# Worst movie accents **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [September 20, 2009, 4:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-movie-accents/510838 "2009-09-20T16:12:08Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2009, 4:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-movie-accents/510838/21 "2009-09-21T16:16:35Z")
Another vote for Kevin Costner in _Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves_. I think he just couldn’t decide, day to day on the set, whether or not he really wanted to do an English accent. Ugh. ---
**Author:** ![Nom\_de\_Plume](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/85f322/32.png) [@Nom\_de\_Plume](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nom_de_Plume)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2009, 4:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-movie-accents/510838/22 "2009-09-21T16:19:52Z")
How about \*Max Headroom’s \*(Matt Frewer’s) terrible Australian accent on \*Eureka \*? The show’s a lot of fun until every time he opens his mouth. I mean, there’s no reason he NEEDS to be Australian…or, if the character needs to be, why not just hire an Australian actor!!! ---
**Author:** ![thelurkinghorror](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7c8e57/32.png) [@thelurkinghorror](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thelurkinghorror)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2009, 4:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-movie-accents/510838/23 "2009-09-21T16:22:00Z")
> [@Imasquare](#): > > Actually he was born in the US and has lived most of his life there. > > He spent part of his childhood in Australia and for some reason people think he is Australian. Which is basically what I said??? ---
**Author:** ![redtail23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/3e96dc/32.png) [@redtail23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/redtail23)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2009, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-movie-accents/510838/24 "2009-09-21T17:30:21Z")
Meryl Streep in _Silkwood_. Not only was it a horrendous fake of an Okie accent, but it wasn’t even consistent! The supposed queen of accents slid in and out of that one so much you’da thought she was greased. Not to mention that she was out-acted and out-accented by Cher. ---
**Author:** ![tdn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/94ad74/32.png) [@tdn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tdn)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2009, 6:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-movie-accents/510838/25 "2009-09-21T18:23:06Z")
Why are you guys picking on Kevin Costner for Robin Hood? It would be just as easy to pick on him for 13 Days. His Boston accent is atrocious in that. But not as bad as Rob Morrow’s in Quiz Show. Season 1 of 24 – where was Dennis Hopper supposed to be from again? Southerners – how was Costner’s accent in The War? For that matter, how was Elijah Wood’s? ---
**Author:** ![Don\_Draper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b2d939/32.png) [@Don\_Draper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Don_Draper)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2009, 8:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-movie-accents/510838/26 "2009-09-21T20:17:21Z")
Keanu Reeves and Wynona Ryder in Coppola’s **Bram Stoker’s Dracula**. Cate Blanchett as the villain in the last Indiana Jones movie. Did she learn that accent from watching old Bullwinkle cartoons? ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2009, 9:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-movie-accents/510838/27 "2009-09-21T21:22:28Z")
I wish I knew the name of the movie, but while channel surfing I saw Anthony Hopkins attempting a southern accent in a movie that was obviously made in the last few years. Dreadful; he sounded like a southern doing a bad Anthony Hopkins imitation. [QUOTE=tdn] But not as bad as Rob Morrow’s in Quiz Show. [/QUOTE] Where he was clearly doing a JFK imitation. The real Goodwin (very much alive and a consultant on the movie so Morrow had access) sounds nothing like that. Many will disagree, but I _hated_ Philip Seymour Hoffman’s accent in _Capote_. To me it sounded like somebody doing a Capote impression; I didn’t believe it as his real voice. (Toby Jones absolutely nailed it in INFAMOUS the next year, though his performance received no mention at the Oscars or most other major U.S. award shows.) ---
**Author:** ![Apollyon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/apollyon/32/4238_2.png) [@Apollyon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Apollyon)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2009, 10:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-movie-accents/510838/28 "2009-09-21T22:12:55Z")
> [@GreedySmurf](#): > > I’m sure if you ask any New Zealander about it they will agree there is a few New Zealander’s, that Australia has tried claimed as our own :rolleyes:. (including Sam Neill, The Finn brothers, and Russell Crowe amongst others) [Phar Lap](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phar_Lap). 😃 Meh - Sam Neill and the Finn’s are Kiwis (though Crowded House is Australian), but Russell Crowe we’ll give you (especially when he’s being a lout). We have to learn to share. 🙂 > [@](#): > > For my on topic piece - basically anyone not Australian, trying to do an Australian accent Plus any Australian appearing in a made for the US movie who for some insane reason amplifies their accent into pure parody. Oh yes. Fake Ozzie accents are bad, and the occasional fake Kiwi too. Sometimes seem to come out sounding South African. ---
