# Worst regional accents in movies/TV? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [June 28, 2003, 1:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-regional-accents-in-movies-tv/184969 "2003-06-28T13:16:26Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![MC\_Master\_of\_Ceremonies](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/bb73d2/32.png) [@MC\_Master\_of\_Ceremonies](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MC_Master_of_Ceremonies)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2003, 2:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-regional-accents-in-movies-tv/184969/21 "2003-06-29T14:34:08Z")
The attempt Jamaican accents in the film ‘Cool Runnings’. ---
**Author:** ![Telemark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/telemark/32/372_2.png) [@Telemark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Telemark)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2003, 2:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-regional-accents-in-movies-tv/184969/22 "2003-06-29T14:43:41Z")
Hasn’t anyone seen “Crossing Jordon”? Dear gawd, why do they even bother attempting a Boston accent?! Ken Howard in particular is horrible. I’ve rarely seen a Boston accent done well in TV/film, even recognizing that there are several different accents in the region. Try to find a reasonable NH or Maine accent as well, quite different. ---
**Author:** ![raygirvan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ac91a4/32.png) [@raygirvan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/raygirvan)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2003, 3:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-regional-accents-in-movies-tv/184969/23 "2003-06-29T15:20:53Z")
_I’ve also heard that American English is the only language in the world that uses a terminal ‘R’ sound (i.e., pronounces the r in tailor)._ No, it isn’t unique. The English dialects in Ireland, Scotland and southern rural England (essentially the ones that contributed historically to American English) all use a terminal ‘R’. ---
**Author:** ![Doomtrain](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/0ea827/32.png) [@Doomtrain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Doomtrain)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2003, 4:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-regional-accents-in-movies-tv/184969/24 "2003-06-29T16:09:27Z")
Even worse is the dreaded “meandering accent”, where their accents wander in and out of their lines. ---
**Author:** ![Beagle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/85f322/32.png) [@Beagle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beagle)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2003, 4:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-regional-accents-in-movies-tv/184969/25 "2003-06-29T16:18:26Z")
Worst. Southern. Accent. Ever. – Keaneau Reeves in _Devil’s Advocate_ He sounded like a cross between Bear Bryant and the characters on _Designing Women_. But, he was playing a lawyer from Gainesville, Florida. Better to have used his normal voice. ---
**Author:** ![Doomtrain](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/0ea827/32.png) [@Doomtrain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Doomtrain)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2003, 4:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-regional-accents-in-movies-tv/184969/26 "2003-06-29T16:31:04Z")
And I don’t know why they feel the need to do it. I think we’ve shown a willingness to not really worry about what accents people are speaking with. Heck, the 1998 Les Miserables was on Bravo last night, and all the actors spoke English, some of em with a British accent. ---
**Author:** ![karomon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/f07891/32.png) [@karomon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/karomon)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2003, 4:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-regional-accents-in-movies-tv/184969/27 "2003-06-29T16:49:32Z")
I doubt anyone knows what the New York accent was supposed to sound like at that point in history, but Daniel Day-Lewis in Gangs of New York seems to have butchered it nontheless. Ha ha! “Butchered”, get it? ---
**Author:** ![New\_Improved\_Scott](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/f17d59/32.png) [@New\_Improved\_Scott](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/New_Improved_Scott)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2003, 6:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-regional-accents-in-movies-tv/184969/28 "2003-06-29T18:06:09Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by detop \* > \*\*Rosanna Arquette in _The Whole Nine Yards_, her French accent seemed to come from Paris, not Montréal ! \*\* Beat me to it! Just what I was thinking after reading the op. ---
**Author:** ![detop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/bcef8e/32.png) [@detop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/detop)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2003, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-regional-accents-in-movies-tv/184969/29 "2003-06-29T18:35:11Z")
What can I say **N&IS**? Weird minds think alike 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Agrippina](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8797f3/32.png) [@Agrippina](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Agrippina)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2003, 6:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-regional-accents-in-movies-tv/184969/30 "2003-06-29T18:47:45Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by F. U. Shakespeare \* > \*\*I’m always amazed at how poorly some great foreign actors do with American accents (Anthony Hopkins in _Nixon_ comes to mind). \*\* Hopkins did a movie in the late '70s called **Magic** where he plays a ventriloquist from New York City, his first role where he plays an American. He tried to do some sort of quasi-Brooklyn accent which didn’t come off too well. In some scenes he does OK, but others he slips back into his Welsh accent. But darn it, he tries! 😃 ---
