This happened to me just the other night. I was all like “Apollo!” and he was all like “eurgh!” (because he was dying, not because he doesn’t like being recognised, plus he was on TV and didn’t know I could see him). And then Hornblower was all like “sniff”, and I was all like “it’s okay dude, he’ll live for thousands of years and shoot toasters in space (although he’ll get really fat)” but Hornblower didn’t seem comforted by that so I watched Family Guy instead.
It always perplexed me that many Americans seem to think Australians sound English, and thus get them to play us (e.g. Anthony LaPaglia). But I worked it out after meeting a few Aussies who’d lived in the States for a few years. To get from an Australian to an American accent, you apparently have to go through an English accent. Yep. Don’t know how it works, but it’s true.
Irish =! British. (Unless you’re strictly talking only about Northern Ireland, and even then half of the population will disagree with you.)
BBC Radio 4 has dramas on a regular basis set in non-UK climes, the accents on which make me want to rip out my eardrums and use them to wrap nuggets of dogshit in and mail them to the BBC. The worst recently was an adaptation of Love My Rifle More than You - recounting the experiences of Kayla Williams, a translator with the US army in Iraq. While they got an American actress to narrate, the supporting cast sounded like a bunch of people from Surbiton dressed up like cowboys on their way to their weekly line dancing and bingo night.
I think it is more that DvD has become the implicit benchmark by which such things are measured. There is simply no need to explicitly mention him in such threads any more.
Can’t find it on YouTube, but I saw a clip of an old Doctor Who from the '60s which featured the worst attempt by a British actor at an American accent that I have ever heard. It wavered between cod-John Wayne and Lancashire so erratically that even I, a Brit, was not sure at first that it was supposed to be American. But the scene seemed to be set in New York, if memory serves. The actor was Peter Purves, and I think it would give Americans an idea of how bad Dick van Dyke’s cockney accent was.
I was astonished to hear Bob Hoskins speak in another movie after I’d seen him in Who Framed Roger Rabbit. (I’d actually seen him before in other movies, but didn’t remember him until after his star turn in WFRR) – he nailed an American accent perfectly.
As I’ve remarked before, Leo McKern (Rumpole of the Bailey, among many other roles) did a horrible North American accent (he used it for Canadians as well as Americans). It consisted of him talking slowly and drawing out his words in an odd way. It was distinctive, but didn’t sound like any accent on Earth.
Ah, I should have wikied her. Turns out she had a varied youth:
It goes on that she adopted a Midwest accent in school to fit in. She then spent a lot of time in NY and LA. So, I guess her “real” accent is anybody’s guess.
And every once in a while, you get to hear James Marsters do the best bad American accent. (Marsters is from California, and plays a vampire of British origin. Spike’s attempt to sound American is priceless).
Jane Leeves’ Frasier castmate John Mahoney actually grew up in Manchester (born in Blackpool), but he emigrated to America when he was a teenager, and I’ve heard that if he needs to use any kind of British accent for a role now, he needs a coach.
Another vote for Jamie Bamber as the best fake-American accent I’ve heard. We were watching the extras on the DVDs and it made me do a double-take when he started talking about how the guy who plays Baltar can at least use his normal voice. Then they either had a cut of him in character or he faked the accent in the middle of his comments. Freakishly well done. The most surprising thing is how his voice got louder and…harder, I guess…when he was doing the American accent.
As for bad ones…not sure, I’ll have to come back to that.
Whenever I hear his American accent it sounds fake.
Sometimes when a Brit is trying to do an American accent it sounds just a bit off. Maybe the cadence is off, I don’t know. It’s not something I can put my finger on. Usually it sounds a little wrong but I don’t think rigth away it is someone doing an accent. For instance Jonny Lee Miller from Eli Stone. I found something odd about his voice but couldn’t tell what it was. Then I found out that he is a Brit. Nothing to hint at British comes out when he speaks but there is something not quite right about it.
Ignorance fought. I had no clue that neither actor was American.
In fact, I’m even more amazed by Dominic West, because he pulls of an incredibly convincing American accent, and then proceeds to demonstrate an equally convincing bad fake English accent during the whorehouse raid in Season 2.
Yes, but the badness of David Boreanaz’s Irish accent transcends all considerations of nationality or border. Ian Paisley & Gerry Adams would unite in their opinion that he should stick to American English.