# Worst attempts at British accents by American actors **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [February 23, 2016, 4:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-attempts-at-british-accents-by-american-actors/746884 "2016-02-23T16:04:55Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**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:** [February 25, 2016, 2:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-attempts-at-british-accents-by-american-actors/746884/81 "2016-02-25T02:30:41Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > Maybe you’re thinking of when Curtis is trying to put on airs in _Some Like it Hot_. Or playing Yul Brynner’s son in _ **Taras Bulba** _. In his as-told-to autobiography, Curtis says he didn’t realize at the time he sounded like Cary Grant in _ **SLIH** _; he was just trying to do an English accent, period. ---
**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:** [February 25, 2016, 2:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-attempts-at-british-accents-by-american-actors/746884/82 "2016-02-25T02:38:45Z")
> [@BwanaBob](#): > > Do you people out there realize that when Europeans are taught English that they are primarily taught British English, and that includes whatever accent the teacher has adopted? So if the person is a true parrot, at best they will sound like their teachers. True story: At the private language school where I used to teach in Moscow, there was an Irish teacher who was assigned to a high school way out in the sticks. When he left after teaching there for three years, the teacher who took his place found that all of the Russian kids spoke English with an unmistakable Irish accent! FWIW, British Received Pronunciation is what’s taught at all state schools that don’t employ foreigners, and it’s what most students do their best to emulate. All of the textbooks that were used at my school used PR as well (since they were, of course, printed in the UK). ---
**Author:** ![Arizona\_Mike](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/7cd45c/32.png) [@Arizona\_Mike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arizona_Mike)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2016, 3:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-attempts-at-british-accents-by-american-actors/746884/83 "2016-02-25T03:41:10Z")
The worst American accent I’ve heard by a British actor was Oliver Reed in \*The Shuttered Room. \* It was filmed in England, but set in H.P. Lovecraft’s New England. After Gig Young and his young wife Carol Lynley return to her ancestral island village of Dunwich, her cousin Reed and his gang of louts begin terrorizing them and attempt to rape Lynley. Reed’s accent wanders up and down the eastern coast of the U.S throughout the film., sometimes sounding like he’s the sheriff of Dogpatch, sometimes like a New Yorker, sometimes like a Bizarro version of someone from Maine. One of his henchmen sounds exactly like one of the Bowery Boys. The actor who played Lynley’s uncle had such a bad American accent that an uncredited Donald Sutherland had to dub in his dialogue. Apparently the New England accent is hard for those from England (whereas the Canadian Sutherland could pull it off.) Southern American accents may be easier for English tongues. In the earlier _Children of the Damned_. which was set in England, Reed also played another leader of a gang of toughs, but when a middle-aged American yachtsman challenges him in the film, Reed briefly mocks him by feigning an American accent - which is incongruously spot-on and really funny. ---
**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:** [February 25, 2016, 6:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-attempts-at-british-accents-by-american-actors/746884/84 "2016-02-25T18:36:07Z")
Alan Cummings’ American accent in _The Good Wife_ is fairly accurate; enough so that it’s a bit of a startlement to me to see his introductions of _Sherlock_ on _Masterpiece Mystery_; I always have a brief moment of “Oh! That’s right, he’s Scottish, isn’t he?” > [@bonzer](#): > > In the case of Daphne Moon’s family, by the end there was surely the deliberate joke that none of their accents really made sense. In most cases the accents didn’t match her’s, genuine Mancunian or the actors and actresses real voices, nor was there really any overlap between any of them at all. It must have wound-up as an intentional mash-up acknowledging that there was a problem. This is not necessarily unrealistic. I knew a family in which the New Zealand-born father, Australia-born mother, and their English-born daughter all had different accents. ---
**Author:** ![Baron\_Greenback](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/baron_greenback/32/48_2.png) [@Baron\_Greenback](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baron_Greenback)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2016, 6:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-attempts-at-british-accents-by-american-actors/746884/85 "2016-02-25T18:54:52Z")
> [@terentii](#): > > During WWI, I believe both Tommies and Doughboys pronounced it “Wipers.” Yeah, the trench newspaper some of the Tommies produced was called [The Wipers Times](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wipers_Times) ---