**Author:** ![everton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ecb155/32.png) [@everton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/everton)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2003, 8:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-regional-accents-in-movies-tv/184969/31 "2003-06-29T20:04:37Z")
In my experience the vast majority of people attempting any accent make a mess of it. Even I wince when I hear most British actors attempting an American accent, and there are practically no American actors who can do a British accent no matter how often they try. > [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by GMRyujin \* > \*\*And I don’t know why they feel the need to do it. I think we’ve shown a willingness to not really worry about what accents people are speaking with. Heck, the 1998 Les Miserables was on Bravo last night, and all the actors spoke English, some of em with a British accent. \*\* Would they have been more authentic without a British accent then? You make a good point though. If an actor can’t replicate an accent convincingly they shouldn’t even try, and if that’s a problem for the role then they ought to cast someone from the appropriate place. My mother is Scottish and used to do some stage acting. It always grates on her nerves to hear her home accent being butchered because she knew plenty of out of work actors would have been able to use their own. > [@](#): > > _Originally posted by karomon_ > \*\*I doubt anyone knows what the New York accent was supposed to sound like at that point in history, but Daniel Day-Lewis in Gangs of New York seems to have butchered it nontheless. \*\* Martin Scorsese has been interviewed extensively about that and he says they deliberately invented an accent to approximate what they believe it would have sounded like in that location at that time. He made no claims that it was supposed to sound like any native New Yorker of today. ---
**Author:** ![lightingtool](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/57b2e6/32.png) [@lightingtool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lightingtool)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2003, 8:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-regional-accents-in-movies-tv/184969/32 "2003-06-29T20:11:47Z")
> [@](#): > > _by everton_ > **My mother is Scottish and used to do some stage acting. It always grates on her nerves to hear her home accent being butchered because she knew plenty of out of work actors would have been able to use their own.** I had the same thought about Colin Farrell in Phone Booth. His “NY” accent was pretty bad, and I’m sure there are a bunch of out-of-work actors in Brooklyn who could have done a great job with a better accent. ---
**Author:** ![Doomtrain](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/0ea827/32.png) [@Doomtrain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Doomtrain)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2003, 9:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-regional-accents-in-movies-tv/184969/33 "2003-06-29T21:16:36Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by everton \* > \*\* Would they have been more authentic without a British accent then? > > You make a good point though. If an actor can’t replicate an accent convincingly they shouldn’t even try, and if that’s a problem for the role then they ought to cast someone from the appropriate place. \*\* My point was, Les Mis was set in Paris, so if it was authenticity they’re after in the Great Accent Attempts, French actors should’ve been playing the roles and either speaking in French or with heavy French accents. ---
**Author:** ![everton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ecb155/32.png) [@everton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/everton)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2003, 10:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-regional-accents-in-movies-tv/184969/34 "2003-06-29T22:44:26Z")
I take your point, but they didn’t fake their British accents. Neeson, Rush and the rest were using their own accents, just like Uma Thurman was. It seems strange that you should have said “some of em with a British accent” as though that was especially jarring, rather than saying “nobody attempted a French accent”. ---
