Actor english accents
António Marques
better imitate accents? Among UKers playing USans, Ozzies playing Canadians,
Wyomingers playing Alabamers, Scots playing Irish, vice-versa, etc?
Harlan Messinger
Given that there is such variation in accents in the U.S., it's occurred
to me that an outsider may have a fair amount of leeway for flaws in his
put-on American accent before anyone would notice. This came to me after
I reflected on my usual cast of characters who I think sound genuine,
like Christian Bale, Jonathan LaPaglia, Hugh Laurie, Hugh Jackman,
Nicole Kidman, Toni Colette, etc. But as far as I know, each of them is
doing just a "good enough" job of sounding American without truly
matching the phonetics of any one American speaker.
R H Draney
Note that Jackman as Wolverine is an example of Mr Marques's "Ozzies playing
Canadians"....
Best "Scot playing American", bar none, is Alan Cumming....r
--
Me? Sarcastic?
Yeah, right.
Peter T. Daniels
What's happened to Gordon Ramsey's accent?
The other day on Master Chef a contestant was an actual Glaswegian
woman, and his speech didn't veer the slightest bit in her direction
even as he was waxing nostalgic.
Harlan Messinger
> Harlan Messinger filted:
>>
>>> So, can you tell me, in youse opinions, who are the individual actors
>>> who better imitate accents? Among UKers playing USans, Ozzies playing
>>> Canadians, Wyomingers playing Alabamers, Scots playing Irish,
>>> vice-versa, etc?
>>
>> Given that there is such variation in accents in the U.S., it's occurred
>> to me that an outsider may have a fair amount of leeway for flaws in his
>> put-on American accent before anyone would notice. This came to me after
>> I reflected on my usual cast of characters who I think sound genuine,
>> like Christian Bale, Jonathan LaPaglia, Hugh Laurie, Hugh Jackman,
>> Nicole Kidman, Toni Colette, etc. But as far as I know, each of them is
>> doing just a "good enough" job of sounding American without truly
>> matching the phonetics of any one American speaker.
>
> Note that Jackman as Wolverine is an example of Mr Marques's "Ozzies playing
> Canadians"....
Yeah, I'd meant to mention that. :-)
> Best "Scot playing American", bar none, is Alan Cumming....r
He's good. I often find Ewan McGregor's American accent a little off.
Harlan Messinger
> On 6/15/2011 4:43 PM, R H Draney wrote:
>> Note that Jackman as Wolverine is an example of Mr Marques's "Ozzies
>> playing
>> Canadians"....
>
> Yeah, I'd meant to mention that. :-)
I mean, I'd *thought* to mention it. And then I remembered that while
Wolverine ultimately settled in Canada, he'd spent well over a century
in the United States.
Andrew B.
> What's happened to Gordon Ramsey's accent?
He was raised in England (Stratford-upon-Avon to be precise) from the
age of 5.
Mike Lyle
<gram...@verizon.net> wrote:
[...]
>
>What's happened to Gordon Ramsey's accent?
>
>The other day on Master Chef a contestant was an actual Glaswegian
>woman, and his speech didn't veer the slightest bit in her direction
>even as he was waxing nostalgic.
He was born in Scotland, but brought up in England. I'd be surprised
if there's any trace of Scots in his language centres.
--
Mike.
Jerry Friedman
wrote:
> On 6/15/2011 9:14 AM, António Marques wrote:
>
> > So, can you tell me, in youse opinions, who are the individual actors
> > who better imitate accents? Among UKers playing USans, Ozzies playing
> > Canadians, Wyomingers playing Alabamers, Scots playing Irish,
> > vice-versa, etc?
I don't see a lot of movies or TV, but someone has to mention Bob
Hoskins in _Roger Rabbit_.
> Given that there is such variation in accents in the U.S., it's occurred
> to me that an outsider may have a fair amount of leeway for flaws in his
> put-on American accent before anyone would notice. This came to me after
> I reflected on my usual cast of characters who I think sound genuine,
> like Christian Bale, Jonathan LaPaglia, Hugh Laurie, Hugh Jackman,
> Nicole Kidman, Toni Colette, etc. But as far as I know, each of them is
> doing just a "good enough" job of sounding American without truly
> matching the phonetics of any one American speaker.
But don't actors generally sound a little different from ordinary
speakers? Beside being more fluent.