**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:** [February 25, 2016, 7:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-attempts-at-british-accents-by-american-actors/746884/86 "2016-02-25T19:00:37Z")
> [@Slow\_Moving\_Vehicle](#): > > This is not necessarily unrealistic. I knew a family in which the New Zealand-born father, Australia-born mother, and their English-born daughter all had different accents. Was Millicent Martin doing a Mancunian accent as Daphne’s mother? I know she sounds different in real life; doesn’t she normally speak with Received Pronunciation? ---
**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:** [February 25, 2016, 7:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-attempts-at-british-accents-by-american-actors/746884/87 "2016-02-25T19:06:13Z")
> [@Baron\_Greenback](#): > > Yeah, the trench newspaper some of the Tommies produced was called [The Wipers Times](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wipers_Times) Interesting you should post that link now. Looking at the paper, I see it’ll be exactly 100 years old next week. ---
**Author:** ![Infovore](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/infovore/32/420_2.png) [@Infovore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Infovore)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2016, 7:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-attempts-at-british-accents-by-american-actors/746884/88 "2016-02-25T19:11:42Z")
I love David Tennant (and he does a great English accent from his native Scottish) but his American accent ranges from passable to downright cringeworthy. It was tough watching him in “Gracepoint” (the American version of “Broadchurch”) because his accent was so spotty. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2016, 7:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-attempts-at-british-accents-by-american-actors/746884/89 "2016-02-25T19:46:29Z")
> [@Slow\_Moving\_Vehicle](#): > > Alan Cummings’ American accent in _The Good Wife_ is fairly accurate; enough so that it’s a bit of a startlement to me to see his introductions of _Sherlock_ on _Masterpiece Mystery_; I always have a brief moment of “Oh! That’s right, he’s Scottish, isn’t he?” Good one. I’d seen Cumming doing an American accent and an English accent before I ever heard his actual Scottish accent so it was another one that caught me by surprise. ---
**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:** [February 25, 2016, 10:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-attempts-at-british-accents-by-american-actors/746884/90 "2016-02-25T22:32:58Z")
> [@terentii](#): > > Was Millicent Martin doing a Mancunian accent as Daphne’s mother? I know she sounds different in real life; doesn’t she normally speak with Received Pronunciation? It was about as approximate as Jane Leeves’s - broad sitcom Northern. Millicent Martin was born in the Essex suburbs of London. Thinking back to her performances in That Was The Week That Was, back in the early 60s, her accent wasn’t particularly RP, closer to the modern “estuary” accent, what with the general loosening up of the period. ---
**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:** [February 26, 2016, 12:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-attempts-at-british-accents-by-american-actors/746884/91 "2016-02-26T00:29:19Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > Not **Spartacus**. With the exception of Varinia, the slaves all had American accents, the Romans all British accents. Varinia (Jean Simmons) was explained as having an accent because she was a tutor. She was also specifically “from Britannia.” ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2016, 9:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-attempts-at-british-accents-by-american-actors/746884/92 "2016-02-26T09:49:36Z")
> [@terentii](#): > > FWIW, I read somewhere that Doohan based his Scottish accent on that of a bunkmate on his trans-Atlantic troopship who came from Aberdeen. He also said he deliberately modified it because he thought people wouldn’t be able to understand the real thing. So it makes sense that he’d add more American to it, and thus make it sound fake. Though I do note that Scottish people tell Craig Fergusson that he sounds American, meaning he’s actually a cross between the two. Yet no one says he sound fake. The one thing I noticed about Hugh Laurie’s accent is that I expect him to have some vowel narrowing before the “a as in cat” vowel when before N, but he doesn’t. But I’ve since heard other people who really do have that accent but don’t have the vowel narrowing, so it must’ve just been me. ---
**Author:** ![eburacum45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eburacum45/32/8690_2.png) [@eburacum45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eburacum45)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2016, 10:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-attempts-at-british-accents-by-american-actors/746884/93 "2016-02-26T10:24:25Z")
Even British actors can’t always do British accents right. The classic film _Get Carter_ from 1971 was filmed in Newcastle and the North-east; but there is exactly one real Geordie accent in it - all the rest are generic (bad) Northern accents, and Michael Caine, who doesn’t try. ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2016, 11:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-attempts-at-british-accents-by-american-actors/746884/94 "2016-02-26T11:58:59Z")
