# “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:** 19\ **Page:** 9
**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 30, 2023, 12:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/there-s-no-such-thing-as-a-bad-movie-accent/988773/161 "2023-08-30T00:23:17Z")
Ah. Thought it was like intonation. ---
**Author:** ![E-DUB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/e-dub/32/403_2.png) [@E-DUB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/E-DUB)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2023, 12:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/there-s-no-such-thing-as-a-bad-movie-accent/988773/162 "2023-08-30T00:37:24Z")
What’s especially distracting is when someone who already has an accent tries to do a _different_ accent. I saw, and don’t remember the film name, Michael Caine doing a Southern accent. Or Bruno Kirby in “Flesh and Blood” saying in Brooklynese "Ya morons, ya let the plague in here. And, just to mention it, there’s a comedy bit called “Mexican Star Trek” where one actor does a perfect Doohan accent while speaking Spanish. That had to be hard. ---
**Author:** ![Terminus\_Est](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terminus_est/32/3087_2.png) [@Terminus\_Est](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terminus_Est)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2023, 1:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/there-s-no-such-thing-as-a-bad-movie-accent/988773/163 "2023-08-30T01:48:27Z")
> [@E-DUB](#): > > And, just to mention it, there’s a comedy bit called “Mexican Star Trek” where one actor does a perfect Doohan accent while speaking Spanish. That had to be hard. I once caught a Filipino-dubbed version of _Star Trek_ (the JJ Abrams version) where the voice actor for Chekov spoke Tagalog with a Russian accent. Blew my mind. ---
**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 30, 2023, 2:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/there-s-no-such-thing-as-a-bad-movie-accent/988773/164 "2023-08-30T02:32:09Z")
After listening to an interview with astronaut Tom Stafford when he was preparing for the Apollo–Soyuz mission of 1975, I found it dead easy to speak Russian with a pseudo Southern/Southwestern/Texas accent. On the other hand, I once lost a part in a movie because I couldn’t speak Russian with a German accent. ---
**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:** [September 5, 2023, 7:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/there-s-no-such-thing-as-a-bad-movie-accent/988773/165 "2023-09-05T07:41:32Z")
I heard a woman speaking Modern Israeli Hebrew, who commented that she had made aliyah 21 years earlier, and without thinking, I asked “from Canada?” she gave me the hairy eyeball, but said “Yes,” quite nicely. ---
**Author:** ![Gretzky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gretzky/32/6682_2.png) [@Gretzky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gretzky)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2023, 7:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/there-s-no-such-thing-as-a-bad-movie-accent/988773/166 "2023-09-10T07:09:55Z")
> [@Loach](#): > > > [@Gretzky](#): > > > > But I at least know that Tom Cruise talking like an Iowa farm hand as a German officer is a bad movie accent. FTR, “Valkyrie” was released in 2008. > > So are these also bad accents or is it only Tom Cruise? > > [https://youtu.be/kFa1DI\_4vEs?si=eH5CTCrF2bGDjSCB](https://youtu.be/kFa1DI_4vEs?si=eH5CTCrF2bGDjSCB) I suspect you know the answer to your question. I’m not picking on Tom Cruise (I think he’s a fine actor), he was just the most prominent example in this movie. What does this have to do with the fact that I don’t like it? ---
**Author:** ![Loach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/loach/32/350_2.png) [@Loach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loach)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2023, 1:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/there-s-no-such-thing-as-a-bad-movie-accent/988773/167 "2023-09-10T13:18:30Z")
> [@Gretzky](#): > > > [@Loach](#): > > > > > [@Gretzky](#): > > > > > > But I at least know that Tom Cruise talking like an Iowa farm hand as a German officer is a bad movie accent. FTR, “Valkyrie” was released in 2008. > > > > So are these also bad accents or is it only Tom Cruise? > > > > [https://youtu.be/kFa1DI\_4vEs?si=eH5CTCrF2bGDjSCB](https://youtu.be/kFa1DI_4vEs?si=eH5CTCrF2bGDjSCB) > > I suspect you know the answer to your question. I’m not picking on Tom Cruise (I think he’s a fine actor), he was just the most prominent example in this movie. What does this have to do with the fact that I don’t like it? Because it’s not an example of anyone doing an accent. Kenneth Branagh is speaking with his British accent. Tom Cruise is speaking with his American accent. No one is speaking in a German accent, bad or otherwise. It was the directors choice for everyone to speak in their own accent. Since everyone is speaking English not German that’s no more unrealistic than if they were speaking English with a fake German accent. It can’t be a bad accent if there was no attempt at an accent at all. You don’t have to like the artistic choice by the director but Cruise isn’t doing a bad accent. ---
**Author:** ![Gretzky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gretzky/32/6682_2.png) [@Gretzky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gretzky)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2023, 1:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/there-s-no-such-thing-as-a-bad-movie-accent/988773/168 "2023-09-10T13:46:59Z")
> [@Loach](#): > > Because it’s not an example of anyone doing an accent. Agreed. I was wrong to include that here. I corrected myself above, posting the article of Singer explaining why he didn’t use accents. ---
**Author:** ![Loach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/loach/32/350_2.png) [@Loach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loach)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2023, 1:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/there-s-no-such-thing-as-a-bad-movie-accent/988773/169 "2023-09-11T01:23:02Z")
I think we are conditioned to accept Nazis with British accents from earlier movies. ---
