British Accents And The Hollywood Actors Who've Attempted Them (VIDEO)

"One Day," Anne Hathaway's "Bridget Jones' Diary" is barely out yet, and already the sharks are circling. The critics, those bloodless keyboard-tappers, are more concerned with Anne's accent than the actual movie, and the consensus is that it (the accent) is bad. (Although we beg to differ. Read our defense of The Accent .) But all is not lost for Anne. In attempting to impersonate our long-lost cousins, she joins a long line of reputable actors (plus Kevin Costner) who've tried the brogue and sometimes failed. Marble-mouthed and full of guv'nors, they are asking to be judged. So do your duty, citizens! Judge them as you would judge a monkey attempting sign language. First up for your consideration: The One Who Has Already Failed.

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If Anne Hathaway faltered in one British movie and Lone Scherfig still cast her in another, did her bad accent make a sound?

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If Anne Hathaway faltered in one British movie and Lone Scherfig still cast her in another, did her bad accent make a sound?

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Comments

[husky22]

03:30 AM on 08/28/2011

Only British would care about a thing like that. Big deal! When the movie is released internationally, it is more likely for it to be dubbed.
You guys make o mountain out of a molehill!
(......Gosh, I wanted to use this idiom for so long:-P.....)

[EmilyKWells]

10:46 AM on 08/25/2011

Now, let's address all the British actors/actresses who have done awful American accents...like the character Bill Compton in True Blood???

[Rufuszen]

02:35 AM on 08/25/2011

Not so much in big movies, but on TV and no less funny is Brit actors attempting American. I suppose there is a 51st State where they sound like that!

[craftycrow]

01:10 PM on 08/23/2011

Ha...Keanu. That Casting Director should never work again....

[madjanssen]

04:54 PM on 08/25/2011

I loved that movie and he really spoiled it for me. I read somewhere that Francis Ford Coppola was pressured into casting him because he was really 'hot' at the time but now he regrets it. Well, duh!

[michelesda]

12:19 PM on 08/23/2011

Kevin Costner is certainly no hand at accents; consider his fractured attempt at a mush-and-magnolias accent for Jim Garrison in JFK. That's not even the worst of it, though; he definitely needs more help from his coaches. Somebody should have reminded him that the real life Jim Garrison had a Chicago accent.

[maxfax]

05:44 PM on 08/21/2011

British accents? Dennis Quaid's Remy McSwain in the Big Easy, and Jerry Lee Lewis in Great Balls of Fire; those are some unbelievable accents.

[Blue hills]

02:44 PM on 08/21/2011

What's the point of having British Hollywood stars if they aren't going to be used for British Hollywood roles? And, for that matter, what's the point of having American Hollywood stars if they aren't going to be used for American Hollywood roles? This, plus Hollywood's current obsession with remakes, just continues to baffle.

[AGooglyMinotaur]

12:17 PM on 08/21/2011

Yeah, the accent's pretty bad. She has her mouth too far closed on her vowels. It sounds really affected.

[Poligulous]

11:05 AM on 08/21/2011

Funny thing about Kevin Costner's Robin Hood "accent"... is that that's actually accurate. The English accent continued to develop, with the aristocratic affect it has now and other influences. The American accent is what the English sounded like during Robin Hood's time, and ours stopped developing after the War for Independence. We were cut off from that group and no longer influenced by them. By American Accent, I mean standard accent -- not Southern, Boston, hard Brooklyn/Long Island ones... the common American accent.

[stupid humans]

01:37 PM on 08/21/2011

hopefully you are joking.....

the american accent is based on "the west " accent of england...devon ,cornwall...
nearest american accent to english is texan.
your undying servant...

[Bhujoo Spiegelhoff]

11:02 AM on 08/21/2011

Kevin Kline is an American who is great at a lot of accents!

[McMansion]

10:50 AM on 08/21/2011

Robert Downey Jr was totally believable as Sherlock Holmes. If they really try Americans can do credible English accents.