--
Jerry Friedman
Peter T. Daniels
Hmm. Jim McCawley was born in Glasgow and moved to Chicago at age 5,
and his accent never moved away from Glaswegian. (Also he stammered,
so that when giving an important paper, he would attach his eyes to
the page and rush through it and not pause for laughs or any other
reaction.) It would take a few weeks to get used to.
Nasti J
Eddie Izzard and Minnie Driver both did a good job in "The Riches";
Alan Rickman's 'American' in "Die Hard" was excellent, as well.
R H Draney
I don't believe they'd gotten round to revealing that until after I quit reading
the comics regularly....r
tony cooper
<h.remo...@gavelcade.com> wrote:
>On 6/15/2011 4:43 PM, R H Draney wrote:
>> Harlan Messinger filted:
>>>
Most confusing to me is Alan Cumming. If he has an accent when
playing Eli on "The Good Wife", it's not noticeable to me. He has a
distinct speaking style, but not an accent. However, as host of
Masterpiece Mystery on PBS, his accent is as thick as haggis.
--
Tony Cooper - Orlando, Florida
R H Draney
>
>Most confusing to me is Alan Cumming. If he has an accent when
>playing Eli on "The Good Wife", it's not noticeable to me. He has a
>distinct speaking style, but not an accent. However, as host of
>Masterpiece Mystery on PBS, his accent is as thick as haggis.
Check him out in "Josie and the Pussycats", where [spoiler!] his accent changes
three-fourths of the way through the movie....r
David Hatunen
Variation in accents in the USA is far smaller than in most other
countries, although I understand the Ozzies seem to pretty much have a
single accent.
Certainly, there seems to be less variation than when I was young in the
1940s and a regional accent would get chuckles and laughs on a national
radio show.
We Americans do an awful lot of moving around and we pick up accents and
drop them as we change places, making a mishmash of trying to detect
origins from accents.
Personally, I spent most of my childhood in the Finnish quarter of my
small hometown city, and subsequently lived in about five other towns in
northeastern Ohio. I went to college in Troy NY, but spent three years of
army life living in Louisville Kentucky. I then spent a year in Montreal
as a graduate student.
Along the way I picked up "y'all" and "eh?". And I seem to have shed my
calling a small stream a "crick" rather than a "creak".
Add in a total, in two terms, of some 24 years in Tucson where some
Mexicanisms have crept into my speech, 16 years in San Francisco, three
years each in Richland, Washington, and in Emporia/Wichita, Kansas, and
my exposure to a whole lot of what American accents do exist has probably
done a melting pot thing.
Brit actors can pretty much munge up their American accents without
anyone much noticing, unless they are doing something specific, like
playing someone from New Jersey, Brooklyn, or West Virginia (that sort of
thing). A New Orleans accent could be a problem since it isn't anything
like what most people think it is.
--
Dave Hatunen, Tucson, Baja Arizona, out where the cacti grow
Stephen
> Jonathan LaPaglia
Yo mean Anthony?
--
Stephen
Ballina, NSW
the Omrud
> Most confusing to me is Alan Cumming. If he has an accent when
> playing Eli on "The Good Wife", it's not noticeable to me. He has a
> distinct speaking style, but not an accent. However, as host of
I've never seen those programmes, but he was in a Scottish sitcom ("The
High Life") in which he was entirely Scottish and as camp as a field
full of tents.
--
David
Peter T. Daniels
Not inappropriate, since he made his name in the US in a very long run
as the Emcee in *Cabaret*.
Harlan Messinger
Hugh Jackman wasn't in the comics. :-) This was developed in the film
version. As far as I know, he could have been born Canadian in the comics.
Harlan Messinger
> On 15/06/2011 11:45 PM, Harlan Messinger wrote:
>
>> Jonathan LaPaglia
>
> Yo mean Anthony?
Ah. Yes. The one in "Without A Trace".
Aidan Kehoe
Ar an séú lá déag de mí Meitheamh, scríobh David Hatunen:
> [...] Brit actors can pretty much munge up their American accents
> without anyone much noticing, unless they are doing something specific,
> like playing someone from New Jersey, Brooklyn, or West Virginia (that
> sort of thing). A New Orleans accent could be a problem since it isn't
> anything like what most people think it is.
