# 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:** 6
**Author:** ![GreasyJack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/df705f/32.png) [@GreasyJack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreasyJack)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2016, 8:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-attempts-at-british-accents-by-american-actors/746884/101 "2016-02-27T20:39:23Z")
> [@planetcory](#): > > I’m always surprised to see people praising Dominic West’s accent on The Wire. I don’t think it’s very good at all. Although I think part of that is that the McNulty character is supposed to be sort of alternating between a standard American newsreader accent and a blue collar “[bawlmer accent](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baltimore_accent)” depending on how professional and/or sober he is at any given point. ---
**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:** [February 27, 2016, 8:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-attempts-at-british-accents-by-american-actors/746884/102 "2016-02-27T20:42:33Z")
> [@buddha\_david](#): > > Kate Winslet’s American accent in _Titanic_ was pretty bad. She sounded like she practiced by imitating Judy Garland films. Wait, she was supposed to be American in that film? > [@Slow\_Moving\_Vehicle](#): > > This is not necessarily unrealistic. [Daphne Moon’s family members having different accents] I knew a family in which the New Zealand-born father, Australia-born mother, and their English-born daughter all had different accents. I knew a family with an American father, a Scottish mother, a daughter born in England, with a UK passport, with an English accent different from the mother’s, and a second daughter born in Germany and with an American passport, who had spent only a couple of years in the US, but had gone to US-sponsored schools, and had what sounded like an American accent to me, but a sort of generic one, while the father had a distinctly New York accent. I don’t know whether the daughters cultivated the accents because of their citizenships (presumedly, they actually had dual citizenship, regardless of what passports they held), or the accents were totally natural, but there was a family of four, with four different accents. Also knew a family where the mother was Dutch, the father was Irish, and they had lived for about ten years in South Africa, where their two sons had been born, so when the boys were little, they spoke with English-type South African accents (they still live here, and have both naturalized, and sound completely American), the father spoke with an American accent, and I guess the mother had a Dutch accent, but her English was so fluent, it just sounded like some kind of English variant accent-- but it was different from the boys. They had a daughter born here who has never sounded like anything but an American. ---
**Author:** ![Miss\_Woodhouse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/838e76/32.png) [@Miss\_Woodhouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miss_Woodhouse)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2016, 9:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-attempts-at-british-accents-by-american-actors/746884/103 "2016-02-27T21:24:34Z")
But none of that globe trotting marrying people from other countries stuff applies to Daphne Moon’s family. They were all supposed to have been raised in the same house by people who were from the same town their children were. Their accents in that case should have been uniform. Yes, families can have different accents, but Daphne Moon’s family should not have. Except Daphne should have sounded slightly more American than they did because of her time living here. ---
**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:** [February 27, 2016, 9:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-attempts-at-british-accents-by-american-actors/746884/104 "2016-02-27T21:33:05Z")
Has anyone ever seen the _7Up_ series? It’s an ongoing documentary about several ordinary Brits from different social strata. One guy moved to Australia, and one guy moved to the US. I’ll be darned, but the guy who lives in Australia doesn’t sound completely Australian to me. I expect Australians can pick up UK English in his speech, but I can’t. The guy who lives in the US is the most interesting though. If I were to hear him in a roomful of Americans, he would stand out as English, but when I hear him after hearing several of the other participants who have stayed in the UK, his accent sounds “milder”-- I can definitely hear a lot of American in his speech, especially when he uses American words for things. ---
**Author:** ![Bill\_Door](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/50afbb/32.png) [@Bill\_Door](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bill_Door)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2016, 10:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-attempts-at-british-accents-by-american-actors/746884/105 "2016-02-27T22:04:33Z")
> [@terentii](#): > > 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!(snip) I worked with a man from China who spoke most English with a Chinese accent, because he learned it in China from people who were native speakers, but he swore with a southern accent, because he learned to do that when he was at North Carolina State University. It was kind of jarring the first couple of times you heard him slip into a drawl when he called someone a motherfucker. ---
**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 28, 2016, 9:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-attempts-at-british-accents-by-american-actors/746884/106 "2016-02-28T21:41:18Z")
Rod Taylor in _ **The Time Machine** _ and _ **101 Dalmatians** _. Of course, he may not have been really trying; he was, after all, freakin’ Rod Taylor! 🆒 As an aside, many years ago I was watching _ **The Time Machine** _ in a student lounge in Cambridge, England. When Alan Young cut loose with his Scottish accent, there was general laughter around the room. I think the only one of “George’s” friends who was actually English was Sebastian Cabot. Like Rod, Whit Bissell may have been trying to do an English accent, but you couldn’t really tell. **EDIT:** Tom Helmore, who was also English, was another of “George’s” friends. ---
