# “There’s No Such Thing As A Bad Movie Accent” **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** movies\ **Created:** [August 18, 2023, 11:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/there-s-no-such-thing-as-a-bad-movie-accent/988773 "2023-08-18T23:34:22Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Dr\_Paprika](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr_paprika/32/3042_2.png) [@Dr\_Paprika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr_Paprika)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2023, 11:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/there-s-no-such-thing-as-a-bad-movie-accent/988773/1 "2023-08-18T23:34:22Z")
I don’t really agree with the _Times_ claiming this, basically stating movies are entertaining fictions and so accents are unimportant. They affect perceptions of verisimilitude, acting ability and tone even if some movies contain animation or large blue characters. Even in the imagination, language plays a role in GRRM or Tolkien. And in real life personalities, accents are important to understanding them or being credible. Not crucial or the most important thing. But not nuthin’. [https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/18/movies/uma-thurman-red-white-royal-blue-accent.html](https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/18/movies/uma-thurman-red-white-royal-blue-accent.html) ---
**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 19, 2023, 12:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/there-s-no-such-thing-as-a-bad-movie-accent/988773/2 "2023-08-19T00:23:21Z")
I don’t get nearly as hung up over accents as some people. For one thing, I lived in the South for many years, and there is no such thing as a “Southern accent.” There are a galaxy of different accents spoken by people who grew up only a few miles from each other. Hell, my ex-wife’s western Kentucky accent sounded like neither her mother’s nor father’s. So what if Dick Van Dyke spoke in an accent in _Mary Poppins_ that was never heard anywhere in the British Isles. He wore dirty clothes, was covered in soot, and carried a broom, so as far as I was concerned, he was a chimney sweep! ---
**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:** [August 19, 2023, 12:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/there-s-no-such-thing-as-a-bad-movie-accent/988773/3 "2023-08-19T00:48:41Z")
FWIW, a woman from Edinburgh once told me that Scotty’s accent on _ **Star Trek** _ was in no way Scottish. ---
**Author:** ![Dallas\_Jones](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dallas_jones/32/3277_2.png) [@Dallas\_Jones](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dallas_Jones)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2023, 1:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/there-s-no-such-thing-as-a-bad-movie-accent/988773/4 "2023-08-19T01:06:39Z")
I am often amazed that non-American actors can get an American accent done so well. Like Scottish actor Kelly Macdonald in _No Country for Old Men_. While American actors cannot seem to get the accent of a different part of their own country correct. The awful accent of Diane Lane in _The Perfect Storm_ was painful to hear. Supposed to be Maine I think. What was it?, New Jersey, Ohio, New York, South Dakota?, I don’t know. I’ll tell you what it was, it was awful and distracting. I think it would have been better to not try, to just speak in her own voice. She could have just been the girlfreind from out of town, that needs no explanation. Bad, awful, I need a thesaurus to say more. Even a dozen more words cannot express it. ---
**Author:** ![F.U.Shakespeare](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/aca169/32.png) [@F.U.Shakespeare](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/F.U.Shakespeare)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2023, 1:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/there-s-no-such-thing-as-a-bad-movie-accent/988773/5 "2023-08-19T01:16:15Z")
I agree. Kelly Macdonald’s accent was amazingly convincing. _Breaking Bad_’s Kerry Condon and Laura Fraser are almost as good. It used to be the reverse. Actors as great as Anthony Hopkins couldn’t do American accents (see _Nixon_). I assume it’s because American movies and TV have been more widely heard since these non-American actors were young, when voice sensibilties form. AIUI the terminal “r” is particularly hard to master after a certain age. ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2023, 1:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/there-s-no-such-thing-as-a-bad-movie-accent/988773/6 "2023-08-19T01:18:36Z")
A bad accent can be overlooked if the movie is good enough. Robert Duvall’s failure to achieve even a decent British accent when playing Watson in the Sherlock Holmes movie _The Seven Percent Solution_ is a distraction, but not a fatal one. ---
