“Mom!” - Kurgan, Highlander. Classic.
Paltrow does the Brit accent remarkably well. Not that my Swedish ears would notice, but there have been threads where Brit dopers confirmed this.
Remembering Alfred Molina from the first Indiana Jones, I was baffled when I heard his very Brit uper class real voice. I guess his looks got him typecast as hispanic.
Naveen Andrews [youtube clip] gets typecast as Mideast guy because of his looks, and I guess it gets him jobs. But his real accent seems to be very flat UK English.
Of course Sasha Baron Cohen [youtube clip again] is fairly well known as his own persona now.
I’m pretty sure that Hanks (and IMDB backs me up, for whatever that’s worth) patterned his speech after the kid that played young Forrest, not Haley Joel Osment. It was a kid named Michael Conner Humphreys who has not acted in anything else.
Hi, I’m Candy.
Of course you are.
When you take into account that he is also Mr Crabs in Spongebob then I think he deserves a mention in this thread.
Alexis Denisof, an American actor, pulls off a flawless “posh” English accent as Wesley in Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel. James Marsters, another American, does a more working-class, tough guy English accent as his character, Spike (which apparently is easier to do, but he still does it well).
EDIT: I’m endlessly impressed by actors who sing well. Joaquin Phoenix and Reese Witherspoon were terrific as Johnny and June Carter Cash in Walk the Line, and John C. Reilly was surprisingly great in Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story. I’m also a sucker for cute young actresses who turn out to be actual singers and songwriters: Jenny Lewis of Rilo Kiley, Zooey Deschanel of She and Him, and now Scarlett Johanssen too!
Some do:
Daniel Davis as Niles the butler in The Nanny
Robert Downey Jr as Charlie Chaplin in Chaplin - I was amazed at his Englishness.
John Hillerman as Higgins in Magnum P.I.
You are absolutely right! Mea culpa. My hubby told me the story of how Hanks got that accent, and in my brain, I conflated young Forrest and Forrest Jr.
I’m impressed with actors who do readings for books on tape. John Lithgow, doing Bonfire of the Vaities, is superb. He does a number of very distinct voices, and gives them each a distinctive character and style. It goes far beyond merely sounding different.
Similarly, I was amazed at hoe James Doohan was able to capture and convey the voices of the characters of all the Star Trek TOS characters in his audiobooks readings of Star Trek novels (yeah. I’ve bought a couple, and “inherited” others). He could do Kirk and Spock and Sulu and Uhura, even, and make it seem natural.
I couldn’t tell from this whether or not you were under the impression that Cusack also sang the song “When She Loved Me” (a.k.a. “The Saddest F&cking Song Ever”). She didn’t.
I came in to mention Alan Rickman’s performance in Die Hard, especially the scene where he, a Brit, is playing Hans Gruber, a German, pretending to be Bill Clay, a Californian.
That’s a good pick.
I didn’t look at the clip, but if it’s Borat (or even Bruno), the voice makes that character. Although, he’s a genius physically, too.
I think that comedic actors seem to make the voice a part of the character more than dramatic actors. Will Ferrell’s Ron Burgundy sounds nothing like Ricky Bobby, and both voices are essential to the character. It’s really funny how Ferrell uses the anchorman voice when he’s wooing Applegate, or talking to his dog, and when he chooses to break character, it’s the voice that goes.
Anyway, I left a few dangling out there for other to pick up. . .I’m surprised no one mentioned Brando as the Godfather. Pacino in Scarface.
Or Daniel Day Lewis in “Gangs of New York”. You hear him speak – you know what he is.
I’m not really talking about a straight-up good accent. Pulling off a good accent isn’t easy, but Dominic West’s American accent doesn’t really help define his character in The Wire.
ETA: nice pick on Hans Gruber. Rickman uses his voice very well, whether as Gruber, Snape, or the robot in HHG.
Daniel Lewis as Niles the butler in The Nanny. He certainly nailed the British accent, considering he is from Arkansas.
And Bobbie Fleckman from Spinal Tap does not sound like Nanny Fran Fine (which is Fran Dresscher’s real voice).
I came in here to say that. But watch LA Confidential and check out Guy Pearce, too. Same thing.
???
Weren’t we talking about good performances?
Ah OK then, if you mean good as in ‘memorable, if not realistic’
No, I was a big Sarah MacLachlan fan long before “Toy Story 2”. I was talking about Jesse’s speech before and after the song. I get misty-eyed before the song even begins (I’m a huge sap).
“You never forget kids like Emily…or Andy. But they forget you.”
“Jesse, I didn’t know…”
“Just go.”
I remember he was on Leno or Letterman, and they asked him what his favorite TV show was. “Beavis and Butthead.” He made it sound so classy!
When Jane Leeves played Daphne Moon, she was doing a different British accent than her normal one. Sort of like a Brooklyner doing a Southern accent.
If you compare Daphne’s voice to that of Seinfeld’s Marla the Virgin, you can hear the difference.
I don’t think anyone can compare to Matt Lillard as Shaggy in the live action Scooby Doo movies. He nailed the voice absolutely perfect.
Too bad he sucks at everything else.
My mother has a friend that has a mentally disabled brother who lives in a special needs home in Arkansas (where Sling Blade is set). They took the disabled brother out of the home for the holidays and they would come over to visit us. The brother sounded almost exactly like Billy Bob Thorton’s character to the point where I seriously wonder if Billy Bob didn’t get to know him at some point.
Vivian Leigh who played Scarlett O’Hara in Gone with the Wind was British and yet played a Southern Bell. I doubt she sounded like real Southern women during the Civil War but her accent still made for good effect.
Correction: three. Idris Elba (Stringer Bell) is also British.
He was terrific in a great indie film called SLC Punk.