[maxfax]

05:45 PM on 08/21/2011

He's just doggone good!

[Jeffreygeez]

10:21 AM on 08/21/2011

Harvey Keitel playing a New Zealander in "The Piano" Deniro playing a Spanish land owner in the "Mission"- NYC city's finest accents. It is quite a stretch, their casting agent has clout apparently. Laughable. Almost as ludricious as Costner playing Robin Hood.

[madjanssen]

05:01 PM on 08/25/2011

Actually De Niro's character was supposed to be Portuguese but I didn't notice the difference - the soundtrack alone made up for it.

[Jeffreygeez]

07:48 AM on 08/26/2011

I stand reminded, but I must say a distinct NY accent coming from the mouth of a Portuguese slave trader, rather than from the mouth of a Spaniard slave trader, sounds the same to me- go figure. You can take the boy out of NY , but not the NY out of the boy. The music was great, thankfully no vocals from De Niro.Though I understand he does a great rendition of "New York, New York , put's his heart, soul and accent into it. Great movie despite the miscasting. That happens often.

[sojtruth]

10:12 AM on 08/21/2011

I can't understand why these films use American actors trying to feign the accent. Its painful to watch the bad acting, because that's what it boils down to. The only credible one is Renee Zellweger. We will have to suffer through Maggie Gyllenhaal in Hysteria this fall with a fine cast of male british actors.

I much prefer British TV and films mostly because the acting is superior. Its a joy to watch. I think this is mostly because they almost always (of course not all) go to drama school (Lambda/RSC and so on). Since they trained as theater actors or work extensively on the stage their ability to inhabit characters is extraordinary. For instance, Andy Serkis, who spent many years with theater companies, receives raves for his portrayal of Caesar in the new Planet of the Apes flick, but James--I've been to so many schools to study so many things I can't even name them all--Franco was just "meh."

Brits who do American accents flawlessly:
Hugh Laurie
Damian Lewis
Jonny Lee Lewis
Idris Elba
Toby Stephens
Tim Roth
Ian McShane
Naveen Andrews
Simon Baker (OK he's Austrialian)
and more...

[TheSecularist]

11:03 AM on 08/21/2011

True... for some American accents. Brits (and non southern Americans) don't fare so well when attempting southern accents, even though British accents share characteristics of American southern accents. Southern accents in film today are better than they used to be, but still not usually authentic. And the film industry seems to have chosen just one southern accent to portray, rather than recognizing there are many southern accents distinguished by region, economics & education, and often (but not always) race.

[ardraaa]

06:01 PM on 08/24/2011

Not so flawlessly. I've heard Hugh, Jonny Lee and Damien slip occasionally. Simon Baker slips regularly. It's not so much entire passages, but more with the pronunciation of certain words.

Elba, I'd say is pretty flawless. Don't recall off hand American roles for Stephens, Andrews or Roth. The American character I recall for McShane is Deadwood, and I'm not sure I'd consider that a true American accent. I'd like a specialist from that era to tell me his accent is flawless there.

[johnr49]

09:23 AM on 08/21/2011

I'm not a big Kevin Costner fan, but in all fairness, he never even attempted to do an English accent in Robin Hood..., having freely admitted beforehand that he couldn't do one.

[Ed Saletnik]

08:38 AM on 08/21/2011

Yeah, the foreigners do the American accent much better than Americans do the British. Cases in point:
- Hugh Laurie, House
- Australian guy on Hawaii 5-0
- British guy and British woman on Flash Forward

[johnr49]

09:27 AM on 08/21/2011

Nicole Kidman
Charlize Theron
The list goes on...

[c-tom]

02:15 PM on 08/21/2011

Who aren't English.

[RedwoodtoPonga]

03:03 AM on 08/24/2011

I think Kidman has a terrible American accent.

[stupid humans]

01:38 PM on 08/21/2011

well...thats because they are actors..in the USA they only really have "stars"...