**Author:** ![Quondam\_Mechanic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quondam_mechanic/32/3404_2.png) [@Quondam\_Mechanic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quondam_Mechanic)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2023, 1:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/there-s-no-such-thing-as-a-bad-movie-accent/988773/7 "2023-08-19T01:22:52Z")
John Malkovich’s German accent in _Shadow of the Vampire_ bothered me immensely – not that a really accurate accent was needed. He just needed to sound more or less the same as the other German characters in the film; it would have been fine to have no accents for any of them. But he sort of tried, failed miserably, and as a result his Friedrich Murnau was impossible. ---
**Author:** ![F.U.Shakespeare](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/aca169/32.png) [@F.U.Shakespeare](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/F.U.Shakespeare)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2023, 1:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/there-s-no-such-thing-as-a-bad-movie-accent/988773/8 "2023-08-19T01:37:22Z")
> [@Jackmannii](#): > > A bad accent can be overlooked if the movie is good enough. The movie, and specifically, the actor. After 20 minutes, I forgot about Hopkins’ Nixon accent. ---
**Author:** ![Folly](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/folly/32/3219_2.png) [@Folly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Folly)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2023, 2:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/there-s-no-such-thing-as-a-bad-movie-accent/988773/9 "2023-08-19T02:44:20Z")
> [@terentii](#): > > FWIW, a woman from Edinburgh once told me that Scotty’s accent on _ **Star Trek** _ was in no way Scottish. But on the other hand, it’s hard to say a 24th century scottish accent is wrong. Or whatever the century is… ---
**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:** [August 19, 2023, 2:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/there-s-no-such-thing-as-a-bad-movie-accent/988773/10 "2023-08-19T02:49:32Z")
By the same token, we can never know exactly how people sounded in the past. Maybe the Romans did speak with British accents, like in the movies. ---
**Author:** ![outlierrn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/outlierrn/32/3005_2.png) [@outlierrn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/outlierrn)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2023, 3:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/there-s-no-such-thing-as-a-bad-movie-accent/988773/11 "2023-08-19T03:57:57Z")
I read somewhere that the filmmakers made a choice not to do accents in **Conspiracy** because of the potential for distraction. Mostly brit actors, Colin Firth, Stanley Tucci, Kenneth Branagh. It’s frighteningly good, will make your blood run cold. The accents make a bit of difference, IMHO. ---
**Author:** ![InternetLegend](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/internetlegend/32/13154_2.png) [@InternetLegend](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/InternetLegend)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2023, 4:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/there-s-no-such-thing-as-a-bad-movie-accent/988773/12 "2023-08-19T04:14:12Z")
I’ve been watching a lot of murder mysteries from the UK, and I can tell you that not a lot of the actors in those have mastered an American accent. The best of them just come down a bit too hard on every “r” so they sound a little like cartoon pirates. The worst of them are just painful to listen to. It takes me out of the plot every time, and I end up looking through IMDB pages to see where they’re from. Of course, all those different lovely Irish and Welsh and Scottish accents I enjoy hearing could sound just as fake to people from those places. I’d never know! ---
**Author:** ![RivkahChaya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rivkahchaya/32/8919_2.png) [@RivkahChaya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RivkahChaya)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2023, 4:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/there-s-no-such-thing-as-a-bad-movie-accent/988773/13 "2023-08-19T04:48:21Z")
Oh, come on: good movie (or TV) accents have made careers. Meryl Streep. Jake Weber. Kathy Bates. Lucy Lawless (whose generic American accent in _Xena_ was better sometimes than Renee O’Connor’s Texas dialectical one, which could be distracting). Hugh Laurie (yes, he had an immense career in the UK, but most people in the US just know him as House). ---
**Author:** ![Superdude](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/superdude/32/13450_2.png) [@Superdude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Superdude)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2023, 4:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/there-s-no-such-thing-as-a-bad-movie-accent/988773/14 "2023-08-19T04:50:53Z")
Kerry Condon was able carry that ability over into the MCU. She voiced Friday, Iron Man’s AI in the movie series. ---
**Author:** ![PatrickLondon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/patricklondon/32/4422_2.png) [@PatrickLondon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PatrickLondon)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2023, 5:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/there-s-no-such-thing-as-a-bad-movie-accent/988773/15 "2023-08-19T05:45:00Z")
> [@terentii](#): > > Maybe the Romans did speak with British accents, like in the movies. Over here, of course, we’d expect them to sound like the imperial ruling class we’re most familiar with, so… Changing the perspective, I can tell you that Gwyneth Paltrow and Renee Zellweger both got the “hesitant young middle-class British woman” accent perfectly. ---
