That’s true - he’s on TV here quite a bit as a host and in interviews and he talks exactly the way he does on Torchwood.
Ahem.
Ahem yourself. I said he isn’t supposed to have a Cockney accent, and he isn’t.
I thought of another one. To my American ears it seems that Paul McGillion does a good Scottish accent in Stargate: Atlantis. He was born in Scotland but moved to Canada when he was 2. Growing up in a house filled with Scottish accents probably helped. If you hear his real speaking voice it is Canadian without a hint of Scottish.
How do you know what accent he is supposed to have? Not one of the Moon men has a Mancunian accent; between them they are Cockney, RP, and two Scots. One may be an accident, but casting four like that is certainly deliberate, probably some sort of running joke.
FWIW, I once heard the actress that played Daphne on a British show making fun of Americans. She said something along the lines of “this is a country that is so dumb they thought my brothers on Frasier were from Manchester.” Paraphrasing, of course, but she definitely did say that her brothers were supposed to be Mancunians.
It depends then on what the term “supposed to” means when we ask whether all of Daphne’s relatives on the show are supposed to be from Manchester. Yes, in the show we’re supposed to believe that they are all from Manchester. That’s what the backstory of the show is. On the other hand, it’s also supposed to be clear to anyone who has a good feel for accents that their accents are not Mancunian. They’re from all over the place and some of them are weird combinations that no one has ever spoken.
I take back my previous comment that the casting director must have been an idiot to have hired Anthony LaPaglia for his role. LaPaglia was apparently deliberately cast because he couldn’t do a Mancunian accent. The casting of all the Moon family was a weird joke on everyone watching the show. It was making fun of all the Americans who can’t distinguish accents and are willing to accept any weird combination of British accents or fake accents as if they were real.
Wikipedia speaketh out of its butt on this one. The accent ain’t Cockney. It might, charitably, be considered an attempt at Cockney, but Cockney it is not. Unfortunately, the closest example of a reasonable Cockney accent on YouTube is immensely sweary (seriously NSFW), but here it is, de-linkified for those with nearby bosses, children or easily-ripened fruit.
http:// uk.youtube.com/watch?v=IQxlVETWvSo
Anyway. Sure, it could be a running joke, but the point is that no matter what LaPaglia’s accent is intended to be, it’s still terrible. No human has ever uttered those vowels in London, save with the assistance of an emergency tracheotomy and a tequila slammer up the nose.
Incidentally, Jane Leeves explains in this interview (crap sound and intermittent Graham Norton, I’m afraid) that Daphne’s accent was tailored to sound working class but comprehensible to American ears, because a standard Mancunian accent wouldn’t be. So here’s an interview with Liam Gallagher of Oasis (helpfully subtitled in what appears to be Finnish). What do you reckon, Statesians? Do you have a clue what he’s on about? Do you reckon he has?
Dead Badger writes:
> It might, charitably, be considered an attempt at Cockney, but Cockney it is not.
That’s pretty much what Wikipedia says. In any case, it now appears that the mishmash of accents and misguided attempts at accents is exactly what was intended. It was a sick joke on all the Americans who can’t be bothered to distinguish accents. It’s still possible, I suppose, that the casting director on Frasier really was that incompetent, but I don’t think that likely now.
That’s news to me…
I pronounce it “Nugget” like the chicken nuggets.
She’s probably right.
For good Mancunian accents watch ‘Shameless’
To find brits with truly unintelligable accents visit Newcastle.
What about Scouser Ian Hart in “Dirt”? Is his attempt at Yank any good? I cannot tell.
In one episode in the first series he appeared as a schizophrenic hallucination speaking in his native tongue.
Senhil Ramamurthy, Mohinder Suresh from Heroes does a passable English accent, but he did work for the RSC and spend time in the UK.
Uh? Mohinder isn’t speaking in an English accent, it’s an Indian accent.
I think it’s somewhere in the middle. It’s not completely indian. It’s not completly English. Its how a person of Indian descent, but with an English education might talk.
To me Mohinder speaks like an Indian who went to an English public school or university, not simply a well-educated Indian. Maybe my view is coloured by the fact that I work with a lot of Indian and Pakistani doctors and nurses, none of whom sound like his character (all either having much stronger Indian/Pakistani or Northern Irish accents)
Certainly it is a rather different accent from the actor’s usual one.
Along the same lines, Mel Gibson’s Scottish accent in Braveheart was terrible at times. Especially when he said “arse” and nobody told him it was just spelled differently.
[Temporary hijack] Mel Gibson is a Turd [/Temporary hijack]
I’d say Hugh Laurie’s accent is actually quite good. Frankly, I had no idea he was British until somebody told me, and I know that I’m not the only one who he’s fooled. (Google for “Hugh Laurie accent” and see how many Americans were incredulous at the fact that he’s a Brit.) He does have a somewhat unplaceable American accent, but, to my ears at any rate, it sounds distinctly American without being forced. Honestly, he’d be almost the antithesis of the people you’re looking for in this thread.
I guess my judgement is clouded by the fact that I’ve grown up with Hugh on my TV. Hearing him do an American accent (Seriously) was immediately disconcerting. Especially if you’ve seen him as Bertie Wooster. From Chipper but dumb Brit toff, to bad tempered, highly intelligent but troubled American.
Others in this thread have stated that it started off worse than it is currently.
He occasionally did yanks on ‘A Bit of Fry and Laurie’ and in ‘Stuart Little’