**Author:** ![Spoke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e57/32.png) [@Spoke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoke)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2009, 10:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-movie-accents/510838/29 "2009-09-21T22:13:40Z")
_Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil_ was pretty awful, and Kevin Spacey turned in a particularly horrific parody of a Southern accent. Kostner’s “Southern accent” in JFK was also memorably awful. > [@redtail23](#): > > Not to mention that [Meryl Streep] was out-acted and out-accented by Cher. Well Cher’s mama was from Arkansas, so that probably gave her a leg up. ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2009, 4:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-movie-accents/510838/30 "2009-09-22T04:46:26Z")
> [@Sampiro](#): > > I wish I knew the name of the movie, but while channel surfing I saw Anthony Hopkins attempting a southern accent in a movie that was obviously made in the last few years. Dreadful; he sounded like a southern doing a bad Anthony Hopkins imitation. [The Human Stain](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0308383/)? Set in New England, but I seem to recall the character coming from the South. ---
**Author:** ![Imasquare](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Imasquare](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Imasquare)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2009, 5:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-movie-accents/510838/31 "2009-09-22T05:10:48Z")
> [@thelurkinghorror](#): > > Which is basically what I said??? That’s partly what you said. You left out the last 20 or so years since he returned to the US. My point is that he has only spent a small part of his life in Australia and yet is tagged as an Aussie. ---
**Author:** ![Mollie\_Magill](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mollie_magill/32/20882_2.png) [@Mollie\_Magill](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mollie_Magill)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2009, 1:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-movie-accents/510838/32 "2009-09-22T13:02:04Z")
> [@Claire\_Beauchamp](#): > > Yup … there are few actors who learn how to do a Southern accent correctly. (Never mind regional variations, ANY vaguely Southern accent.) They often will do the bad stereotype of a Southern accent which has no basis in reality. In the early '90s I read an article in either _Premiere_ or _Movieline_ about “the” speech coach in Hollywood who was the go-to guy to teach actors how to do a Southern accent. The point of the article was that he was an idiot and got it all wrong. The funniest thing was that he had coached Julia Roberts for _Steel Magnolias_. You know, the actress who was born & raised in the metro Atlanta area and has a perfectly decent soft Georgia accent all on her own? The one who sounds like a parody of a Southerner in _Steel Magnolias_? Yeah. hah. > > Other examples: Meryl Streep – Ms. Fabulous Accent – in _The Seduction of Joe Tynan_. > Kyra Sedgewick in _The Closer_ – she gets some of it right, but I’m from Atlanta and I never heard anyone talk like that. > > I remember seeing _Broadcast News_ when it came out and being bowled over by Holly Hunter’s first scene … to hear a REAL Southern accent in a movie was so unusual I gasped with delight. Part of the problem is that there is no “Southern Accent.” I’m not talking a bout variations, either. If you get someone from the coast, and someone from the mountains, you will hear two very different accents. My vote for bad accents is pretty much any “American” accent on any recent BBC production. They all sound like 1930’s gangsters. ---
**Author:** ![GuanoLad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guanolad/32/42_2.png) [@GuanoLad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GuanoLad)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2009, 1:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-movie-accents/510838/33 "2009-09-22T13:43:35Z")
> [@GreedySmurf](#): > > Plus any Australian appearing in a made for the US movie who for some insane reason amplifies their accent into pure parody. [Presumably becasue their actual speaking voice is not ‘Australian-enough’ for the director.] I’ve been impressed by, of all people, Cameron Daddo when he appears in a US TV show. He usually plays an Australian, and when he does so, he doesn’t ever exaggerate the accent. It isn’t a strong one in the first place, and he keeps it that way, and I respect him for that. ---