**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:** [September 11, 2023, 1:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/there-s-no-such-thing-as-a-bad-movie-accent/988773/170 "2023-09-11T01:41:03Z")
Lines like “We have ways of making you talk” can only be delivered with a German accent. While holding a cigarette between the thumb and middle finger. And wearing a monocle. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2023, 8:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/there-s-no-such-thing-as-a-bad-movie-accent/988773/171 "2023-09-11T20:56:15Z")
> [@terentii](#): > > While holding a cigarette between the thumb and middle finger. And wearing a monocle. Black leather trench coat is optional but adds to the moment. ---
**Author:** ![Slow\_Moving\_Vehicle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slow_moving_vehicle/32/291_2.png) [@Slow\_Moving\_Vehicle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slow_Moving_Vehicle)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2023, 9:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/there-s-no-such-thing-as-a-bad-movie-accent/988773/172 "2023-09-11T21:10:56Z")
Especially if you slowly and ominously pull out a sinister-looking device of wood and chains…and then fold it up into a portable clothes hanger for your coat. [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/G3IFVERSQkA/hqdefault.jpg "Arnold Ernst Toht") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G3IFVERSQkA&t=27/) ---
**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:** [September 12, 2023, 10:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/there-s-no-such-thing-as-a-bad-movie-accent/988773/173 "2023-09-12T10:57:57Z")
Not necessarily… > [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W-jzuVjTJ7I](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W-jzuVjTJ7I) I like the pierced ears. Very period! (1964, not 1944.) ( **NB:** Things get really nasty after the first two minutes. 👎 ) ---
**Author:** ![DesertDog](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/desertdog/32/11503_2.png) [@DesertDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DesertDog)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2023, 10:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/there-s-no-such-thing-as-a-bad-movie-accent/988773/174 "2023-10-02T22:28:14Z")
> [@Slow\_Moving\_Vehicle](#): > > The Bob and Doug Mackenzie accent is obviously a caricature, and describing it as saying “hoose” and “aboot” is inaccurate; but [“Canadian raising”](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_raising) is a real thing that can be heard in some [Canadian accents](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ecoGoCwr2Rk). When I was going to school, at a once-a-week lecture I and a co-ed would sit next to each other. Well into the semester she said ‘about’ and while it wasn’t the Mackenzie ‘aboot’ – this was decades before their time – it was noticeably different. I blinked at her. “You’re Canadian!” “Curses, I am found out.” ---
**Author:** ![abcdefghij](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/43a26b/32.png) [@abcdefghij](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/abcdefghij)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2023, 12:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/there-s-no-such-thing-as-a-bad-movie-accent/988773/175 "2023-10-03T00:42:42Z")
I was convinced that a former boss was Canadian, but it turned out that his family had been in southern Virginia since Elizabethan times. ---
**Author:** ![Slow\_Moving\_Vehicle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slow_moving_vehicle/32/291_2.png) [@Slow\_Moving\_Vehicle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slow_Moving_Vehicle)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2023, 2:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/there-s-no-such-thing-as-a-bad-movie-accent/988773/176 "2023-10-03T14:08:42Z")
> [@abcdefghij](#): > > I was convinced that a former boss was Canadian, but it turned out that his family had been in southern Virginia since Elizabethan times As I posted above, Canadians and Tidewater Virginians share a dialectical similarity: raising the “ou” diphthong (caricatured by Rick Moranis and Dave Thomas as the “oot and aboot” accent of Bob and Doug Mackenzie). Dialecticians call it “Canadian/Tidewater raising”, depending on who’s using it. ---
**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:** [April 2, 2024, 11:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/there-s-no-such-thing-as-a-bad-movie-accent/988773/177 "2024-04-02T23:33:34Z")
I recently watched the movie _The 39 Steps_ with my English mother. She noted every time a character playing a maid or servant was speaking with an upper crust accent, when the accent of the same character changed (from high class London to broad Scottish), when Scottish characters used Welsh accents, etc… which happened at least a dozen times. Not that the plot is particularly realistic to begin with (and the main character, a Canadian, has no discernible Canadian accent), but my mother thought it made the movie even less realistic. Am I right, sir? ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2024, 9:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/there-s-no-such-thing-as-a-bad-movie-accent/988773/178 "2024-04-04T09:03:02Z")
> [@TriPolar](#): > > I don’t know what he sounds like when he’s not acting though, he might sound a lot like an American already. He [sounds mostly like](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X9nQbaDykaE) his character in _Game of Thrones_. What I’d describe as “citified Yorkshire”. Not American at all. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2024, 2:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/there-s-no-such-thing-as-a-bad-movie-accent/988773/179 "2024-04-04T14:01:44Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > Not American at all. Yes. Clearly not. Not an extreme accent, maybe not that hard for him to adjust. British performers often speak very differently in exposition and narration than in dialogue. Maybe Americans too but I don’t notice, but British dialogue sometimes is barely more distinct than mumbling. And yeah, I guess some Americans accents are like that too. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/there-s-no-such-thing-as-a-bad-movie-accent/988773.md?page=8)