damon and Ben Affleck both gave their all to get authentic Southie accents in “Good Will Hunting,” Ben’s little brother Casey beat them both. He can slip in and out of it at will.
justinh wrote:
Gaaaah! No offense, justinh, but that’s one of the worst fake Southern accents ever committed to film. At least Clark Gable realized he couldn’t fake a Southern accent, and refused to even try.
Some good fake Southern accents, IMHO:[ul][li]Robert Duvall in several films (The Prophet, Sling Blade, Tender Mercies…)[]Sally Field in Forrest Gump[]Jessica Tandy in Driving Miss Daisy[]Ed Norton in Primal Fear[]The entire cast of Doc Hollywood did a pretty good job.[/ul][/li]
Most Egregious Absence of a Southern Accent goes to Ray Liotta as Shoeless Joe Jackson in Field of Dreams. How can you play a cracker like Shoeless Joe without using a Southern accent?
Prince John: And why would the people listen to you?
Robin Hood: Because, unlike some other Robin Hoods, I can speak with an English accent.
hehehehehe!
Oh, and my choice is anyone but the three girls from The Atomic Brain. Worst accents ever! As Mike and the Bots said: “Stop it, you’re all from Nebraska!”
Rachel Griffiths’ American accent in Six Feet Under is very convincing.
The best American accent I think I have ever heard is Eamonn Walker, the guy who plays Kareem Said on OZ. I had absolutely no idea he wasn’t native American until I saw him in an interview speaking with a really strong Londonish Accent.
I think one of the best (agreeing with TV Time) was
Meryl Streep in Sophie’s Chioice.
She was playing a Pole, and she nailed it. (She apparently worked with Polish nationals to pick up the nuances). What made it so effective in addition to the accent, was her use of malapropisms.
[paraphrase]
“Stingo, you look wonderful in your new cocksucker jacket”.
[/paraphrase]
Too often, actors believe that an accent is produced by using good diction. Of course then it can be used for any accent.
Blanchette did an effective American Southern accent in The Gift.
Liam Neeson did a Appalachian accent somewhat less well in Next of Kin.
Cate Blanchett’s accent in The Gift was great, I agree.
But Jodie Foster’s West Virginia accent in The Silence of the Lambs was dead on. It sounded exactly like what it was meant to be–the accent of a dyed-in-the-wool West Virginian who’s tried very hard all her life to get rid of it, but not succeeded. Dr. LindyHopper lived most of her life in West Virginia, and she says it sounds just like people she knew.
When I said it wasn’t quite Irish, I just meant that the Snatch accent was described in the film as being a muddled blend of accents (or am I misremembering - which is quite likely for me) and so I thought maybe Pitt’s accent didn’t sound quite right to people from the region.
How about Tom Cruise’s accent in Far and Away?
Ok… kidding, just kidding! Was anyone else listening to Cruise’s accent in that movie and waiting for him to start in about everybody being after his Lucky Charms?
Or, on a more serious note, how about Ben Kingsley in Ghandi?
Wow. I had no idea. I just did a google search to verify this (it was that hard for me to believe) and I’ll be damned - dude’s as British as Margaret Thatcher! One site even says he’s related (by an in-law) “to Guilford Dudley and Lady Jane Grey, rather fitting since it is in one of my favorite movies, ‘Lady Jane’ in which he played Guilford Dudley. He is also a descendant of King John…”
Definitely a good American accent there, but whatever the hell he was doing in Shadow of the Vampire grated my nerves.
Tom Hanks / Sally Fields in Forrest Gump.
The guy in Felicity. I’ve only seen the show a few times so I don’t remember his name. Watching him in Felicity and then in Drew Carey is just downright weird.
Most of the people in Fargo… they really nailed those Wisconsin accents.
Jeffrey Wright as Peoples Hernandez in Shaft. The guy is a classically trained Shakespearian actor in film and stage and I know people who swear thats his natural accent. Thats good acting when people believe you grew up speaking like it
Nicole Kidman does American so well, I thought her Australian accent was fake.
How about Peter Sellers’ unforgettable Inspector Clousseau?
Where is your phyewn?
I disagree. It wasn’t horrible or anything, but I spent all of Memento trying to figure out exactly what accent he was hiding. A good imitation, but not 100% accurate, like, say, Kenneth Branagh’s in Dead Again. (That was the first movie I saw him in, and I was very startled when I saw Henry V.)
Sean Connery as a Scotsman . . . inimitable.
Yet another one for Bob Hoskins. I haven’t seen most of his movies, but his accent in Roger Rabbit was perfect.
I also liked Helena Bonham Carter’s accent in Fight Club.
I just looked this up.
She’s Australian?! I had no idea!
I’m going to be completely distracted every time I see her on the show now trying to hear if she slips up.
It’s gotta be Mandy Patinkin in “The Brincess Bride”, just because his accent was so much FUN.
“My name is Inigo Montoya…”