**Author:** ![karomon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/f07891/32.png) [@karomon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/karomon)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2003, 10:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-regional-accents-in-movies-tv/184969/35 "2003-06-29T22:45:53Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by everton \* > \*\*Martin Scorsese has been interviewed extensively about that and he says they deliberately invented an accent to approximate what they believe it would have sounded like in that location at that time. He made no claims that it was supposed to sound like any native New Yorker of today. \*\* I’m sure that’s what they did. I’m not trying to compare Daniel D-L’s accent to the stuff spoken in present-day NY. It’s just that the accent he did have sounded very muddled and contrived, and it wasn’t consistent throughout the movie. I guess a good reason for that, though, was that he had to adapt a made-up accent nobody had ever heard before. ---
**Author:** ![edwino](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/35a633/32.png) [@edwino](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/edwino)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2003, 10:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-regional-accents-in-movies-tv/184969/36 "2003-06-29T22:48:25Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Skip \* > \*\*Michael Caine trying to do an Afrikaner accent in that TV movie where he played F.W. De Klerk. He must’ve dropped it and got it back about 15 times during the movie. \*\* Most Afrikaner accents are terrible (_Lethal Weapon 2_) comes to mind. They usually don’t resemble anything close to the accent – I suppose the South African accent in general is not that common, and the Afrikaner accent is a very distinct subset of that. OTOH, I saw Charlize Theron on SABC when I was in South Africa and she has one of the thickest South African accents I have ever heard. It is incredible that she doesn’t show even a hint of it in American television and movies. ---
**Author:** ![Doomtrain](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/0ea827/32.png) [@Doomtrain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Doomtrain)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2003, 10:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-regional-accents-in-movies-tv/184969/37 "2003-06-29T22:58:18Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by everton \* > \*\*I take your point, but they didn’t fake their British accents. Neeson, Rush and the rest were using their own accents, just like Uma Thurman was. It seems strange that you should have said “some of em with a British accent” as though that was especially jarring, rather than saying “nobody attempted a French accent”. \*\* Ahh, I was being unclear. I was pointing out that we have linguistic and accental abominations mentioned in this thread, presumably under the guise of authenticity. Yet, I was watching a movie set in France that had everyone speaking English, some with British accents. ---
**Author:** ![everton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ecb155/32.png) [@everton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/everton)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2003, 11:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-regional-accents-in-movies-tv/184969/38 "2003-06-29T23:12:04Z")
Sorry if I’m making too much of this, **GMRyujin** , but why is it significant to you that some of them had British accents? What accents did the others have? ---
**Author:** ![Zoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/a4c791/32.png) [@Zoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zoe)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2003, 11:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-regional-accents-in-movies-tv/184969/39 "2003-06-29T23:15:18Z")
Colin Farrell’s accent in _The Recruit_ (?) sounded very natural to me – just sort of a generic American accent. (Probably Mid-Western). In another thread, **DooWahDaddy** mentioned Samuel French’s website where dialect tapes can be purchased. He mentioned that David Stern’s are the best: I disagree about Meryl Streep’s ability with accents. She is so dedicated that she actually learned to speak Polish for her role in _Sophie’s Choice_. I don’t think she did as well with the Danish accent in _Out of Africa_ though. I am amazed at how easily Gwyneth Paltrow switches back and forth from a British accent to an American accent. Reese Witherspoon may be from Louisiana, but she attended high school in Tennessee. Aren’t Kim Basinger and Joanne Wooward Southern? [http://www.samuelfrench.com](http://www.samuelfrench.com)./dialecttapes.htm ---
**Author:** ![Murcielago](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/da6949/32.png) [@Murcielago](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Murcielago)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2003, 6:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-regional-accents-in-movies-tv/184969/40 "2003-07-01T18:44:35Z")
Bumped this back up after the release of [this poll](http://edition.cnn.com/2003/SHOWBIZ/Movies/06/30/uk.connery.accent/index.html) from a UK magazine. This is their top ten list: POLL: WORST FILM ACCENTS 1. Sean Connery, “The Untouchables” (1987) 2. Dick Van Dyke, “Mary Poppins” (1964) 3. Brad Pitt, “Seven Years In Tibet” (1997) 4. Charlton Heston, “Touch of Evil” (1958) 5. Heather Graham, “From Hell” (2001) 6. Keanu Reeves, “Bram Stoker’s Dracula” (1992) 7. Julia Roberts, “Mary Reilly” (1996) 8. Laurence Olivier, “The Jazz Singer” (1980) 9. Peter Postlewaite, “The Usual Suspects” (1995) 10. Meryl Streep, “Out of Africa” (1985) – Source: Empire Magazine [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-regional-accents-in-movies-tv/184969.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-regional-accents-in-movies-tv/184969.md?page=3)