**Author:** ![Sherrerd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sherrerd/32/8_2.png) [@Sherrerd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sherrerd)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2016, 10:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-attempts-at-british-accents-by-american-actors/746884/107 "2016-02-28T22:39:28Z")
> [@terentii](#): > > When Alan Young cut loose with his Scottish accent, there was general laughter around the room… Apropos of an earlier post: Scrooge McDuck was for some time voiced by Alan Young in that very same “Scottish” accent. eta: IMDb shows him doing the voice as early as 1983’s Mickey’s Christmas Carol, and as late as this year. Also it says his father is a Scot (!) ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2016, 11:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-attempts-at-british-accents-by-american-actors/746884/108 "2016-02-28T23:09:43Z")
> [@amarone](#): > > 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. Agreed. I found it completely believeable - not just because it sounded authentic, but because it was consistent with itself throughout the film. That’s the thing that gives away fake accents most often - not any specific distance from authenticity, but rather, jarring slips and inconsistencies. Obviously I can’t discern the very fine differences between various American accents, because they are foreign to me\* but it’s still sometimes easy to tell when someone is doing it wrong. I can think of some examples of British actors doing imperfect American accents. Bob Hoskins in Who Framed Roger Rabbit. Jason Statham in some role as a hard man with guns and fast cars (I forget which, but he was apparently attempting some sort of American accent). \*Some British accents I can pin down to their specific town. I can tell the difference between Manchester, Oldham and Stockport accents, even though the places are just half a dozen miles apart. ---
**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 28, 2016, 11:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-attempts-at-british-accents-by-american-actors/746884/109 "2016-02-28T23:30:47Z")
> [@Sherrerd](#): > > Apropos of an earlier post: Scrooge McDuck was for some time voiced by Alan Young in that very same “Scottish” accent. > > eta: IMDb shows him doing the voice as early as 1983’s Mickey’s Christmas Carol, and as late as this year. Also it says his father is a Scot (!) Interesting. I did not know that! I can assure you, however, that all of the Brits in that TV lounge were greatly amused when they heard him speak. (Come to think of it, Young did both a Scottish and an English accent in that movie.) ---
**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 29, 2016, 6:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-attempts-at-british-accents-by-american-actors/746884/110 "2016-02-29T06:43:25Z")
> [@terentii](#): > > Rod Taylor in _ **The Time Machine** _ and _ **101 Dalmatians** _. Of course, he may not have been really trying; he was, after all, freakin’ Rod Taylor! 🆒 Yeah, I never even thought Pongo was trying to sound British. And, apparently, that never seemed odd to me. ---
**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 29, 2016, 7:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-attempts-at-british-accents-by-american-actors/746884/111 "2016-02-29T07:09:57Z")
> [@BigT](#): > > Yeah, I never even thought Pongo was trying to sound British. And, apparently, that never seemed odd to me. Perdy had an English accent, as did most of the other animals in the movie. I always thought it was interesting that the puppies generally did not; I guess they took after their dad. 🙂 ---
**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 29, 2016, 7:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-attempts-at-british-accents-by-american-actors/746884/112 "2016-02-29T07:25:05Z")
> [@Charlie\_Wayne](#): > > I was thinking of “Yondah lies da castle of my Faddah”. _ **The Black Shield of Falworth** _. Though, yeah, he did play opposite Olivier in _ **Spartacus** _, in all those “homoerotic” scenes in the bath. :rolleyes: In that movie, IIRC, he was supposed to be a Greek from Sicily. And some of the Romans did speak with American accents; the dude who was with Olivier at the gladiators’ school, f’rinstance. I can’t watch that movie anymore without imagining Olivier putting his arm around Curtis and saying “So, Antoninus: Do you like gladiator shows?” :eek: ---
**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 29, 2016, 7:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-attempts-at-british-accents-by-american-actors/746884/113 "2016-02-29T07:37:29Z")
> [@Rick\_Kitchen](#): > > Christopher Lambert in **Highlander** sounded a lot more French than Scottish. And Sean Connery a lot more Scottish than Spanish. I could never take Connery seriously as a Lithuanian in _ **Hunt for Red October** _. Sam Neill as a Russian was only marginally better. For those who remember that horrible miniseries _ **Ameяika** _ back in the '80s, I found Neill’s attempts to do a Russian accent (and eventually speak Russian with an overdubbed translation) unintentionally hilarious! ---
