Worst attempts at accents

[scotpens]

The Sundowners (1960) is set in Australia with Australian characters — all played by English, Irish or Scottish actors. The Aussie accents range from passable to awful.

which brings up to Meryl Streep's infamous "the dingo's got my baby" from Evil Angels.

Dunno how it was for the rest of the film but if that one scene was a general indication....

Lindy Chamberlain, the woman who was accused of killing her baby, is a transplanted New Zealander, so her accent is a mix of Aussie and Kiwi — actually a bit more on the Kiwi side. Hear the real Lindy speak in this clip:

[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=endscreen&v=SRAYlBb155Q&NR=1[/yt]

. . . and then listen to Meryl Streep.

[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-LG3_1AlLWg[/yt]

I’d say she pretty much nailed that accent, as she always does. Ask Meryl to do a Klingon accent and she’ll say, “Which dialect?”

BTW, I’ve always known that movie as A Cry in the Dark and just learned that it was called Evil Angels in Australia. I can see why the titile was changed for America — Evil Angels sounds like a Sixties biker flick.

 

[23skidoo]

Hands-down, it has to be Dick Van Dyke as Bert in Mary Poppins. As Eddie Izzard put it, "Dick Van Dyke, he went for a Cockney accent. He sounds like he went to Australia to learn it!"

To be fair to Dick, he acknowledges it and pokes fun at it today. Fortunately it doesn't really take too much away from the film thanks to the strength of Bert's character, and the music, and Dick's chemistry with Julie Andrews - not to mention the fact when Julie Andrews is on screen the others could be speaking Swahili for all we care. Will it give anyone nightmares if I refer to Julie Andrews as Mary Poppins in 1964 as ?

My personal vote for worst accent isn't Dick Van Dyke in Mary Poppins, though. It's Sean Connery's, ahem, Russian accent in The Hunt for Red October. Rumor has it he stuck with his Scottish accent because he sounded so bad trying a Russian one...

Alex

 

[Christopher]

Despite my earlier reference to Gary Collins in The Six Million Dollar Man, I'm not sure it actually counts as a bad accent if the actor doesn't even try to do an accent (other than their own, of course). The accent isn't bad, just absent.

 

[The Wormhole]

I can forgive the bad Irish accents in the Voyager "Fair Haven" episodes, since they were a 24th-century computer simulation created by Tom Paris, so one wouldn't expect rigorous historical accuracy.

To be honest the Fair Haven episodes (the second one especially) have so many problems that bad accents are very easy to overlook.

 

[Nerys Myk]

Despite my earlier reference to Gary Collins in The Six Million Dollar Man, I'm not sure it actually counts as a bad accent if the actor doesn't even try to do an accent (other than their own, of course). The accent isn't bad, just absent.

On a side note, it's always odd when when actors takes different approaches when playing characters from other countries in the same movie. One may go the accent route, while the other uses their normal voice. Especially when its a movie set in a particular country and all the characters are supposedly speaking their native language.

 

[Mark_Nguyen]

I'm surprised no one has brought up Sam Worthington in absolutely any role he's ever played...

Mark

 

[Gil T.Azell]

Sean Connery in Marnie. The standard for bad accents!

How about Mr. Connery and Sam Neil in The Hunt for Red October?

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Sean Connery in Marnie. The standard for bad accents!

How about Mr. Connery and Sam Neil in The Hunt for Red October?

I thought those accents were OK. Neill's may have been a bit more authentic.

 

[lurok]

Upthread someone mentioned about Connery's accent being tied into his character's regional origin. If I remember correctly, didn't they do that clever trick in film of starting off speaking Russian, then segueing into English? Mind you, considering Harrison Ford and Liam Neeson's Russian attempts in The Widowmaker, maybe Connery was the smart one

 

[Captaindemotion]

^ Meh. Still grates on my ears.

As for the Picard and his English accent, my explanation has always been that he's speaking fluent and accented French but we the audience hear how the Universal Translator interprets him.

Why would we hear it that way? It doesn't seem to compensate for other characters.

How do you know? You don't know what their own accents are like.

 

[Davros]

The ship commander in the Troughton era Doctor Who episode Tomb Of The Cybermen has a laughingly bad American accent.

 

[Asbo Zaprudder]

The ship commander in the Troughton era Doctor Who episode Tomb Of The Cybermen has a laughingly bad American accent.