> [@BigT](#): > > Though I do note that Scottish people tell Craig Fergusson that he sounds American, meaning he’s actually a cross between the two. Yet no one says he sound fake. That’s because Craig Ferguson has lived in the US for awhile now and it’s perfectly normal for people who move to a new location to pick up local vocal attributes to some degree. I don’t know why that surprises people. Accents aren’t static and unvarying. Well, maybe if you never stray more than 10 miles from the place of your birth but that’s not the modern world. ---
**Author:** ![Count\_Blucher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c5a1d2/32.png) [@Count\_Blucher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Count_Blucher)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2016, 12:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-attempts-at-british-accents-by-american-actors/746884/95 "2016-02-26T12:18:32Z")
> [@The\_Hamster\_King](#): > > Carrie Fisher in the original Star Wars is pretty abysmal. She makes a half-hearted attempt in a couple of scenes, and then it just melts away. > [@running\_coach](#): > > No wonder. She was trying to do an Alderaanian accent. As if millions of accents suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced…? ---
**Author:** ![glee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/b5a626/32.png) [@glee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/glee)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2016, 2:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-attempts-at-british-accents-by-american-actors/746884/96 "2016-02-26T14:03:03Z")
> [@eburacum45](#): > > Even British actors can’t always do British accents right. The classic film _Get Carter_ from 1971 was filmed in Newcastle and the North-east; but there is exactly one real Geordie accent in it - all the rest are generic (bad) Northern accents, and Michael Caine, who doesn’t try. Ah, but Michael Caine was playing a Londoner who travels to the North-East. ---
**Author:** ![buddha\_david](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ee7513/32.png) [@buddha\_david](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/buddha_david)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2016, 1:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-attempts-at-british-accents-by-american-actors/746884/97 "2016-02-27T01:34:17Z")
Kate Winslet’s American accent in _Titanic_ was pretty bad. She sounded like she practiced by imitating Judy Garland films. Alan Rickman affects a [hilariously bad American accent](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TSdpRP_bVOM) in _Die Hard,_ although that was the point. On the other hand, wasn’t his character supposed to be German? Hans Gruber doesn’t sound German at all. ---
**Author:** ![eburacum45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eburacum45/32/8690_2.png) [@eburacum45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eburacum45)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2016, 9:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-attempts-at-british-accents-by-american-actors/746884/98 "2016-02-27T09:27:45Z")
> [@glee](#): > > Ah, but Michael Caine was playing a Londoner who travels to the North-East. Nitpick; Jack Carter was supposed to be a Geordie who had moved to London to join the gangs; he returned home to avenge his brother’s killing …apparently bringing with him a London accent (the only one Maurice Micklewhite can do). ---
**Author:** ![Nansbread1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Nansbread1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nansbread1)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2016, 6:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-attempts-at-british-accents-by-american-actors/746884/99 "2016-02-27T18:40:22Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > I was watching Cinema Sins the other day and they sinned Robert Downey for his accent in _Sherlock Holmes_. This surprised me. I’m not British so I can’t really judge how good his accent is. But my understanding is that even British people found it authentic. Err no. I found that he was trying hard but he was not speaking like a true Brit. No his accent was not as good as Gwyneth Paltrow in Emma. ---
**Author:** ![amarone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e0b2c6/32.png) [@amarone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/amarone)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2016, 8:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-attempts-at-british-accents-by-american-actors/746884/100 "2016-02-27T20:11:07Z")
> [@Slow\_Moving\_Vehicle](#): > > I dunno. Gwyneth Paltrow’s RP in _Shakespeare In Love_ and _Sliding Doors_ sounded authentic to me. But I’m not British, so my opinion might not have much value. Her accent in Sliding Doors was the best accent I have heard from a non-English person. I had never heard of her when I saw the film and had no idea she was not English. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-attempts-at-british-accents-by-american-actors/746884.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-attempts-at-british-accents-by-american-actors/746884.md?page=6)