**Author:** ![Martini\_Enfield](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/martini_enfield/32/11123_2.png) [@Martini\_Enfield](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martini_Enfield)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2009, 1:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-movie-accents/510838/34 "2009-09-22T13:50:31Z")
> [@Apollyon](#): > > Oh yes. Fake Ozzie accents are bad, and the occasional fake Kiwi too. Sometimes seem to come out sounding South African. This is what I came in to say. The only two I’ve heard that might be considered “passable” are Robert Downey Junior’s in _Tropic Thunder_ (and it’s still obviously “put on”) and Anthony Hopkins in _The World’s Fastest Indian_. Otherwise, they tend to sound either appallingly nasal or some weird meld of British and South African with some “colourful” local lingo (that no-one here has used since the end of WWII) thrown in. ---
**Author:** ![Ranchoth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ranchoth/32/1066_2.png) [@Ranchoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ranchoth)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2009, 2:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-movie-accents/510838/35 "2009-09-22T14:04:38Z")
> [@The New and Improved Superman](#): > > Keanu Reeves and Wynona Ryder in Coppola’s **Bram Stoker’s Dracula**. Just what I was coming in to say. Though I think Ryder’s accent was more mediocre and and unimpressive than outright “bad”—but that’s from being in close quarters to Keanu. I think Kermit the Frog does a better English accent. ---
**Author:** ![GuanoLad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guanolad/32/42_2.png) [@GuanoLad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GuanoLad)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2009, 2:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-movie-accents/510838/36 "2009-09-22T14:32:04Z")
> [@Martini\_Enfield](#): > > …or some weird meld of British and South African… Check out the awful “Temuera Morrison” accent that is used in the Clone Wars 3D TV series. It drives me batty. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2009, 2:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-movie-accents/510838/37 "2009-09-22T14:45:22Z")
> [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](#): > > Another vote for Kevin Costner in _Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves_. I think he just couldn’t decide, day to day on the set, whether or not he really wanted to do an English accent. Ugh. I’ve pointed this out before, but technically his accent wasn’t any worse than anyone else’s in that film, including actual Britons. Since people in England in those days would have spoken with an accent totally unlike any accent in existence today, his accent was no less accurate than Alan Rickman’s, or for that matter if he’d talked like Fozzie Bear. ---
**Author:** ![gigi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a587f6/32.png) [@gigi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gigi)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2009, 3:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-movie-accents/510838/38 "2009-09-22T15:52:18Z")
> [@Imasquare](#): > > Actually he was born in the US and has lived most of his life there. > > He spent part of his childhood in Australia and for some reason people think he is Australian. He did a good job in \*\*Gallipoli \*\*and since it’s one of my all-time favorites, I think of him as at least honorarily Australian. ---
**Author:** ![tdn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/94ad74/32.png) [@tdn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tdn)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2009, 4:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-movie-accents/510838/39 "2009-09-22T16:51:07Z")
> [@Sampiro](#): > > Where he was clearly doing a JFK imitation. The real Goodwin (very much alive and a consultant on the movie so Morrow had access) sounds nothing like that. Yes, exactly. And I’ve lived in Boston for the past 29 years and have never heard anyone speak like a Kennedy. The Boston accent seems to be a tough one for most actors. Matt Damon, Ben Affleck, Casey Affleck, and Mark Wahlberg seem to be the only ones that can do it right. What’s funny is that there’s a theatre troupe that I sometimes work with. One show they did (that I wasn’t involved with) got a mixed review. The reviewer totally panned one of the actors for his “obviously fake British accent.” The actor was British. ---
**Author:** ![Claire\_Beauchamp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ec9cab/32.png) [@Claire\_Beauchamp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Claire_Beauchamp)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2009, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-movie-accents/510838/40 "2009-09-22T16:53:06Z")
> [@Mollie\_Magill](#): > > Part of the problem is that there is no “Southern Accent.” I’m not talking a bout variations, either. If you get someone from the coast, and someone from the mountains, you will hear two very different accents. Yes, but my point is that the thing you hear most actors speaking resembles none of them. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-movie-accents/510838.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-movie-accents/510838.md?page=3)