You mean Captain Hopper played by George Roubicek? Might have partially been a fault of the script writer having a poor grasp of American idioms. George Lucas also had an american actor dub over George Roubicek's voice when he played Commander Nahdonnis Praji in Star Wars.

 

[Brikar99]

Despite my earlier reference to Gary Collins in The Six Million Dollar Man, I'm not sure it actually counts as a bad accent if the actor doesn't even try to do an accent (other than their own, of course). The accent isn't bad, just absent.

On a side note, it's always odd when when actors takes different approaches when playing characters from other countries in the same movie. One may go the accent route, while the other uses their normal voice. Especially when its a movie set in a particular country and all the characters are supposedly speaking their native language.

This made me think of that movie "Enemy at the Gates" where many of the Russian characters are played by British actors - Jude Law, Ralph Fiennes, Bob Hoskins, Rachel Weisz. Thought that was kind of an interesting idea, even if the movie itself wasn't so great.

 

[Admiral2]

Worst American accents by non-Americans:

Sienna Guillory as Jill Valentine in Resident Evil.

Daniel Craig as an American in Tomb Raider.

I disagree. Up until Casino Royale, I had no idea that Daniel Craig was British. I completely bought his American accent.

I didn't buy it. This is what I'm saying. It's like he and Jolie were trading bad accents for fun.

And while I occasionally found some weird, slightly stilted pronunciations from Jill Valentine, I'd always chalked that up to bad acting, not a bad accent.

I thought she was fine in "Helen of Troy", which is my point. She acts just fine in her native accent. Those tics you heard were typical of brits trying to sound American. Some British or Aussie actors have gotten better at hiding them with practice (Naomi Watts, Nicole Kidman). With others the lack of skill is obvious.

 

[Captaindemotion]

Despite my earlier reference to Gary Collins in The Six Million Dollar Man, I'm not sure it actually counts as a bad accent if the actor doesn't even try to do an accent (other than their own, of course). The accent isn't bad, just absent.

On a side note, it's always odd when when actors takes different approaches when playing characters from other countries in the same movie. One may go the accent route, while the other uses their normal voice. Especially when its a movie set in a particular country and all the characters are supposedly speaking their native language.

This made me think of that movie "Enemy at the Gates" where many of the Russian characters are played by British actors - Jude Law, Ralph Fiennes, Bob Hoskins, Rachel Weisz. Thought that was kind of an interesting idea, even if the movie itself wasn't so great.

Then you have The Man in The Iron Mask, set in France. You have Leonardo DiCaprio (American accent), Gabriel Byrne (Irish accent), Jeremy Irons (English accent), John Malkovich (Malkovich accent - nobody else in the world sounds quite like him) and Gerard Depardieu (French accent).

Which made me wonder - is Depardieu's character, Porthos, the most French of them all? What do the rest of them make of his accent?

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Upthread someone mentioned about Connery's accent being tied into his character's regional origin. If I remember correctly, didn't they do that clever trick in film of starting off speaking Russian, then segueing into English?

Yeah, but when the American sailors come aboard at the end, the Russians actually do speak English to them, and their accents sound exactly the same.

 

[Blip]

I received the entire series of Due South on DVD for my latest birthday, and on rewatching series 3 (or season 3 & 4 to the "yanks" as Fraser snr would say) I couldn't help but laugh at how Callum Rennie's "Chicago" accent kept regularly slipping into Canadian... Oh, the irony!

But as for worst, I'd be tempted to go for either Connery's "The Schpaniard" or Gates McFadden in "The Hunt for Red October."

Actually, no - I'm definitely picking McFadden. Gods, that was awful.

 

[Admiral2]

I received the entire series of Due South on DVD for my latest birthday, and on rewatching series 3 (or season 3 & 4 to the "yanks" as Fraser snr would say) I couldn't help but laugh at how Callum Rennie's "Chicago" accent kept regularly slipping into Canadian... Oh, the irony!

But as for worst, I'd be tempted to go for either Connery's "The Schpaniard" or Gates McFadden in "The Hunt for Red October."

Actually, no - I'm definitely picking McFadden. Gods, that was awful.

The most awful thing about it was Cathy Ryan isn't English! I have no idea why the attempt was even necessary!

 

[Emher]

^They did that to explain why he was in England. I just feel there some other way they could've resolved that.

 

[Rowdy Roddy McDowall]

In MEAN JOHNNY BARROWS, Fred Williamson went up against Roddy McDowall, who played an Italian mobster with a British accent.