**Author:** ![SanVito](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sanvito/32/2805_2.png) [@SanVito](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SanVito)\ **Post date:** [February 29, 2016, 4:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-attempts-at-british-accents-by-american-actors/746884/114 "2016-02-29T16:13:46Z")
> [@terentii](#): > > I could never take Connery seriously as a Lithuanian in _ **Hunt for Red October** _. ! Connery also brought a distinct working class Edinburgh accent to the role of Richard the Lionheart in Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [February 29, 2016, 4:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-attempts-at-british-accents-by-american-actors/746884/115 "2016-02-29T16:29:26Z")
> [@terentii](#): > > _ **The Black Shield of Falworth** _. Though, yeah, he did play opposite Olivier in _ **Spartacus** _, in all those “homoerotic” scenes in the bath. :rolleyes: > > In that movie, IIRC, he was supposed to be a Greek from Sicily. And some of the Romans did speak with American accents; the dude who was with Olivier at the gladiators’ school, f’rinstance. > > I can’t watch that movie anymore without imagining Olivier putting his arm around Curtis and saying “So, Antoninus: Do you like gladiator shows?” :eek: Sorry, but that’s one o’ them Urban Legends. Curtis never says the line "Yonda lies da castle of my fadda (or “Yonder Lies the Castle of my Father”) in The Black Shield of Falworth, or in any other movie he appeared in (although BSoF is usually identified as the movie it’s from). > **[Yonder Lies the Castle of My Father](https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/life-with-fodder/)** > > In one of his films, did Tony Curtis deliver the line, 'Yondah lies da castle of my foddah'? An artist friend actually titled one of her paintings “Yonder Lies the Castle of my Father” as a tribute to the misappropriated line. Nobody in the painting looks like Tony Curtis. > [@](#): > > And some of the Romans did speak with American accents; the dude who was with Olivier at the gladiators’ school, f’rinstance. Very few Romans had non-British accents. You can’t count the Gladiators, for instance. As for the guy you’re speaking of, that was John Dall. I imagine they used him instead of someone with an obvious British accent because he is the Quintessential actor playing Smarmy Villains You Want To Punch in the Face. He played one of the Leopold-and-Loeb- inspired killers in Alfred Hitchcock’s **Rope** and also nasty aristocrat Zaren in George Pal’s **Atlantis the Lost Continent** ---
**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 29, 2016, 8:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-attempts-at-british-accents-by-american-actors/746884/116 "2016-02-29T20:21:55Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > Sorry, but that’s one o’ them Urban Legends. Curtis never says the line "Yonda lies da castle of my fadda (or “Yonder Lies the Castle of my Father”) in The Black Shield of Falworth, or in any other movie he appeared in (although BSoF is usually identified as the movie it’s from). Actually, I thought the line was _“These are the lands of my father, and yonder lies his castle,”_ but since I saw the movie once about 40 years ago, I couldn’t swear to it. As for John Dall, the only thing I remember him saying to Olivier in that scene is \*"I don’t know \*\*how _I shall ever repay you!" in what was definitely a very smarmy_ voice. \*And suggestive! 😉 ---
**Author:** ![handsomeharry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e9c0ed/32.png) [@handsomeharry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/handsomeharry)\ **Post date:** [February 29, 2016, 8:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-attempts-at-british-accents-by-american-actors/746884/117 "2016-02-29T20:22:30Z")
> [@TriPolar](#): > > Those were supposed to be British accents?!?! I thought they were just speech impediments. I’m lovin’ it. I’m stealin’ it! ---
**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 29, 2016, 8:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-attempts-at-british-accents-by-american-actors/746884/118 "2016-02-29T20:27:14Z")
> [@SanVito](#): > > Connery also brought a distinct working class Edinburgh accent to the role of Richard the Lionheart in Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves. What about Connery as Robin Hood in _ **Robin and Marian** _? :dubious: ---
**Author:** ![handsomeharry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e9c0ed/32.png) [@handsomeharry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/handsomeharry)\ **Post date:** [February 29, 2016, 8:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-attempts-at-british-accents-by-american-actors/746884/119 "2016-02-29T20:43:44Z")
> [@terentii](#): > > I could never take Connery seriously as a Lithuanian in _ **Hunt for Red October** _. Sam Neill as a Russian was only marginally better. I think that the most ironic part of the movie was when Alec Baldwin, who was exasperated by the Captain, was heading towards the reactor room, and mocks the Lithuanian Captain’s Scottish accent. ---
**Author:** ![nicky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/f0a364/32.png) [@nicky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nicky)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2016, 1:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-attempts-at-british-accents-by-american-actors/746884/120 "2016-03-01T13:50:17Z")
> [@Miss\_Woodhouse](#): > > But none of that globe trotting marrying people from other countries stuff applies to Daphne Moon’s family. They were all supposed to have been raised in the same house by people who were from the same town their children were. Their accents in that case should have been uniform. Yes, families can have different accents, but Daphne Moon’s family should not have. Except Daphne should have sounded slightly more American than they did because of her time living here. giving the character an incomprehensible manc accent could have been comedy gold. Open goal missed. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-attempts-at-british-accents-by-american-actors/746884.md?page=5) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-attempts-at-british-accents-by-american-actors/746884.md?page=7)