**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:** [August 19, 2023, 5:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/there-s-no-such-thing-as-a-bad-movie-accent/988773/16 "2023-08-19T05:51:54Z")
> [@PatrickLondon](#): > > > [@terentii](#): > > > > Maybe the Romans did speak with British accents, like in the movies. > > Over here, of course, we’d expect them to sound like the imperial ruling class we’re most familiar with, so… Except for legionaries and other lowlifes, of course. They all have a Cockney or some regional accent. Oddly enough, gladiators almost always sound American. ---
**Author:** ![CairoCarol](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cairocarol/32/3825_2.png) [@CairoCarol](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CairoCarol)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2023, 5:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/there-s-no-such-thing-as-a-bad-movie-accent/988773/17 "2023-08-19T05:59:29Z")
> [@outlierrn](#): > > a choice not to do accents There is no such thing as speaking without an accent - it’s merely a question of how much attention you pay to the “authenticity” of the accents being used. At the discretion of the director, actors can speak as they naturally would, without trying to emulate the accent of the character they are playing. I assume that’s what’s meant by the quoted phrase. I can’t stand it if an actor does a bad imitation of an accent I am familiar with. Fake Boston accents drive me mad, because I grew up in New England and know on a visceral level what they sound like. But a mediocre imitation of a New Zealand or Australian or Cockney accent won’t bother me, because I’m not that keenly attuned to the authenticity of every diphthong or lilt. ---
**Author:** ![alovem](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b38774/32.png) [@alovem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alovem)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2023, 6:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/there-s-no-such-thing-as-a-bad-movie-accent/988773/18 "2023-08-19T06:30:36Z")
I try not to get hung up on bad accents, but the patently phony ones can ruin a film for me. Acting, after all, should be convincing and natural enough to allow you to forget it’s not real. It bothers me when an actor’s native accent creeps into his or her pronunciation when their character becomes excited, and it’s particularly distracting when the actor has a stretch of uninterrupted dialogue and his or her native accent emerges after the first few lines. I thought I noticed that in Albert Finney’s portrayal of Poirot in Murder on the Orient Express. In order of importance (for me, of course): Actors shouldn’t do accents badly. It can easily ruin a film, as can telegraphing, hamminess, etc. Actors should try to do accents well. Plenty of good actors are limited in their range of accents, and I’d even say it’s a weakness of certain good actors. They should at least try not to be conspicuous with their accents. Viewers should try not to get hung up on small details. It’s up to you, but, if it’s not a bad film, it’s in your interest not to be too critical (unless you get more entertainment from nit-picking a film, especially a bad film). ---
**Author:** ![iamatractorboy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iamatractorboy/32/21261_2.png) [@iamatractorboy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iamatractorboy)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2023, 6:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/there-s-no-such-thing-as-a-bad-movie-accent/988773/19 "2023-08-19T06:35:51Z")
I watched _Thirteen Days_ on Prime the other night. It is about the Cuban missile crisis and set almost entirely within the White House. So there is lots of JFK, who had a very distinctive voice to say the least. Bruce Greenwood, in my admittedly non-expert British opinion, did a really good job precisely because he didn’t go overboard in trying to impersonate Kennedy. Apparently Kevin Costner, playing Kennedy’s college buddy turned adviser Kenneth O’Donnell, got criticism for his attempted Bostonian accent though. My untrained ear was not bothered by it but as alovem said above, it would probably grate on a native. ---
**Author:** ![alovem](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b38774/32.png) [@alovem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alovem)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2023, 6:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/there-s-no-such-thing-as-a-bad-movie-accent/988773/20 "2023-08-19T06:39:03Z")
> [@iamatractorboy](#): > > as alovem said above, it would probably grate on a native. That was in CairoCarol’s on-point post (the one above mine). I agree with you, BTW, about Greenwood’s Kennedy accent. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/there-s-no-such-thing-as-a-bad-movie-accent/988773.md?page=2)