On US TV there’s relatively little respect paid to getting accents right; as
an instance of this, a friend of mine who grew up in Newark, points out that
while House is set in New Jersey, it’s very much the exception that anyone
has a New Jersey accent.
--
‘Iodine deficiency was endemic in parts of the UK until, through what has been
described as “an unplanned and accidental public health triumph”, iodine was
added to cattle feed to improve milk production in the 1930s.’
(EN Pearce, Lancet, June 2011)
R H Draney
>
>On US TV there’s relatively little respect paid to getting accents right; as
>an instance of this, a friend of mine who grew up in Newark, points out that
>while House is set in New Jersey, it’s very much the exception that anyone
>has a New Jersey accent.
It was ever thus...the only regular or recurring characters on "The Andy
Griffith Show" with any sort of genuine Southern accents were Andy himself, his
deputy Barney, and the two Pyles: Gomer and Goober...this in a small town where
you'd expect to find that most people had never been more than a hundred miles
from their birthplaces....r
Peter T. Daniels
> Aidan Kehoe filted:
>
>
>
> >On US TV there’s relatively little respect paid to getting accents right; as
> >an instance of this, a friend of mine who grew up in Newark, points out that
> >while House is set in New Jersey, it’s very much the exception that anyone
> >has a New Jersey accent.
There is no "New Jersey accent." NNJ is in the NYC dialect area (and
if you're really familiar with the area, you can sort of detect a
distinction), but Princeton is in the Philadelphia cultural area and
is much more GenAm than Phiiladelphian -- especially the academic
community, which is recruited from around the world.
And judging from where he went for treatment during his problem
period, House is from lower upstate New York so if he had any
identifiable regional accent, it would be Midwest.
> It was ever thus...the only regular or recurring characters on "The Andy
> Griffith Show" with any sort of genuine Southern accents were Andy himself, his
> deputy Barney, and the two Pyles: Gomer and Goober...this in a small town where
> you'd expect to find that most people had never been more than a hundred miles
> from their birthplaces....r
What about Aunt Bee?
David Hatunen
> On Jun 16, 10:57 am, R H Draney <dadoc...@spamcop.net> wrote:
>> Aidan Kehoe filted:
>>
>>
>>
>> >On US TV there’s relatively little respect paid to getting accents
>> >right; as an instance of this, a friend of mine who grew up in Newark,
>> >points out that while House is set in New Jersey, it’s very much the
>> >exception that anyone has a New Jersey accent.
>
> There is no "New Jersey accent." NNJ is in the NYC dialect area ...
I had always figured that a dialect could itself have differing accents,
a dialect being close to being a language except, of course, the city of
New York doesn't seem to have an army and a navy.
Dr Nick
Ooh deary me! I'd forgotten that.
Albert Finney in Erin Brockovich completely fooled me. I knew I vaguely
recognised the actor, but was only thinking of American ones.
--
Online waterways route planner | http://canalplan.eu
Plan trips, see photos, check facilities | http://canalplan.org.uk
R H Draney
>
>the Omrud <usenet...@gmail.com> writes:
>
>> On 16/06/2011 03:52, tony cooper wrote:
>>
>>> Most confusing to me is Alan Cumming. If he has an accent when
>>> playing Eli on "The Good Wife", it's not noticeable to me. He has a
>>> distinct speaking style, but not an accent. However, as host of
>>
>> I've never seen those programmes, but he was in a Scottish sitcom
>> ("The High Life") in which he was entirely Scottish and as camp as a
>> field full of tents.
>
>Ooh deary me! I'd forgotten that.
He comes by both honestly (he's Scottish and gay) but he's particularly adept at
turning either one on or off at will....r
Adam Funk
Golly!
> What about Aunt Bee?
That's just what I was wondering! It turns out the actress (Frances
Bavier) was from NYC, performed on Broadway & in several films before
_The Andy Griffith Show_, and was a "life-long exponent of Studebaker
automobiles".
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0062592/bio
--
The internet is quite simply a glorious place. Where else can you find
bootlegged music and films, questionable women, deep seated xenophobia
and amusing cats all together in the same place? [Tom Belshaw]
Jerry Friedman
Which is not the same as turning one either on or off at will.
