Yes, yes! Terrible! I was watching Michael Collins a few days ago…why on earth was Julia Roberts cast in that? It’s almost like she forgets what she’s doing, slips into her normal accent, and then overcompensates once she remembers with an exaggerated accent. Couldn’t they find a single Irish actress?
I can forgive a lot of things in movies, even inaccurate accents (assuming they’re consistent and not painfully cringe-worthy), but a meandering accent can really ruin the suspension of disbelief deal.
I read a fascinating article in Smithsonian magazine about the research that went into that movie. They concocted the accent using contemporary newspaper articles written in dialect and an actual recording of Walt Whitman reading from Leaves of Grass. I’d love to hear that recording. The article said that he sounded a lot like a 1950s Bronx cabbie.
I wish I could think of an example, but too many movies have working class characters speaking in a New Yawk-ish accent, no matter where they actually live. Likewise, a Southernesque accent is the only way in bad movies to convey that the speaker is poor and comes from a rural area. It doesn’t matter whether or not that rural area is in Washington County, Pennsylvania- they have an inexplicable Southern accent.
I have a few Irish friends who all agree that the best Belfast accent they’ve heard by an American was Brad Pitt in The Devil’s Own. Can Irish Dopers comment on that?
As for the OP: After Costner’s attempt at a Kennedy-esque accent in Thirteen Days, is this even a debate?
That Ballard character in Homicide. If she’s from Seattle, I’m from Asbury Park, New Jersey.
Oh and Kevin Costner in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, but I can’t recall if it was his accent, lack of an accent or just that the entire movie was ca-ca.
You’ll hear a bunch of people speaking normally, then one will start doing a high-pitched, squeaky, sing-songy thing and you realize “Oh, he’s supposed to be American.” It does sound unnatural (and wrong).
Ooh ! Ooh ! I’ve got another one. Sean Connery in The Hunt for Red October, it reminded me of an old Wayne and Shuster joke. Their French teacher was from Scotland so they always said that they spoke French with an Edinburgh accent.
No-one else can do a proper Australian accent. Meryl Streep came closest in A Cry in the Dark (Evil Angels in Australia). The “Australians” they used to have in MASH sometimes were just terrible.
BTW did anyone realise that the southern gent in Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil was Australian? Jack Thompson is in some was the quintessential Australian male actor, I always wondered how he got that part. Did it damn well though.
I have to agree with the Dick van Dyke nomination, that was beyond dire.
They could easily have found an Irish actress, but that’s not the way Hollywood works. They want a “name” actress they can use to sell the film to middle America, or else they already have an actor in mind and want a film to fit them into. There are any number of films set outside the USA that have a big name performer in an incongruous role butchering the accent, or a foreign actor imported into the USA doing the same to a local accent.
I’m not Irish, but I do know what a Belfast accent sounds like, and I’d have to say your friends are being kind. See my previous comment for why Pitt was cast in that movie.
Yeah, I know that’s how it all works. But it still sucks. It detracts from the film and I don’t quite understand why you would put an actor in a particular role when they honestly aren’t suited for it, especially when the film’s probably not going to appeal to the masses with or without that individual. Call me naive, I guess. I just think it’s ridiculous. I understand the whole mass appeal and marketing angle, but it’s still frustrating.