--
Jerry Friedman
R H Draney
>
>On 2011-06-16, Peter T. Daniels wrote:
>
>> On Jun 16, 10:57 am, R H Draney <dadoc...@spamcop.net> wrote:
>
>>> It was ever thus...the only regular or recurring characters on "The Andy
>>>Griffith Show" with any sort of genuine Southern accents were Andy himself, his
>>>deputy Barney, and the two Pyles: Gomer and Goober...this in a small town where
>>>you'd expect to find that most people had never been more than a hundred miles
>>> from their birthplaces....r
>
>Golly!
>
>
>> What about Aunt Bee?
>
>That's just what I was wondering! It turns out the actress (Frances
>Bavier) was from NYC, performed on Broadway & in several films before
>_The Andy Griffith Show_, and was a "life-long exponent of Studebaker
>automobiles".
>
>http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0062592/bio
And I saw a documentary about the golden age of television not long ago where
Jim Nabors talked about how they'd listen to her say her lines and then laugh
about "where does *that* come from?"...she *did*, however, retire to a small
city in North Carolina, as has her co-star Betty Lynn (who played Thelma
Lou)....
Until I started looking up guest stars, I assumed that Denver Pyle and Maggie
Peterson, who made several appearances each as Briscoe Darling and his daughter
Charlene, were also from the South...turns out they're both Coloradans...(the
other members of the Darling family were played by bluegrass group The Dillards
who *were* Southerners, but the characters almost never spoke)....
To my ear, the best "fake" Southern accent on the show belonged to Howard Morris
as Ernest T Bass, but then he'd had plenty of time to perfect his use of dialect
appearing in sketches on Sid Caesar's show....r
Mike Lyle
You say "either", he says "either one": let's turn the whole thing
off.
--
Mike.
James Silverton
someone educated in Scotland, his accent is unmistakable. I can't say
that I drew any conclusions about his sexual preferences from his speech.
--
James Silverton, Potomac
I'm *not* not.jim....@verizon.net
tony cooper
Where did *that* come from? I didn't say anything about his sexual
preferences or imply that his speech revealed them.
In fact, I didn't know what they were until I Googled him midway in
this thread. Switch-hitter, or something.
James Silverton
seemed to be accusing *you* of any prejudice, I apologize.
Jerry Friedman
It wasn't that amusing anyway.
--
Jerry Friedman
Duggy
> Variation in accents in the USA is far smaller than in most other
> countries, although I understand the Ozzies seem to pretty much have a
> single accent.
Experts have noticed differences and the further you live from the
city (and older you are) the thicker the accent is, but there's not
"you come from..." just by accent. Certain phrases or word usage
maybe, but not accents.
===
= DUG.
===
Peter Moylan
They talk like old crows in the northern Victorian region where my
father grew up. When I was growing up, and while visiting my
grandparents, I found that I could distinguish the accents of a couple
of towns ten miles apart.
That's an isolated example, and not typical of the country as a whole.
There do, however, appear to be a few small pockets where people don't
travel much, and therefore develop their own local accents. This effect
might be dying out now that radio and television are so all-pervasive.
Of course it's always been true, and probably always will be, that
Australian rural accents are noticeably different from city accents. But
the city people all talk like those of their own socioeconomic group in
other cities, bar some very minor regionalisms.
--
Peter Moylan, Newcastle, NSW, Australia. http://www.pmoylan.org
For an e-mail address, see my web page.
Jerry Freedman
wrote:
twenty+ years ago, I could notice the difference between accents in
towns 10-20 miles apart where I grew up. Not so much anymore
Vinny Burgoo
>twenty+ years ago, I could notice the difference between accents in
>towns 10-20 miles apart where I grew up. Not so much anymore
The above was most likely posted by a middle-aged English trainspotter
and Lord Of The Rings fanatic who, in AUE, calls himself 'Harrison
Hill', 'bro...@london.com', 'Dave Baker', 'John de Silva', 'Gillian
Glover', 'Norbert Corbert', 'Nottingham Trent Against University Cuts'
and 'Timbo Thompkins'. 'Plac' too, probably.
--
VB
Jerry Freedman
They just don't make tin foil like they used to
Vinny Burgoo
>They just don't make tin foil like they used to
Yep. Duh. Sorry. I should have Googled first. Or slapped myself round
the head to wake up what's left of my memory. Or something.
--
VB
HH's aliases are real enough, though. If you see what I mean.
António Marques
Meh. Twould have been fun.